Are working to close the gap between journalism and civic engagement. The Knights Program really needs that vision headon. The most important journalism that happens in the city is done by regional reporters. Should i say they can . [laughing] i really believe it. The most important journalism that happens in the city is done by regional reporters. [applause] regional reporters are watching washington for americas hometowns so that the people of the United States can make informed decisions about their lives and about their democracy. And this type of journalism and the selfgovernment that it enables is one of the most Important Reasons we have a First Amendment protection for freedom of the press. So on this 30 anniversary of the Regional Reporters Association, youre going to about the challenges reporters face. You already know what they are, drinking resources, diminished public trust, and growing fake news but youre also going to hear about the impact of regional reporting from some of the very, very best in the business on this panel and in this room. And were going to look ahead to the future of regional reporting. As a look at the future of journalism it will rest in the hands of people like to knights moderator, Tamar Hallerman who is a washington correspondent, president of the Regional Reporters Association and a very valued member of the National Press club. So thank you, tamara, for the conversation were about to have and thank you again for all been your tonight. Thanks, julie. Thanks everyone. [applause] thank you for coming. Im from the Atlanta Journal constitution and i am the president of the Regional Reporters Association. Rra is professional Development Group for print, tv and radio reporters. We all covered d. C. For News Organizations aced outside the beltway. We form 30 years ago under the idea that we could offer tips and pointers to one another without compromise in competition. We also found that we could secure more interviews with highprofile newsmakers if we worked together. Weve had some pretty cool opportunities over the last 30 years. As regional reporters were facing the same pressures as every other report in d. C. From the white house to federal agencies and capitol hill, the access is tightening. The president seeks to undermine our credibility, public trust in the media has been on the decline and doctored videos and stories spotting up online on making our life any easier. We regional reporters face her own unique challenges. Craigslist, facebook and free online news new sites have takn massive bites out of the local news businesses, this is. A lot of our Parent Companies are tightening their belts. Many have close or consolidated their Washington Bureaus and laid out some really wellconnected reporters. I would know if my newspapers owned by Cox Media Group which two decades ago had about two dozen reporters based in the Washington Bureau covering politics and policies. With the sale that expected go through at the end of the year, often ill be the sole cox reporter based in d. C. Well know the work regional reporters do is vitally important to democracy if no one else keeps close tabs on state congressional delegations like we do in the local impact of a a federal policy like we do. With the closing of small and medium size newspapers across the country our work is as essential as ever. That leads me to today and our great panel that we have. I want to look at how the landscape for regional reporting has changed since rra was created and how we can rebuild trust and best inform our readers at a a time of civil discourse seems to be cratering. On that note i like to introduce our panel. I have Michael Barthel from the pew research center. We have Jerry Zremski from the buffalo news. Is been coming d. C. For 30 30 years, was exactly as long as rra has been around. Hes had some amazing work lately. And we also have two like to stay with former members of congress who been kind enough to join us and it will help they can give us candidates of what its like been covered by undoing regional reporters like us. We have congressman jim moran a democrat who represented in Northern VirginiaHouse District for 24 years before retiring in 2015. Before getting elected to caucus he was mayor of alexandria, virginia, and now he is at the firm of mcdermott will and emily. Dextran with former congressman ryan costello, a republican represented a air district to turn a retired last year after leaving the congress he start his own Public Policy and Strategic Communications firm. So thank you so much for being here. Just housekeeping for we begin ill keep an eye out in case anybody has questions and we do want this to be a conversation with rupert uncoated save time at the end for question. I want you about your experiences been regional reporters and how people have enacted in this new environment. With that lets begin. Jerry, i want to start with you to give any regional reporter in d. C. Since 1989. Can you paint a picture for us about how your job has changed over the years . Entre spending a lot less time the facts machine and a lot more time on twitter. Things have really changed. When i tried it i covered i called the named bill paxton and i called and faxon paxton. Things have changed. The changes i think the regional reporters face are very similar to what reporters face generally. First of all we are filing all the time now. Something is breaking, i filed it right away or i tweak it right away. I kind of feel like my job never ends now. And yet at the same time there are certain kinds of coverage that i pulled back from. When i get it as part of a two person. And we to cover everything. We had a member of congress who charity committee. We would try to go to all veterans and cover this event. Over time we cut back. Im the only