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Topic: Memos Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 12/18/2008 1:23:02 PM
Title: McClatchy reacts to NYT piece on DC bureaus
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
McClatchy Washington bureau chief's memo to staff regarding New York Times' story on DC bureaus

From: Walcott, John
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 1:19 AM
To: Wash Buro Everyone; MCT Information Staff
Cc: Weaver, Howard - McClatchy Corporate
Subject: NYT article

All:

You can stop racking your brains about who the 50 departed Washington Bureau staffers were. The New York Times Web story mistakenly added the Knight Ridder and MCT Washington staffs together and came to the erroneous conclusion that the KR bureau was 100 strong before McClatchy acquired the company and is now half its former size. The Times removed the erroneous paragraph after Howard Weaver pointed out the "serious error," saying: "You'll need to get the numbers confirmed by the DC staff, but I wouldn't like McClatchy to be the poster child for reducing Washington staff. We are not."

The Times Web site, at least, no longer has a photo of a vacant desk in our newsroom, either, presumably because we aren't a poster child for shrinking Washington bureaus, after all.

What the Times failed to do, however, is to add McClatchy to the graf in which it pats itself and The Wall Street Journal on the back for maintaining their Washington staffs, although McClatchy has done that, too. So while the story rightly laments the decline of regional reporting in Washington, it fails to note that McClatchy and MCT are maintaining their commitment to covering the people, institutions and issues in Washington and abroad that are important to McClatchy readers from Anchorage to Miami, and to MCT clients.

In fact, while your work has outshined even that of the august gray lady on some major national and international issues--the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq, postwar Iraq, the firings of the U.S. attorneys, the dysfunctional Veteran's Administration, the prisoners in Afghanistan and Guantanamo and, most recently, the Mumbai attackers and the mysterious gravedigging in the Afghan desert, to name but a few--the Times can't match Erica Bolstad's reporting on Larry Craig and Ted Stevens, Barb Barrett's stories about North Carolina veterans, Les Blumenthal's coverage of environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest, Jim Rosen's reporting on the South Carolina delegation or Mike Doyle's understanding of Central Valley agricultural issues, to cite a few of many examples of great regional reporting.

The Times is right that such focused regional coverage, from McClatchy, from Tribune papers, from Cox, from Copley, from Newhouse, from Hearst and from others, is vital, and that its disappearance elsewhere isn't healthy. However, if the Times article means to suggest that the Times Washington Bureau, however robust it may be, or for that matter the AP, or CNN, or Politico, can fill the void, it's mistaken there, too. As George Condon said, no national organization can or would devote the same time and attention to a local congressman that Copley did, nor can one cover troops in Iraq from Columbus, Ga. or Tacoma, Wash. or senatorial scandals or local groups coming to the inauguration as we have and as we will. With photos and graphics and video and slide shows, no less.

It's easy and natural at a time such as this to focus on the endangered species list. Please, though, take a moment at the end of a year that's been as taxing as it's been historic to pat yourselves on the back. If the Times can do that just for not downsizing, all of you surely can for the work that you're doing.

John

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