Avoiding Deeper Cuts

By: Joe Strupp Not everyone is giving in to the cuts in our nation's capital ? or so they claim. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times are assigning more people to the White House than ever before. The Post will have four full-timers, including its first Web-only White House reporter in Chris Cillizza, while the Times will have five. The Post's overall staffing, however, is smaller than a year ago following last spring's 100-person newsroom buyout, a move that will undoubtedly affect government coverage.

At the Times, Washington Bureau Chief Dean Baquet says he has more staffers than he did a year and-a-half ago when he took the job following his stint as editor of the Los Angeles Times. Declining to reveal a specific body count, Baquet contends his paper, despite its own financial challenges, sees D.C. as vital: "We have an ownership that is committed to putting out a high-quality report, and it doesn't make sense to cut in Washington at this time. Washington is sitting on some of the most important stories in a generation."

The Times and Post also must continue to feed clients of their respective news services, which are likely to be more in demand as other outlets cut back.

The Wall Street Journal declines to provide information about its Washington operation. But spokesman Robert Christie says, "We have increased our Washington coverage significantly since the acquisition by News Corp."

Martin Baron, editor of The Boston Globe, says cutbacks there will not be tolerated, at least if he can help it. Currently staffing two editors and six reporters in the nation's capital, Baron says maintaining coverage there is vital: "Boston is an intensely political place. It has a disproportionately influential role in the national political scene." He cites the likes of Sen. John Kerry, Rep. Barney Frank, numerous Kennedys, and what he describes as a "good chunk of the Obama administration coming from the ranks of Harvard."

Even when the Globe lost veteran scribe Charles Savage to the New York Times in May, he was quickly succeeded. Baron believes it is important to maintain his bureau's staffing levels, especially with the incoming administration and so many pressing issues at hand. "We have a congressional delegation there, people who play an influential role in the national politics and national policy," he notes, adding that when a paper cuts its D.C. staff, "regional papers like ours end up looking highly parochial, like they are not doing their job covering national issues that resonate in their own territory. Readers actually notice it."

Another Boston news outlet that is vowing to maintain its D.C. position is The Christian Science Monitor. Although the paper has already planned to cut back its print publication to once a week, Washington Bureau Chief Dave Cook says coverage will not be reduced. Emphasizing the importance of his nine-person office, Cook contends the message from recently hired editor John Yemma is to forge ahead: "He sees Washington as one of the Monitor's assets. He sees the Washington bureau as a place where we can differentiate the Monitor."

Cook, who has served as D.C. bureau chief since 2001, says the city's ongoing journalistic cutbacks are impeding the press' watchdog role: "It has been a sad time ? newspapers have been seeing their Washington bureaus as cost items. As a journalist and a citizen, you have to be concerned when regional papers cannot provide the kind of in-depth coverage of their representatives that they need to."