Prompted by the steep decline in government reporting, media organizations in Washington are launching their own news bureau in Olympia.
Organizers expect it to start covering the Legislature in January with four journalists. They could be supplemented with interns and possibly a bureau in Seattle someday.
This should be good for Washingtonians. All will benefit from having more journalists reporting on state government and holding officials accountable, even if they don’t follow the news.
It’s also further evidence of local news outlets’ economic plight. Many used to have their own statehouse reporters. Now they’re lucky if they have enough reporters to provide decent coverage of their hometown.
The bureau is the brainchild of Keith Shipman, CEO of the Washington State Association of Broadcasters, and Rowland Thompson, executive director of Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington and a lobbyist representing both trade groups.
“What we’re trying to do is save jobs and increase the number of jobs,” Shipman told me. “Our goal is to help stations and newspapers whose budgets have been cut have access to Olympia for their communities.”
Stories will be produced in broadcast, print and digital formats and made available to the trade groups’ members. Thompson said members will get the same access and ability to ask for particular stories to be covered.
The bureau is modeled on Capitol News Illinois, a news service run by the Illinois Press Foundation “to provide credible and unbiased coverage of state government.”
Other organizations have emerged nationally to help fill the void as local and regional outlets cut state capitol correspondents.
North Carolina-based States Newsroom, formed in 2018, covers 50 states and shares content for free. But the nonprofit has sparred with NewsGuard, a news authentication service, that dings States as partisan.
Pennsylvania newspapers and broadcasters in 2019 launched a nonprofit called Spotlight PA. It covers state government and produces stories that the outlets run.
Then there are networks of “pink slime” pseudo-news sites pushing agendas on the right and left.
The Washington bureau will be mostly funded by the news associations, particularly broadcasters.
Shipman said his group will use accrued proceeds from the sale of brief “public education” announcements aired on member stations.
One bureau position will be filled through the state-funded journalism fellowship program operated by Washington State University’s Murrow School.
The program is under budget, according to Ben Shors, the school’s journalism chair. That enabled it to create a 17th fellow for the bureau, beyond the 16 fellows it planned to support this year.
Having a state-funded fellow at the bureau will require transparency and standards, to make clear that policymakers have no influence over coverage and that the bureau won’t pull any punches.
Some fellowship advisers raised concerns about placing a fellow at an entity launched by lobbyists.
Shors said they were reassured that there will be a “hard line” between stories produced and the organizations’ lobbying, with the bureau managed by a professional journalist who is being hired shortly.
“What it ultimately came down to is it made sense to have another body in Olympia,” he said. “It also makes sense to serve as many news organizations as possible.”
I appreciate the concerns, especially given low trust in media nowadays.
But the public should know that the news media has long been represented by associations without compromising independence. Its lobbyists advocate for the industry but have no say over coverage.
Only a few outlets still have reporters assigned to Olympia. Those positions mostly disappeared as Washington newsroom staffing declined nearly 70% since 2005.
This was painfully clear last year when the state demolished houses on the Capitol campus historically used as press offices. Thompson is now trying to secure a bureau office in the Capitol building.
News outlets rely on wire stories and The Associated Press for state news. But the AP also pared staff and coverage, to the point some publishers are deciding it’s no longer worth the hefty membership cost.
I see the new bureau as a sort of successor to AP in Olympia. Like the AP was originally, it’s a cooperative effort by news organizations to strengthen their offerings.
It’s also part of a trend toward increased collaboration and sharing of stories. I have mixed feelings about this development. It’s beneficial and necessary in some places and often produces terrific work.
I also believe the public is better served when news organizations are competing to outdo each other, and when there’s a diversity of coverage with different angles and regional perspectives applied even to the same topic.
Maybe I’m unrealistically pining for the glory days. But restoring competition and robust coverage should be a goal as we work to save local journalism.
The new Olympia bureau could be part of the solution in Washington.
The additional state reporters will provide more and broader stories for local news outlets. That should make them more attractive to viewers, readers and subscribers.
If the audience grows, outlets may eventually be able to have their own reporters in Olympia again, to differentiate their product.
There I go again, getting wistful.
Or maybe I’m just excited about the potential of this bureau to give Washingtonians and their local news outlets a much-needed boost in state coverage.
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