Governing Magazine
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Governing is a national monthly magazine, edited and published since 1987 in Washington, D.C., whose subject area is state and local government in the United States. The magazine covers policy, politics and the management of government enterprises. Its subject areas include such issues as government finance, land use, economic development, the environment, technology and transportation.
The magazine's circulation is approximately 85,000, most of whom are elected, appointed or career officials in state and local government, including governors, mayors, county executives, city and county council members, state legislators, officials of state and local government departments, and those holding professional government positions such as attorneys and educators. Other members of the magazine's audience include journalists, academics, advocates and activists, as well as representatives of companies that do business in the state and local government market, which was expected to reach $575 billion in 2007.
Governing was the recipient of a 2002 Folio: magazine Editorial Excellence Award, recognizing the magazine for its February 2001 Government Performance Project issue that graded the states in five categories of management. (Other Government Performance Project reports have examined city governments and county governments, as well as issues such as health care and state tax system.) The magazine also has been nominated four times for National Magazine Awards: in the columns and commentary category for three columns by Executive Editor Alan Ehrenhalt in 2003; in the public interest category for its Government Performance Project coverage in 2001 and 1999; and for general excellence in the under-100,000 circulation category in 1996.
The national media in the United States looks to Governing for authoritative news and analysis on state and local government. USA Today, Fortune, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, 60 Minutes and Dateline NBC all have cited Governing articles in their reports. An Aug. 13, 2006, editorial in the New York Times on that year's governor's race in Connecticut noted that the state had received below-average marks in fiscal management from Governing.
The magazine also is influential among politicians, who often cite the publication's findings to make points about their own accomplishments -- and their rivals' failings. Thomas Suozzi, the Nassau County executive who challenged then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York in 2006, regularly touted having been named a "Public Official of the Year" by Governing as one of his qualifications. Earlier in the year, a Washington Post article about Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's possible run for president noted that Governing had recently named him a "Public Official of the Year."
Governing is published by Washington, D.C.-based Congressional Quarterly, Inc., a subsidiary of the Times Publishing Co. of St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1994, Governing acquired its primary competitor, City & State magazine, and that publication was merged into Governing.
