Is that it apparently runs through Richmond.
On Sunday, the cover story in The New York Times Magazine was a profile of Politico’s Mike Allen, a former reporter for both the RTD and The Washington Post.
Labeling him the most important journalist in Washington, the portrait of Allen rang true to anyone who knew him in Richmond.
It captured his extraordinary talent, his unparalleled work ethic (everyone still wonders whether the man ever sleeps), and the oddities of his personal style, one that combines generosity and solicitousness with a studied avoidance of self-disclosure of any sort.
As I was reading the piece (and the commentary about it on the national blogs), which is also a paean to Politico’s rise to prominence in Washington, I was struck by how many of the key players in the Washington media elite had a career path that came through Richmond, most typically as a multi-year assignment on the Post.
John Harris, the editor and founder of Politico, was the national political editor of the Post who covered the Clinton White House. Prior to that assignment, Harris spent several years in Richmond where he was known for his thoughtful analyses of trends in Virginia.
A number of the national blogs disputed the assertion that Allen was the most influential journalist in Washington. They said that this honor belonged to one of the Times’ own reporters, Peter Baker.
Baker, whose writing combines Allen’s tenacity in getting a story with Harris’ analytical talents, also spent a number of years in the Post’s Richmond bureau covering Virginia politics.
The Post’s current White House reporter is Mike Shear. Guess where his previous assignment was.
You got it.
Richmond.
National intelligence and the immigration debate are being skillfully covered by Ellen Nakashima and Spencer Hsu- both were in Richmond prior to going to the national desk.
Here’s one other interesting tidbit.
A majority of these reporters whose careers have flourished spent at least some of their time in Richmond covering Doug Wilder.
They may not have known it at the time.
But they were taking a post-graduate course in politics before they even arrived at the main campus.
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