Minority scribes have a dream, and it's not D.C.
It used to be that Washington was the holy grail for journalism. But not anymore for many young, and especially minority, reporters. Despite fat paychecks of $100,000 or more and cool beats like the White House, the new kids on the block don't want to hang around. Their gripe: Older, white editors won't listen to them about news coverage. "If you blow off all their ideas," says the University of Maryland's Christopher Callahan, "they will get frustrated." Deep in a survey of newsroom diversity his journalism school just issued is a stunning story of how Washington reporting has sunk in status. More than a quarter of minority reporters want to leave within two years; only a handful want to retire here. Many think they're newsroom tokens, unable to change news coverage, and that leads to a depressingly high rate of job dissatisfaction. Then there's Whitey. Yeah, race helped a little in getting a good job, but minority reporters say whites think race is the major factor in minority promotions. "It used to be that people wanted to come here," laments Callahan. "This survey says, 'I don't like it here.' "
The speaker and the comeback kid
House Speaker Dennis Hastert knows a little something about coaching. As a young buck, he ran a high school wrestling team, and now he's boss of the world's most unified but dysfunctional group, the House Republicans. But don't look for Hastert to return to coaching when he retires. Says the author of Speaker: Lessons From Forty Years in Coaching and Politics, "That's a young man's sport." So what, then, does he make of the return of 63-year-old Joe Gibbs to the Washington Redskins after an 11-year absence? Well, that's a different ballgame. "I'm a [Chicago] Bears fan," Hastert says, "but was I ever envious when Gibbs came back for the Redskins. I almost changed my allegiances." Gibbs, he says, is one of the rare coaches, one who never loses his stuff. "He's kind of like a Vince Lombardi, " says the speaker, whose style is like the Hall of Famer's. "Whether you're coaching, in business, or in politics, it's really a people business," he says. "It's how you relate to people, how you get people excited, how you can get people to think your way and believe in what you want to do."
Grrrl talk
Move over, Rush and Sean. Conservative radio talker Laura Ingraham is fast becoming the fave inside the White House. "Man, her show is rocking," cheers one insider. Bushies like her youthful and aggressive approach to the issues, the music on The Laura Ingraham Show, and her "grrrl talk." Says one female Bush adviser: "All the girls love her. It's like we're talking girlfriend to girlfriend."
Chelsea's way
Clinton family friends are predicting that Chelsea Clinton, who has stayed away from politics, will soon choose her own issue to champion. But nobody in the family thinks she's ready to follow her parents and run for office in the near future. "I see her picking a cause and getting active. That'll happen soon," says a family friend.
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