Background information:

What is Rough & Tumble?  A daily digest of links to stories about California public policy and politics published in 22 newspapers on the Internet. The site originated in 1997 as a way to help news managers at a local television station understand the scope of the issues facing Californians every day.

Balance and fairness: Rough & Tumble does not promote any political point of view either by including stories or excluding items.

Evolution:  The site was originally designed as a tool to assist television news producers. Since content was collected on the Internet it only made sense to distribute that content on the Internet as well. Rough & Tumble is used by public policy professionals in California and Washington, reporters and editors at major news organizations as well as students, teachers and politically engaged voters.

Content:  Rough & Tumble does not provide original content but rather links to content published at what are considered to be trustworthy and reliable sources of information on the internet. All stories include the name of the original writer and the name of the publication.

Readership: Rough & Tumble generates and average of 20,000 "page-views" a day. A page view is recorded each time a visitor downloads the complete page.

Support: The site is supported by advertising revenue which off sets some of the costs of production.

Brief Bio info

Jack Kavanagh has been a political reporter for nearly thirty years and has received 2 Emmy awards plus a "Telly" award, which is presented by PBS and is their version of the Emmy, for his television reporting. In California, Kavanagh reported for ABC and now CBS affiliate KOVR-TV for 17 years . Kavanagh covered the the start of the first Gulf War from Washington and has covered the national political conventions since 1976.

In 1997 he began hosting and consulting for California Capitol Week which originated in Sacramento and was seen on 10 PBS stations across California. He is a native of Providence, Rhode Island where he began his reporting career at NBC affiliate WJAR-TV.

Also in 1997, Rough & Tumble became a full-time enterprise on the Internet.

Kavanagh also provides media training seminars and works with local and national communications companies on strategic projects. He is also a freelance television reporter and producer and writes a regular monthly column on television and politics for Political Pulse.

Jack and his wife Irene live in Sacramento.