A new report released by the Pew Research Center last week shows a significant decline in full-time newspaper reporters covering statehouses nationwide over the last decade.
Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of Pew’s Journalism Project, says the drop has had an effect on the quality of journalism at the state level.
"The bad is, if you look at a comparable number of newspapers from 2003 to 2014, you basically see that newspaper reporters, full-time newspaper reporters, have declined by 35 percent," said Jurkowitz.
Jurkowitz adds the study found that many of the gaps in newspaper coverage were replaced by either digital media or outlets with an ideological agenda.
Delaware currently has nine reporters in different mediums covering Legislative Hall in Dover. Three of those reporters are full-time. Four of them are assigned to cover the statehouse only during the length of the legislative session.
Those numbers mirror a general state-by-state trend in the study, according to Jurkowitz.
"Some of the smaller states in population weren’t necessarily at the very bottom when it came to the number of statehouse reporters, but as a general rule there was a correlation there," said Jurkowitz.
North Dakota had the distinction of having the fewest reporters covering its statehouse, at seven. Texas had the most, with 107.
Delaware Public Media’s political reporter James Dawson participated in the Pew Research Center survey.