On the Clinton and Obama campaign planes, many of the seats usually filled by traveling press are now empty. As media companies slash budgets, several large newspapers have opted not to pay for their reporters to travel with the campaigns everyday. The topic is the feature of a NY Times piece today, which devotes a section to the decisions of my Belo-brethren at The Dallas Morning News.

Among the newspapers that have chosen not to dispatch reporters to cover the two leading Democratic candidates on a regular basis are USA Today, the nation's largest paper, as well as The Boston Globe, The Dallas Morning News, The Houston Chronicle, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Baltimore Sun, The Miami Herald and The Philadelphia Inquirer (at least until the Pennsylvania primary, on April 22, began to loom large).

The Morning News, which had a reporter at George W. Bush's side in 2000 and 2004, has this year focused on issues of particular resonance to Texans. Mark Edgar, a deputy managing editor, said his reporters had strayed off the trail in California to write about the Hispanic vote, "and how that was different than the Texas Hispanic vote."

"Not being in the bubble is sometimes better," he said.

Still, in the days leading up to the vote in Texas on March 4, reporters for The Morning News paid to climb on the planes ferrying Senators Clinton and Obama, as well as Senator John McCain.

2 Comments

Sal "The Muckraker" Costello said:

They should pull the reporters.

The race is over.

It is virtually impossible for Hillary Clinton to win, since she'd need to sweep the last 10 states with 65% of the vote just to break even with Obama.

March 26, 2008 12:19 PM

C.W. Cale said:

I don't see much to report anyway at this point. Every day it's the same non-issues.

Although when you stop watching, that's when things tend to boil over. I'll be on C-SPAN!!! :)

March 26, 2008 8:15 PM

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