by Ed Smith
A story from Tuesday's New York Times highlights what so many have noticed: statehouse reporters are a vanishing breed.
The capitol press corps may not be ready for the endangered species list just yet, but the Times piece noted that in Albany, there are plenty of empty desks to go around for reporters. When the New York Sun shut down, it was the fifth newspaper to pull out of New York's capitol in less than two years. The Times also points to a couple of surveys that indicate nationwide since 2000 the number of full-time statehouse reporters has dropped by more than 130, from 543 to 407.
A recent survey conducted by NCSL for an upcoming article in State Legislatures magazine shows a similar trend.
- 56 percent of respondents reported their newspaper did not have a capitol bureau.
- Compared to 10 years ago, there has been an 11 percent increase in the number of papers using only a part-time reporter to cover the legislature.
- Maybe surprisingly, almost half of the papers are still devoting the same amount or slightly more space to reporting on the legislature. That may indicate top editors continue to believe news from the legislature is the sort of local news readers can get nowhere else, and for the most part they are right about that. The corollary, though, is that with fewer reporters and the same news hole, those fewer reporters are writing more stories.
- On the other hand, 20 percent of the responding papers have cut the news hole for legislative news by 20 percent.
The bright side, if there is one, may be the explosion of bloggers, both for newspapers and independent bloggers, who are keeping an eye on the statehouse. If not a substitute for seasoned print reporters—more than 60 percent in our survey had been on the job more than five years—they often bring a different perspective to the task.
Ed Smith is the managing editor of State Legislatures magazine at NCSL.
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