There are those who argue that the decline of mainstream media reporting power in Washington is caused by more than the industry\u2019s financial struggles. They claim that the editorial model of Washington reporting is broken in a way that makes mainstream media reporting on federal government affairs seem irrelevant, boring or off-key to everyday Americans. <\/p>\n\n
Whatever the reasons, it is clear that editors now believe national reporting is less important to their charge than they once did. A survey conducted by Project for Excellence in Journalism earlier this year found a definite ambivalence to national news among newsroom executives far from the nation\u2019s capital. Less than one in five (18%) of the 259 editors responding to the survey considered national news \u201cvery essential\u201d to their news product. By comparison, 97% viewed local news as \u201cvery essential.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Washington Monthly founder Charles Peters, who is generally credited with rewriting the rules of national political coverage in the 1970s with his magazine\u2019s in-depth, straight-ahead style of stories on government and corporate abuse, said in an interview he believed too many Washington journalists have lost touch with their readers. He contended that rising journalistic salaries coupled with the proximity to power had created distance between reporters and the average newspaper reader.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWashington journalism has become more elitist in its attitude,\u2019\u2019 said Peters, who was raised as part of a West Virginia farming family. \u201cIt\u2019s become a more educated elite, so they identify with those above them, not those from below. This has happened without journalists being aware of it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Peters and some others also claim the proliferation of cable television current events and talk-show television has made celebrities of many journalists and elevated the ability to deliver a clever or cynical sound bite above in-depth reporting skills. <\/p>\n\n
But not everyone agrees. <\/p>\n\n
[Washington news]<\/p>\n\n\n
Baquet says he simply doesn\u2019t believe editors who say Washington reporting is not essential to their news product. \u201cThey are fibbing,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell me this election didn\u2019t electrify the country.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n\n
Widespread praise for the quality of Washington reporting on the financial crisis raised hopes among doubters that strong, objective, factual reporting about issues central to the lives of individual Americans will once again come into favor. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve caught me in a rare moment of optimism,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n\n
Almost certainly, the federal government is going to play an enlarged role in American lives in the Obama era. And one adage almost certainly applies\u2014as government grows and tries to affect change, so will the efforts of special interests to shape that change.<\/p>\n\n
The news media in place to cover that transformation is very different from the one even Obama\u2019s predecessor arrived to find eight years earlier. <\/p>\n\n
Elites who are plugged into the new fragmented niche media of Washington will know how that government is growing and what it means, and they will be learning it through new media channels. Their fellow citizens who rely on local or network television or their daily newspapers, however, will be harder pressed to learn what their elected representatives are doing.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are those who argue that the decline of mainstream media reporting power in Washington is caused by more than the industry\u2019s financial struggles. They claim that the editorial model of Washington reporting is broken in a way that makes mainstream media reporting on federal government affairs seem irrelevant, boring or off-key to everyday Americans. 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