New McClatchy/KR Chief in D.C. Promises Changes

By: Joe Strupp McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief David Westphal, whose staff will nearly quadruple when it merges with the acclaimed Knight Ridder D.C. bureau after McClatchy's purchase of the chain, said the new combined bureau may seek to add more regional reporting and increased Web activity.

"I come from a strong regional reporting background and I will want that to continue," Westphal said during an interview Tuesday in his fourth-floor office at the National Press Building. "There are a fair number of Knight Ridder papers that do not have anyone representing them (in Washington). Is there a way to get at least some watchdog reporting in Washington? That will have to be resolved."

Speaking just a day after the announcement that McClatchy would buy Knight Ridder for $4.5 billion, Westphal praised Knight Ridder's Washington operation that boasts 29 regional and national reporters compared to McClatchy's 11 scribes. He cited the Knight Ridder staff's heralded reporting since 2001, questioning Iraq WMDs and war coverage from Baghdad, and conducting an exhaustive review of Samuel Alito's 311 past court opinions prior to his Supreme Court nomination.

"I go in with the impression that the Knight Ridder bureau has been a center of journalistic excellence," Westphal, 58, told E&P. "I don't enter with an assumption that it needs tremendous course changes. But that doesn't mean there won't be course changes. It is not like the ground beneath newspapers is still. It is fast-changing and that has to include the bureaus."

The Knight Ridder bureau, now run by Washington Editor Clark Hoyt, has 16 national correspondents, as well as 13 regional reporters who work for six specific Knight Ridder newspapers. Those include writers from the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Charlotte Observer, and San Jose Mercury News. But 26 other Knight Ridder papers have no specified D.C. reporters.

McClatchy, which has only 12 daily newspapers prior to the Knight Ridder purchase, keeps eight regional writers in its Washington bureau, along with just three national writers. "It is a regional reporting bureau," said Westphal, who has served as bureau chief since 1998. "We believe in the importance and utility of reporting in a way that is knowledgeable of Washington, but very close to the hometown, hometown values, hometown ethos. Saying what is going on here, but putting in the facts and the needs of what is going on there."

Since the Knight Ridder bureau, located just two blocks from the McClatchy offices, is much larger, the McClatchy staff is expected to relocate there, staffers said. But nothing official has been announced.

An Iowa native, Westphal spent 17 years at the Des Moines Register, including seven years as managing editor, before coming to Washington in 1995 as news editor of the McClatchy bureau. He is married to former Register Editor Geneva Overholser, who is currently a professor at the University of Missouri Graduate School of Journalism, based in Washington.

Westphal adds that more Web involvement by the new combined bureau is likely as he takes over. "How are we going to respond as a bureau to the fast-growing Web presence that every newspaper has that includes not just story presentation, but blogs, audio, chats and more and more video?" he said. "That is something that we have only begun to get involved with here. We need to make sure the events in Washington are presented in this new world, too."

Westphal, who started his own blog in January, said he could see a time when bureau staffers conduct Washington Post-style chats that could link to any or all of the McClatchy paper Web sites. "I think everyone needs to be involved in that," he said about such Web offerings.