Hard Times Claim a Storied Press Outpost in Austin

Hard Times Claim a Storied Press Outpost in Austin - NYTimes

I have said those words several times since the columnist Molly Ivins died in 2007.
But when that phrase came to me again last week, it wasn’t because she had missed out on something so rich that it would send her into column-writing ecstasy. It was because of news that would have made her very sad: her former employer, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is shutting down the Austin bureau where we once worked.
Like most newspapers, the “Startlegram” is going through some tough times, and it has decided to at least temporarily close the bureau to redeploy resources.
Jim Witt, the editor, said in an e-mail that The Star-Telegram would still staff the biennial legislative sessions, but would otherwise not maintain a permanent presence in the state capital.
“We’ve decided that for right now it doesn’t make sense for us to have a full-time reporter in Austin when the Legislature isn’t in session,” he said. “We will continue to send staffers to Austin when there is a story we want to do, and we will probably engage some freelancers to write stories on occasion.” (The Texas Tribune’s content regularly appears in the Star-Telegram.)
The last Austin bureau chief, Dave Montgomery — Davey Joe to his friends — is expected to take a buyout this month and will probably end up freelancing, perhaps for The Star-Telegram.
It’s hard to imagine the Austin press corps without Dave, who has spent 46 years in the newspaper business, 31 of them at The Star-Telegram. The song “Young at Heart” was written for people like Dave, who has never lost his enthusiasm for reporting. He has an uncanny ability to charm information out of people with his country smile and “aw shucks” demeanor, which mask his truly formidable reporting skills.
What’s harder to imagine is an Austin press corps without a permanent Star-Telegram bureau, where respected reporters like Sam Kinch Sr. once wrote about an ambitious congressman named Lyndon Johnson, and where countless elections, political shenanigans and legislative sessions got the attention they deserved and that readers expected.
Capitol correspondents have helped interpret every major Texas political story of the modern era — from the 1970s-era Sharpstown banking scandal to Rick Perry’s run for president. In 1966, the Star-Telegram reporter Jerry Flemmons was the first journalist to climb the University of Texas at Austin Tower after Charles Whitman’s rampage.
This is not the first capital newspaper office to close, and it probably won’t be the last. But the demise of the Star-Telegram’s Austin bureau is another troubling milestone for the newsgathering business, and it’s particularly sad for me.
Read more: http://vinatv.org/u-s-news/hard-times-claim-a-storied-press-outpost-in-austin-nytimes.html