Another newspaper is making cuts, closing its Washington, DC bureau.

Cox Newspapers announced today that it is closing its DC bureau.

Another one bites the dust.

We’ve seen MSM coverage leave Topeka over the past two decades.  The number of radio, TV and newspaper outlets don’t cover the Capitol in Topeka like they used Back In The Day (or at least Back In My Day).

Now, we see the same phenomena with DC coverage.

Which led me to an odd but interesting thought.  Perhaps Jeff Gannon nee James Guckert (“A Voice of the New Media”), who I got after pretty hard on the pages of my South Dakota political blog for being a softball thrower for the Republicans at Talon News Service, is actually the new model for political coverage.

Seriously.

While Jeff had an agenda, he was also at all the briefings.  He covered events and filed reports.  Sure, he was maybe one guy who asked dopey questions, but at least he was there.  We all pretty much knew his biases.

My good friend Pat Powers used to spend quite a bit of time covering the S.D. Legislature when he lived in Pierre.  And yes, my SD War College buddy has a bias, but we all know it.  He did a good job covering the session, as much as his time would allow.

So, as the “real” press decides it can’t afford to cover our governments, maybe it will take the Jeffs and Pats and Cory Heidelbergers and Todd Epps and Denise Ross’s and Tony’s Kansas City’s and Nick Sloans and even the Sibbies of the states and nation to try and inform the public. 

Lord knows with cuts at Gannett and other media outlets, the taste for such coverage seems to be fading.

To my new hero, Jeff Gannon, who blazed the way!