The GOP presidential candidates took part in another debate last night, and the Denver Post's coverage was very plain. Other than a photo slideshow, the Post had just one article covering the debate, and it was not very prominent on the homepage.

The homepage includes a politics tab, but the stories being shown on the homepage all had to deal with local political issues. In order to find coverage of the debate, a person would have to click the politics tab and and go the the Post's politics page to find any articles.

During the Colorado primary, the Denver Post did do an exceptional job of providing up to the minute coverage on what was going on that night, including live blogging, constantly updated articles, and, of course, photos.

The one area of the Denver Post's coverage that has continued to impress me is its photography. For every primary and debate, the Post has created a photo slideshow highlighting the night's events and the what the candidates were doing. These slideshows include many behind-the-scenes photos that provide an interesting and new look at the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

Since September of last year, I have been required to write weekly blog posts for journalism classes at Marquette. But that word "required" can cause problems sometimes. Am I always putting the time and effort into my blog posts that I would be if I was writing them on my own accord? When I write them, do I make sure to write for a general audience and not simply my professor and classmates?

In our journalism elections seminar course on Tuesday our teacher, Herbert Lowe, spent the last half hour of class sharing tips for how to ensure that we are motivated to write our blog posts not as an assignment, but as a way to prepare ourselves for our careers.

I will admit that there have been times where I did not want to spend time writing my blog and wrote it hastily just to get it out of the way. But after our class on Tuesday, I felt motivated to dedicate myself to writing a quality blog post every week that not shared valuable information with the blog's readers but helped me learn as I researched for the blog.

Judging by the blogs by my classmates, I am not alone. Mr. Lowe's pep talk of sorts seems to have served its purpose, as the whole class seems to be more motivated now to write their blogs. Hopefully this increased passion will stick with us and not merely fade away in a couple of days. Hopefully, my readers will notice my post providing better writing and more well-researched information too.

In our journalism elections seminar class on Tuesday, our professor asked if Mitt Romney was now the "presumptive candidate," i.e. that for all intents and purposes, he was the GOP candidate. When he asked that question, my first thought was that yes, he was the presumptive candidate. But then the Tuesday primaries and caucuses happended.

Rick Santorum had a clean sweep in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, home of the Denver Post. Coverage of the Colorado caucuses was front and center on the Denver Post wesbite for the entire day, providing up to the minute results, including a live blog by Post staff.

Besides the traditional articles stating that Santorum had won, the Post also included several photo slideshows, one of the GOP caucus and the other of the GOP candidates through the years. The Denver Post has continued to impress me with its photojournalism, as many of the top headlines are accompanied not just by written articles but also by photo slideshows.

These results definitely make the race for GOP presidential candidate more interesting. Money will start to roll in for Rick Santorum, and his prediction that he is now the main challenger to Mitt Romney is beginning to come true.

Mitt Romney won the Florida primaries convincingly Tuesday, adding 50 delegates to his total count. He still needs over 1,000 additional delegates to secure the GOP nomination for president.
The Post mostly used AP stories in its coverage of the primary results, although one of these AP stories was a photo slideshow that provided great behind-the-scenes looks at the primary. The Denver Post also covered the fact that Ron Paul and Rick Santorum had immediately moved out West to focus on the next several primaries in Nevada and Colorado. So the Denver Post's coverage of the primaries would expectedly pick up in the next week as it prepare's for its own state's primary.Romney moved back to focusing on the president during his victory speech, sounding confident once again that the nomination would be his. I was suprised by Rick Santorum's rather upbeat outlook on the results, saying that Gingrich's loss meant that the main competitor's spot to Romney was once again prime for the taking, and that he would be the candidate to do it.

In our elections class last week, we discussed how great news will be different, covering different aspects of events that other news outlets are not reporting. The Denver Post definitely did not do that with the Florida primaries, although this did not come as a suprise to me as the Florida primaries was probably not important enough to the people of Colorado for the paper to send its own reporters out to do in-depth coverage.