We’ve always been outnumbered. It’s getting worse:
Packs of lobbyists fill two rooms outside the House and Senate chambers in Richmond every afternoon, watching the proceedings on big video screens, zapping legislators with e-mails the instant the lobbyists sense that one of their bills might be in trouble. The interest groups that hire lobbyists can rest easy; they’ve got the legislature covered.
Down the hall, the people’s representatives have a hangout of their own, the press room. But there, nearly half the desks are empty. Reporters have been called home, reassigned, bought out, laid off. Only one TV station in Virginia still has a reporter at the capital. Many newspapers have decided to cover the capital by phone, if at all.
(h/t Jim Belshaw)
“Down the hall, the people’s representatives have a hangout of their own, the press room. ” – eh? I though the elected officials were the peoples reps. Or is that just me being naive?
Textbook example of how special interests dominate mass interests…(I’m gonna steal it…)
Yes, reporters do represent the public. Not a stretch.
And yes, it’s not just lobbyists that outnumber reporters these days, it’s p.r. people as well. It’s becoming almost comic, in a strange/sad way. I was at a NASA launch at Vandenberg AF base that went awry last week, and at the five a.m. press conference that followed there were three reporters, including me, two on the phone from D.C., four high-level NASA reps, a half-dozen or more techs operating the cameras, mics, etc., for NASA TV, and twenty — I counted — p.r. people, staffers, airmen, observers, etc.
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