By Mondo Times editors
Boulder, Colorado USA
Posted on June 24, 2009 at 11:02am

Newspaper Reporters at State Capitols Are an Endangered Species

-- Newspaper reporters are disappearing from state capitols, Jonathan Zimmerman of the Christian Science Monitor reported on June 22, 2009:

"The number of full-time reporters in American state capitols has decreased 32 percent in the past six years, according to a study released last April by the American Journalism Review. Over 140 newspapers have reduced their statehouse staffs since 2003, and more than 50 have eliminated these staffs altogether.

So should we really be surprised when state lawmakers act in corrupt, brazen, or silly ways? The real surprise is that they don't do it more often. Or maybe we just don't know, because newspapers are no longer minding the store.

Remember, many of America's most notable journalists got their start by exposing malfeasance in state capitols. Modern investigative reporting dates to the 1880s, when Henry Demarest Lloyd showed how John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company bribed and intimidated state lawmakers. In Pennsylvania, Lloyd famously wrote, Standard Oil "has done everything with the legislature, except refine it."

The full story:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0622/p09s01-coop.html

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