Very few people have changed Sacramento politics as much as Torey Van Oot has. In the four years she spent as a reporter at the Sacramento Bee and (for a long time) the primary contributor to the Bee’s Capitol Alert blog, Torey helped change news reporting in the state capital from a twice-per-day flood of information to a steady stream of Tweets, Facebook updates, Blog Posts, and photos.
While other reporters had embraced technology to share the latest tips and stories, the combination of speed and volume of Torey’s posts were what set her apart. For many of us staffers who were looking for a single source of news that we could turn to for all the latest, she was the source of news about what was happening in the Capitol community.
Her departure for New York (which is apparently located somewhere past the California-Nevada state line), is a major loss for both the Bee and those of us who follow state politics.