On Capitol Hill, Meeting Less of the Press

Nevertheless, several of the state's most senior officials were disappointed when I told them what the newspaper had planned. A cynic could argue that they were simply feigning sympathy, but I don't think so. These are hard times. I think Maine's elected officials care about the civic service the Fourth Estate performs. A newspaper's reporting, editorials and letters to the editor let lawmakers know what people are thinking without taking expensive, impersonal polls. There's self-interest too: The lawmakers believe that they are doing good work and want it publicized back home.

The biggest losers in these cutbacks, of course, are the citizens of Maine and the other states where newspapers have closed their Washington bureaus. My main gripe is that the loss of regional reporters just gives one more advantage to incumbents seeking reelection. Even in 2006, a year in which a Democratic tide swept Republicans out of office, 94 percent of incumbents in the House were reelected, as were 79 percent of those in the Senate, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan Web site that keeps track of election spending and data.

The downsizing in mainstream newspapers does not, of course, spell disaster for the Constitution. We reporters, as much as we might want to think otherwise, are not the last line of defense against the misuse of government power in the republic. These days, people get their news from plenty of other sources, including television, radio and the Internet. So the problem isn't that all those press releases that lawmakers send out will go unchallenged, although they might go unread in standard newsprint.

But readers will miss some nuance simply because there's nobody in the Capitol. They won't know how Sen. Olympia Snowe's eyes light up when she recalls being selected as an intern for the state's Democratic governor in the summer of 1967, even though she considered herself a Republican. They'll probably never learn that, at a press conference in May, just minutes before a vote on a massive farm bill, Collins praised a provision in the measure to close the so-called Enron loophole. She then headed straight to the Senate floor and voted against the bill.

We regional reporters put readers in rooms like that and give them a voice. But we're disappearing fast, and it's not clear who can pick up the slack.

jonathanekaplan@gmail.com

Jonathan E. Kaplan, the former Washington correspondent for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, is now a freelance political reporter.