reporter now and i and cast with doing mostly enterprise work, work thats going to either end up on the front page of print paper or get a a ton of hits online. One can ask is this a good change or is this not a good change . Im uncertain. It really would be great to still be able to be the newspaper of record in washington for buffalo, new york, but at the same time i think regional reporters can also and i seen this happen get too much into the weeds. And not like the really good, important impact stories about whats really happening for their readers and what the delegation is really doing. The way regional reporting testing for me is i have gotten much more into that direction, much more away from process stories. Does social media maker job easier or harder . In the way you know the second summerlike congressman costello tweets. We can get that instantly. Right. Its made both easier and harder. Its made it such i had to be alert to social media and follow it all day long and have to use it when appropriate. So thats made it more complicated. Like i i said i feel like im never not working. They could think about it is i do feel much more interconnected. A lot of reporter say dont read the comments. I read the comments and, believe it or not i get stories on the comments. Ill give you an example. A couple weeks ago i did a story about the delays in the construction of a new Veterans Cemetery in western new york. There was this vague comment from a guy who said im a veteran and i own a business and i wish the government would stop trying to help me. So i figured, im going to reach out to this guy, and to do it turns out, he tells me all about these rules that i did not know the outcome legislation that Congress Passed in 2006 that required at this cemetery be built by a Company Owned by a better with the serviceconnected disability. Well, they are having a hard time finding a company that qualifies. I got a really good frontpage story only because of social media, only because i could interact with a reader i would not probably have even heard from 30 years ago. I want your from the former congressman never im interested because both of you certain local government before you meant to capitol hill. Congressman costello, you on the board of commissioners and congressman moran, you on the city council you dealt with local reporters picky to washington and you both a regional reporters come you for hometown audiences and you also National Reporters who are interested in you. Im curious what that is like an particularly have a relationship with the Regional Press might have different from of those other reporters . Its an excellent question. One thing i want to lay preliminarily is for as frustrating as it might be as a regional reporter to deal with the changes in the industry, i found it very frustrating as an elected official. Because the rules of the game had changed. By that i mean, the cultivation of a relationship with the reporter. Im looking to earn your trust that what im saying is actually true. Im looking to earn your trust that the what im working on something that might be newsworthy. The generation of stories to feed for your consideration so that over a period of years, your local electorate is reading your independently verified we citation of what im doing to validate me as an elected official, someone who is working hard, is really, i mean, that is the nutrition that a politician needs in order to withstand a wave come in a way for an election year, and to engender goodwill in the community. Soccer practice, kids in school, professional life. People dont Pay Attention to what were doing very often, and so for decades, and up through i was in Public Service starting when i was 25. Im 42 now. I was schooled in that era, and then twitter, 2015, 2016, where it really seems that the way to get your message out has changed. And less people are buying a newspaper or relying on regional reporters. And in my case the Philadelphia Inquirer and even more local papers which have all been bought up by one of the three or four hedge funds out there. It becomes a real challenge. I would submit that because the rules of the game have changed there are some elected officials who saw it coming, and ill get into this later because i dont want to talk too much or at the inception of this. But some politicians saw that coming and got in front of it with stuff that clicked, you know, clickbait and stuff that creates sensationalism. And some who i would argue are better at doing what constitution prescribes that they actually do, do not know what the new rules of the game are and they suffer. I would argue that our democracy suffers as a consequence of the breakdown in elected officials accountability by print media, consumption of print media by citizens in elected officials constituency. Forasmuch as its a business challenge for your industry, i think its a real credibility challenge for elected officials to break through to their constituency in a way when you dont have citizens rely on the service that you provide as a part of the Business Model and, frankly, under the First Amendment is what it was contemplated that a free press would do in an open society. Congressman moran, you are in washington for a long time and social meeting came about your last couple years. Did you find you are changing what you are talking to your constituents about, or what people want from you, the inquiries were getting from your constituents, with a becoming more nationalized as they were fewer regionals around to talk to . Yes. The problem with social media, and i dont mean this in the way in which it will be perceived, but theres no way to regulate it. As a result you dont know what youre getting. You dont know whos sending it. You dont know how representative it is. You dont