A Visit From The Online Newshour

We are looking forward to a visit on Monday from Anna Shoup of the Online Newshour. Anna is the liaison between the Newshour and local stations. A visit to Sheboygan is the main reason for her coming, but she will make a detour to Madison to meet with us.

Anna is going to Sheboygan as part of an Online Newshour collaboration with the Christian Science Monitor called Patchwork Nation. The idea is to cover the changing economy by focusing on representative communities across the country. To determine the communities, census data was used to categorize every county in the United States into one of twelve descriptive types. Then a couple of examples from each type were selected.

Sheboygan County is an "Emptying Nest" type, meaning a population largely composed of retirees and aging baby boomers. Milwaukee is an "Industrial Metropolis" surrounded by "Monied 'Burbs." Dane County is "Campus and Careers." Most of northern Wisconsin is "Service Worker Centers," I assume because of the tourist economy. It's an interesting way of looking at things, certainly one often employed by marketers and political consultants, though not as frequently by journalists.

We will likely do some economic reporting this fall from Sheboygan County for "In Wisconsin" and/or "Here & Now" that will end up on the Patchwork Nation site. Anna will be visiting Sheboygan to recruit some bloggers to contribute to the site as well.

Fortunately, Anna's visit coincides with Sheboygan's annual Brat Days, so she is sure to get a real flavor of the community.