Capitol Newbies
The University of Missouri students bringing regional reporting back to Washington.
Last Tuesday evening, Tyler Kirwan put on his blue suit and knotted his red tie. He was heading to the US Capitol Building to cover Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, for which he had been studying photos of the Missouri delegation “to make sure I had their faces locked.” Kirwan, a twenty-one-year-old senior studying journalism at the University of Missouri, was reporting for the Columbia Missourian, which serves the state’s fourth-most-populous city. Kirwan’s assignment: documenting events inside the House chamber to capture the details his peers watching the address on TV outside couldn’t see.
From his perch in the press gallery, Kirwan was an anomaly—both as a college student and as a reporter covering national politics for a regional publication. About two decades ago, hundreds of regional reporters worked the Hill beat, chasing down lawmakers and competing for scoops. Now the Regional Reporters Association has only about sixty members.
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