even know whether it really is a person. It could be a bought. And so its unreliable. Its untrustworthy and antidote against particularly informative, and invariably it superficial. The tweets, the emails that you get now, they are overwhelmed with people who just have snarky comments to make, thoughtless for the most part. So its not a substitution for anything. People vent and often times it is disgruntled people who, i mean, it was a time when people would write a letter to you and it was really offbase, and we would send a form letter back. We regret to inform you that someone is using your name, sending misguided letters. If we find out who it is, i mean if those particularly bad, we would say if we find it who does we will refer them to the Mental Health institution. [laughing] but you cant do that anymore, you know, because its just too much. I just dont find that social media for the most part is terribly informative. Now, i represent Northern Virginia which was part of the washington metro area. Most people get the washington post. In the communities though, unfortunately these local papers are still surviving, we would still have local papers, and the local papers serve an extraordinary important purpose, particularly from the perspective of a politician. For the post, and the post is better than most, frankly, if i dont want to single out the posting any negative way. Its a very good and the nuke times are, as far as im concerned the two best papers and the most reliable papers in the world. Its tough to get space even on the metro section, unless theres a scandal. If there is a scandal or a very controversial policy issue, you will get space. But if you are a wellrun government thats doing the right thing, thats responsive, thats competent, thats taking issues as they come, deliberating on them and acting responsibly, you are never going to get your name mentioned. Forget about it. Your only hope is to have a network of personal friends and just go to every possible reception and every soccer game. Its not a bad thing but you never going to get any press. It makes you vulnerable because when you do best, and everybody is human, people dont know all the good things that you have done. Thats just a function of the fact that there are, what, seven many people in the wider washington metro area, but in the community there may be 100,000 at most, a small fraction that would actually get the paper. And unless you have a critical mass, you cant even get advertising revenue. And so the cohesiveness of community itself and the motivation for elected representatives to work hard, to serve the people, and to get some amount of credit for doing so is lost. And some communities its probably gone forever, and i do think that erodes the whole concept of de tocqueville that we are a country thats built upon local democracy. You have to have local coverage. I want to bring in mike, because youve done a lot of research into local and regional and National Journalism trains. Recently did a really cool thing where you can search by metropolitan area and can receive the local news ecosystem a different out and you could see all of these insane news desert paper. Could you talk to me kind of about some of the trends using local and Regional News around the country . Sure. And that too is available if you want to punch in your local area and see what the results are. For some of the large ones people can give their main source of news and there are bus ads in d. C. From the local fox station because his name as the number one news source for liberal news for people in the d. C. Region so that capitalize on that and put on the metro buses. We defined, i mean, the trend for newspapers especially over the last 30 years have been kind of a downward trend. Ad revenue is followed by half. Circulation has fallen by half. Newsroom staffing has fallen by half in the last ten years. Today more people get you some social media than from print. Its reason that much and thats not even taking into account websites and apps. Taken together Online Sources have started to rival tv as americas number one source of news. The good news for local news is local news workstation are more highly trusted the National News organizations and much more than social media. Only 4 said have a lot of trust in social media. Those highlight the challenges to a certain extent because lots of people are getting to some social media that dont trust it. We ask folks would you like about news and social media. What we heard was convenience. People like to stick their phone and opened up and there is a stream of news there for them to sample from whenever they have a free moment. Newspapers artists of the extent making the Digital Transition better than some of the other sectors. Their audience is about half and half, digital versus the legacy products were as her tv and radio its more like 7525. They are more dependent on broadcast. But the internet is coming up from behind. We have seen a decline in the number of regional reporters covering congress that are coming from daily newspapers. The number from daily newspapers fell over about five years and we did see a rise but it was from what we call niche outlets, like roll call, bloomberg or trade publications, as well as a slight rise in Digital Media new site. Having that regional correspondent really does seem to make a difference. Where a story was written by regional correspondent, they are much more likely to Cover Congress and i will have a quote from the member of congress. If that trend continues the net would have implications for the coverage folks are seeing back home. Those trends you mention a reflective in the members that we have in rra. 20 years ago with 230 notice and no, we are down to about 65. Thats hard to be. Were still getting new peo