BorderWest

Haussamen on Haussamen

By Rebecca Powell, 7-21-08

	Heath Haussamen

“I hate politics.”

A common sentiment from an uncommon source. Journalist Heath Haussamen makes a living reporting the ups, ins, outs and downs of New Mexico politics. The namesake and founder of Heath Haussamen on New Mexico Politics views politics as a necessary but problem-ridden agent of change. When the fates align and politician’s interests work for the public’s good, Haussamen forgets he hates politics, remembers it can help people, and just maybe change our world. Politics’ potential to change lives interests Haussamen. Indeed, it is what keeps him posting five days a weeks, 52 weeks a year.

When I moved to Las Cruces, Haussamen was my primer on New Mexico and Las Cruces politics. Municipal elections were beginning and conservative, democratic Las Cruces was about to elect a progressive city council. Haussamen reported the changing of the guard, documented the campaigns, pointed to the significance of the wins, and provided a forum for debate. One month of reading Haussamen’s blog and I felt I knew the local players and the average citizen’s concerns. Gathering the same information in other communities has taken me years.

Haussamen’s site has garnered praise from more than bumbling newcomers like myself. The Washington Post’s Chris Cizzila named him one of the best state political bloggers. He’s even been called “an asset to the state.” Haussamen laughed when I told him of his asset status. He said he hopes he is dead before anyone names a building after him.

Asset to the state is heavy praise, but in this case it may be appropriate. Doña Ana County is outside the Albuquerque media market, thus happenings in Santa Fe do not receive much coverage. Southern New Mexico voters want to know what is going on in Santa Fe and politicians need to reach voters in the second largest city in New Mexico. Haussamen provides the hook-up for both groups.

Two and half years ago, working at the Las Cruces Sun News, Haussamen was considering leaving journalism. He felt newspapers were fighting the inevitable, as people turned more and more to the web for their news. Instead of aiding the transition, he saw himself and the newspaper trying to stop it. Moreover, he saw money concerns and worries about lagging readership overriding the mission of the newpaper. A mission he defines as “holding power accountable.”

His editor asked him to keep a blog, an unpaid blog. Haussamen agreed on the condition that the blog and its content remain his. After two months of blogging, people asked if he accepted advertisements. He did not—yet. Advertisements would make him the competition in his employer’s eyes.

He took the leap to full-time blogging in May of 2006, thinking, “make this work or find a new career.” It has worked. The site receives over a 1,500 to 2,000 hits a day, has become daily reading across New Mexico, and provides revenue through advertising. Haussamen attributes the blog’s success in part to location. Doña Ana County is not heavily covered by other media, despite its quickly growing population. Since Haussamen worked as reporter in Santa Fe and Las Cruces, he had connections and a reputation as a serious journalist, making the transition to blogging a little smoother.

Haussmen left newspapers, but not journalism. He now has the freedom to do the in-depth reporting that first drew him to the profession. With freedom comes heavy responsibility and a mountain of work. He is the reporter, editor, graphic designer, accountant, marketer and webmaster. Blog posts appear with 3 AM timestamps. The work-load is constant. At first, not having an editor felt like shaking off a teenager’s curfew, but he now misses the feedback. Asking friends to review heavy pieces is not always feasible, so he often has to rely on his own judgment. He worries about burn-out.

However, he likes the perks. He works mostly from home, traveling occasionally to Santa Fe and Albuquerque to cover stories. No one asks him to write about ice cream flavors and the immediacy and flexibility of blogging keeps the job interesting.

With blogging comes a community of readers, readers with whom Haussamen shares a zip code. Haussamen writes about where he lives, eats, plays and works. He attended New Mexico State University. He lives on the east mesa.  Local issues are also personal issues.

Readers of Haussamen were once allowed to comment anonymously. During the municipal elections comment policies changed. A post on the blog explained the changes:

The changes were necessary because I learned a couple of weeks ago that someone was impersonating a Las Cruces couple, apparently with the intent of trying to discredit certain political groups by submitting comments that made those groups’ members – and that couple in particular – appear to be extremists or nutcases. You can read more about that by clicking here.
Requiring you to register in order to submit comments means you have to provide some sort of identifier – your name or whatever you choose – that will be attached to your comments. That means you can still chose to not reveal your name, but it also gives me a way to contact you and, most importantly, allows me to ban you from using the site’s comments system if you abuse the privilege of participating in the discussion

Discussion in the comments has decreased since the change, and Haussamen misses some of the criticism he once received. Readers may be confused by the policy or feel Haussamen can in some way identify them if they register with Google, though readers can still maintain their anonymity under the current policy. Part of the fun and challenge of blogging comes from the contribution of the readers. Haussamen feels his readers help keep him accountable to his own vision.

Haussamen’s vision for the future is not as concrete as the present.  Thus far, the blog has evolved in the most natural direction. First, he covered local politics, then state and now national stories creep into posts. He sees the next five years as an interesting time for journalism as more and more newspapers make the transition to the web. He is not sure where the blog is going, if it will expand or disappear. He does know it has been a fun two and half years.

It seems the next five years will be an exciting time to be Heath Haussamen.

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