What’s behind wire service departure from Treasury

Denny Gulino, a senior correspondent at Market News International, writes about the decision by the four major wire services — Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Dow Jones Newswires and Reuters — to depart from staffing the Treasury Department.

Gulino, who has covered the Treasury since the 1980s, writes, “At this writing, four adjacent cubicles in the press room on the first floor of what is known as the Main Treasury building next door to the White House, are unoccupied – although in reality, AP will be the last to formally make the move out. (It just happens to be a day off for the AP correspondent.)

“Reporters, who as a species are known for their penchant for digging up news in the hallways as well as the news conferences, were in this case varied in their individual views of the development, including some directly involved but not authorized to speak for their news firms.

“Some employed by Bloomberg and Dow told MNI they could not be happier to stay out of Treasury as much as possible, given the department very seldom rewards its in-house contingent of news scribes with so much as a crumb of access to officials or access to their views. In fact, an internal Bloomberg memo on the change ended with the words, ‘Free at last.’

“A few others who shared their perspectives said the move was part of an inevitable trend, now that newsworthy official comments are as likely, perhaps more likely, to pop up on twitter.com, in government blogs and in email than in person. After all, once the Labor Department and the Commerce Department had news cadres dedicated to their coverage. Now the Commerce secretary and Labor secretary, they said, have become faceless and nameless bureaucrats more than newsmakers, unlikely to be identified by most people even were they to be placed in a police lineup.

“A small number of reporters queried considered the end of full-time presence at Treasury in particular and at government outposts in general a regrettable loss in the nation’s information food chain. Although observations do not always lead to insight, they sometimes do. Mood, body language, reticence, enthusiasm and acknowledgement are sometimes only evident first hand. And there is always that memo someone might accidentally — or purposely — misplace in the elevator.”

Read more here.