The State Worker - The tech specs

The State Worker is a news blog that delivers to a specific niche of people – state workers in California. These stories often come in bursts, producing three or four posts daily, each always covering any possible piece of information that a state worker can find useful. As a student assistant for the State, I also find this blog’s posts interesting because most all issues going on at the state level affect me either directly or indirectly.


Length of Text: Each post consists of a fairly concise cluster of paragraphs. Just about every single post is under 20 sentences. I like that and I think it’s important that it’s kept that way because it makes it easier for state workers to read it on the fly (at work?) without spending too much time.

Scanability: To me, this is where Jon Ortiz and The State Worker come in handy. Ortiz bolds key points, figures, and names in each post as to direct attention to the most important pieces of information in the story. For example, the latest post I’m reading is about the closing of short-staffed DMV offices today (Columbus Day), even though they should have remained open. Without even reading the first sentence, I can scan the story and find these bolded words: Watsonville, Compton, Oxnard and Hoawthorne are closed, work at nearby worksites, and DPA is working to confirm which offices closed. That peaks my interest because it draws attention to key references that make you want to read the entire article. What article am I talking about? Read it here.

Chunking: There really isn’t any chunking in The State Worker’s posts. What is "chunked" are quotes from official legal documents to which Ortiz is referring to. Luckily, Ortiz always puts these in a gray box to distinguish legal mumbo-jumbo from his own writing. Along with the gray boxes is always a link to read the entire document the quote came from, should the reader decide he/she wants to read the whole release. With the “gray box” style and linking away from the site, I feel Ortiz does a nice job keeping chunk-free.

Headlines: The State Worker has very relevant, one-line-sums-it-up headlines that gives you an instant idea of what lies in each post. Additionally, Ortiz occasionally addresses the readers directly in the headlines, asking for feedback (Like his article “It’s Columbus Day: What are you seeing, state workers?”) The headlines do a good job at specifying what is in each post.

Copy Editing: The State Worker is very in sync with AP Style. I am not surprised, as Ortiz is a seasoned journalist who has a long list of stories he’s written. I don’t expect anything less from him.

Use of inverted pyramid: This isn’t always used because the stories are so short. But when it is used, it usually concludes with extra quotes or “follow-up” sentences to wrap the story up like: we called EDD and then e-mailed several questions about he federal notice. We’ll post the department’s response when we get it. However, each post has a topic sentence that delivers the most information, a follow-up sentence, a other relevant details. Though not strongly used, the use of the inverted pyramid is present.

Page titles: The page titles are just OK. On the main page of The State Worker, the page title reads: The Sacramento Bee – The State Worker. If you click on a post to open it in a separate page, the title always reads “The State Worker:” first. This isn’t the best-case scenario because if someone is reading more than one page, it’s easy to get confused with the page titles in the title bar. I say The State Worker makes page titles the title of the current article that is pulled up on the page.

Legibility: Because the posts are short, and the use of bolding key points is constantly used, legibility is very good. I have yet to be caught up in the postings by Ortiz. It is also a plus that the ads stay in one place – off to the right-side of the page.

This Week on The State Worker: The controversies following the now defunct Columbus Day “Holiday.” Is Columbus Day a thing of the past? Did any state workers even report to work today, as they were instructed to do? What’s next in terms of furlough days and unpaid holidays? Check out the last few articles up on the page and find out – plus, read what actual state workers are saying about the current issues.