{"id":6446,"date":"2016-03-15T15:00:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T19:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6446"},"modified":"2016-03-15T15:17:49","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T19:17:49","slug":"politics-after-the-gazette-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6446","title":{"rendered":"Politics After the Gazette, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following post is by Adam Pagnucco:<\/em><\/p>\n

Quick.\u00a0 Name a key difference among the following local congressional races.\u00a0 Connie Morella vs Stewart Bainum.\u00a0 Chris Van Hollen vs Mark Shriver.\u00a0 Connie Morella vs Chris Van Hollen.\u00a0 Al Wynn vs Donna Edwards.\u00a0 And the current races in Congressional Districts 4 and 8.<\/p>\n

The latter two are the only ones not covered by the Gazette, because the Gazette no longer exists.<\/p>\n

The Gazette has been gone since the Washington Post, its parent company, killed it in June 2015.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth remembering what it was in its heyday.\u00a0 The Post\u2019s 2001 annual report<\/a> summarizes how extensive its operation was in the time of Josh Kurtz, its statehouse bureau and its paid spin-off, the Gazette of Politics and Business.<\/p>\n

The Company’s Gazette Newspapers, Inc. subsidiary publishes one paid-circulation and 35 controlled-circulation weekly community newspapers (collectively known as The Gazette Newspapers) in Montgomery and Frederick Counties and parts of Prince George’s, Carroll, Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland. During 2000 The Gazette Newspapers had an aggregate average weekly circulation of approximately 554,000 copies. This subsidiary also produces 11 military newspapers (most of which are weekly) under agreements where editorial material is supplied by local military bases; in 2000 these newspapers had a combined average circulation of over 200,000 copies. The Gazette Newspapers have approximately 125 editors, reporters and photographers on their combined staffs. The Gazette Newspapers, Inc. also operates a commercial printing business in Montgomery County, Maryland.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That same year, the Post bought eight community newspapers in Prince George\u2019s, Charles, Calvert and St. Mary\u2019s Counties and consolidated them into Southern Maryland Newspapers.\u00a0 Those papers added 40 employees and tens of thousands of copies to the Post\u2019s local media empire.<\/p>\n

But a decade ago, financial pressures led the Post to start trimming the Gazette<\/a>.\u00a0 The newspaper endured several rounds of layoffs.\u00a0 It withdrew from Howard, Carroll, Anne Arundel and Frederick.\u00a0 It ended its paid Gazette of Politics and Business, consolidated local editions, dropped most of its statehouse coverage and dismissed its political columnists.\u00a0 By the time the paper finally shut down, it was down to just twelve reporters and two photographers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, the Gazette was one component of a large, official local media.\u00a0 Montgomery County had its own daily newspaper (the Journal).\u00a0 The statehouse was jammed with four full-time reporters from the Sun, three full-time reporters from the Post and countless more reporters from local papers.\u00a0 The Montgomery County Council building had a press bullpen in which legendary Doug Duncan operative Jerry Pasternak would trade tips with reporters over games of darts.\u00a0 Print drove television and radio coverage.\u00a0 Reporters had a career path leading from small local outlets to medium newspapers to the big guys, the Sun and the Post.\u00a0 An official network of veteran reporters and long-time editors would judge what was newsworthy, and stories that didn\u2019t pass muster went unreported.\u00a0 There was no other way for them to get out.\u00a0 But those that did were circulated to hundreds of thousands of readers, viewers \u2013 and voters.<\/p>\n

Almost all of that is now gone.\u00a0 The Gazette was one of the last vestiges of the old world.<\/p>\n

What is left?\u00a0 And how does that affect local politics and government?\u00a0 We\u2019ll have more in Part Two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following post is by Adam Pagnucco: Quick.\u00a0 Name a key difference among the following local congressional races.\u00a0 Connie Morella vs Stewart Bainum.\u00a0 Chris Van Hollen vs Mark Shriver.\u00a0 Connie Morella vs Chris Van Hollen.\u00a0 Al Wynn vs Donna Edwards.\u00a0 And the current races in Congressional Districts 4 and 8. The latter two are the … Continue reading Politics After the Gazette, Part I<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[186],"tags":[1545],"class_list":["post-6446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","tag-adam-pagnucco"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1FY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6453,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions\/6453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}