Chicago Tribune Washington correspondent Jill Zuckman is the latest of several high-profile journalists and the second Tribune reporter to join the Obama administration.
Zuckman, also a familiar face on cable news, is leaving the paper to work as director of public affairs for Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican.
Her departure highlights the tough financial times newspapers are experiencing — the Tribune’s Washington bureau recently cut several staffers in layoffs. But it also underscores the sometimes uncomfortably close relationship between the press and the government.
“It seems like [the Obama administration] is the cool place to work these days,” said Jonah Goldberg, a conservative columnist syndicated by Tribune and a former media critic. “When you combine that with the terrifying state of the newspaper industry, you can’t blame people for trying to get out.”
Zuckman follows former Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Gosselin, who earlier this year took as job as speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Both newspapers are owned by the financially troubled Tribune Co., which late last year filed for bankruptcy protection.
Zuckman did not return a request for comment from The Examiner, but she told the Tribune that she decided “a while ago” to leave journalism, and had long admired LaHood’s interest in bipartisanship.
“This is not a good time to be a journalist,” said Rachel Sklar, a media strategist at Abrams Research who also covers media for the Daily Beast. “There is a real and growing appreciation that there is no such thing as job security in media — and a good, steady, important, interesting and lateral job move is not to be dismissed.”
Other journalists who joined the administration include former Time Washington Bureau Chief Jay Carney, now communications director for Vice President Joseph Biden Jr., and Linda Douglass, a former broadcaster and contributing editor at National Journal, who worked on Obama’s campaign and is expected to get a job in the administration.
In the previous administration, the late Tony Snow, a spokesman for President Bush, came from Fox News. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell covered the White House for ABC News. And former Bush press secretary Dana Perino had a short career as a local television reporter, among others.
History is replete with such examples, in both parties. But in the last campaign, critics of the media frequently complained that Obama benefited from more favorable coverage by a compliant press. Goldberg said the recent spate of hires may reinforce that perception.
“I don’t think it’s very good for journalism,” Goldberg said. “If you are watching all this from Peoria and you see these supposedly objective messengers of Washington now cashing in to work for the administration, the appearance is corrupting to the idea of an independent press.”
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