Congressional Quarterly

Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is part of a privately owned publishing company called CQ Roll Call that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress. CQ was acquired by the Economist Group and combined with Roll Call to form CQ Roll Call in 2009. As of 2009, CQ ceased to exist as a separate entity.

CQ was founded in 1945 by Nelson Poynter and his wife, Henrietta Poynter, with the aim of providing a link between local newspapers and the complex politics within Washington D.C. CQ has the largest news team covering Capitol Hill, with more than 100 reporters, editors and researchers. CQ's readership includes 95 percent of the members of Congress, academic and media outlets, as well as members of business and nonprofit organizations, government affairs and the executive branch.

Thomas N. Schroth, who had been managing editor of The Brooklyn Eagle, was elected in October 1955 as executive editor and vice president. Schroth built the publication's impartial coverage, with annual revenue growing during his tenure from $150,000 when he started to $1.8 million. In addition to adding a book division, Schroth added many staff members who achieved future journalistic success, including David S. Broder, Neal R. Peirce, and Elizabeth Drew. He was fired from Congressional Quarterly in 1969 after festering disagreements with Poynter over editorial policy at the publication and Schroth's efforts to advocate "more imaginative ways of doing things" reached a boil.

In 1965, Poynter summed up his reasons for founding CQ, saying: "The federal government will never set up an adequate agency to check on itself, and a foundation is too timid for that. So it had to be a private enterprise beholden to its clients" . Despite its name, CQ was published quarterly for only one year. Demand drove more frequent updates, first weekly, then daily. CQ was also an early leader in delivering information on a real-time basis, starting with a dial-up service in 1984. Its website dominates the market for online legislative tracking information and has been nominated for several awards. In recent years, CQ has launched several web-only newsletters with greater focus on particular areas, including CQ Homeland Security, CQ BudgetTracker, and "CQ HealthBeat".

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