Former Times-Picayune reporter says Washington bureaus are more than "luxuries"

I feel a bit odd accepting this award for being a Washington correspondent because I no longer am one. In fact, I'm no longer in journalism. After 22 years, I left in May to take a job as a healthcare strategist at a large non-profit in Washington, D.C. Given the state of the newspaper industry, I suspect that had I not left voluntarily I wouldn't have had a choice eventually. The slot I left hasn't been filled.

The number of bloggers commenting on the news out of Washington has exploded. The number of reporters actually digging up the news has dwindled. Washington bureaus are hemorrhaging reporters or closing altogether. In tight times, papers see their Washington operations as luxuries. That's misguided.

The result is that members of Congress, except for the leaders, are getting less scrutiny than ever. Even before I left, I was so busy covering the daily stories that I had little time to do what I was sent here to do: Dig into what local members of Congress were up to, find out who was influencing them and figure out if they were truly representing the folks back home.