[Also see an article in the same issue about a photojournalist who shipped his film to an agency -- then learned it was standard practice for the State Department (in reality probably the CIA) to come in and review the film. http://cryptome.org/bigwood.htm --Declan] ******* http://ajr.newslink.org/ajrfleesjuly01.html By Lucinda Fleeson From AJR, July/August 2001 [...] IN ITS LAST piece on Washington beat reporting, in April 1999, AJR found that many newspapers and wire services had walked away from covering federal agencies and departments--long regarded as the meat of good reporting in Washington. Much of the media simply abandoned departments like transportation or housing or agriculture. In the last two years, there has been further decline. Now, there are no full-time reporters at the Department of Veterans Affairs--the third-largest federal workforce, eclipsed only by the Pentagon and the Postal Service. Nor are there any regular reporters devoted to doings at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Several newspapers have made further cutbacks in coverage at the Labor Department, Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration as well as once must-do beats at the State Department and the Pentagon. [...] Smaller bureau leaders say there is no reason to duplicate the already excellent coverage offered by the AP and Reuters. As alternative, supplemental news sources, they have to be selective, choose subjects that they can do with more insight, more verve, more relevance to readers. If news heats up on a particular subject, they deploy more forces as news merits. A vast array of trade publications today covers the agencies in incredible detail, and reporters read those journals. Thus, not only Scripps Howard but Cox Newspapers, Copley News Service, Hearst Newspapers, Gannett News Service and many papers such as the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and Detroit News have minimized department and agency coverage or eliminated it. [...] ONE REASON THAT reporters no longer stake out desks at federal agencies or even visit much anymore is because they don't have to pick up press releases in person or, in some cases, even attend press conferences. Most agency press offices have become so adept at utilizing telecommunications innovations that the practice of journalism has been changed dramatically. At the Federal Communications Commission, for instance, where rulings on high-tech companies translate into volatile trading jolts in the stock market, the press office links as many as 100 reporters into telephone press conferences. E-mails and faxes are distributed simultaneously to hundreds of reporters. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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