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Battling for the High Ground (Washington Post, 7/28/2003)

Roll Call and the Hill ... serve as community newspapers for Capitol Hill ...

This year, both newspapers boosted the number of times they publish, deployed more reporters to the Capitol and stepped up their competition for the lucrative market in advocacy advertising....

[I]n January ... Roll Call, under editor Tim Curran, added a third day, Wednesday, to its weekly publication schedule ... Roll Call added about nine employees in the process, publisher Laurie Battaglia-Skinker said.

The Hill countered by bringing in new executive editor Hugo Gurdon, 46, a veteran of London's Fleet Street ... Gurdon has increased publication to two days a week, redesigned the newspaper's appearance, nearly doubled the reporting staff to 13 people and is ready for more....

Now Roll Call plans by September to publish four times a week when Congress is in session, Monday through Thursday, and the Hill said by the end of the year it will be up to three issues per week.

Fueled by the large market for advocacy advertising, both newspapers are profitable and their expansions typify the explosion of journalistic coverage on Capitol Hill.

Pages of help-wanted advertising have traditionally been used as a leading indicator of the economy. Let us hope that pages of "advocacy ads" are not a leading indicator of the regulatory state. Posted by Paul Jaminet at July 29, 2003 12:59 AM