Signing On

Jillian Bandes | March 10, 2009 1:01 PM

I'm sorry to report that Townhall.com has selected me as their new National Political Reporter, a job that I promise to attack with monotonous writing, reluctant reporting, and terrifyingly bad jokes. I'm a native of Tampa, Florida - which tells you

everything you need to know - and am a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I started out in journalism by badgering an editor of the St. Petersburg Times, my local daily, for an assignment. He eventually gave me one, mostly to get me off his back, and I ended up freelancing for the Times throughout high school. In college, I worked for a number of university-based publications, most of which fired me. That led me to the statewide North Carolina Conservative, and Human Events, which accepted my articles only in exchange for baked goods. I completed a internship at The Weekly Standard before my senior year of college because the publication's intern manager thought it would be "funny" to have me around for a summer. Upon graduation, I worked at Roll Call under an Intercollegiate Studies Institute fellowship for one year, where I wrote earth-shattering journalism and served as official slave to one Morton Kondracke. I was most recently Culture11's assistant editor, where I created a group blog on conservative women's politics, and was responsible for the general hygiene of the senior staff.

These myriad experiences should serve me well at Townhall.com. I encourage you to torment me at jillian.bandes@townhall.com. You can also check my updates on Twitter at jillybee.