Opinion: Small-town paper covers Barack Obama, gets big-city bill

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Bob Zaltsberg is the editor of the Bloomington Herald-Times and back in April he got the idea to send one of his 12 reporters out on a big story, the passing through southern Indiana of the Barack Obama whirlwind.

They routinely cover campaigns when they’re local, but this assignment involved traveling an hour away to Columbus, Ind.

James Boyd was the lucky fellow assigned to get himself over to Columbus, where he boarded the Obama campaign bus on April 11 for the 39-mile ride across to Bloomington and Obama’s two quick stops there before Boyd jumped off the campaign to write his story.

The other day a bill arrived from the Obama campaign. It was expected. ‘We didn’t want or expect a free ride,’ says the good-natured Zaltsberg.

What wasn’t expected was the amount -- $438.74, which is about $11.25 a mile. No small sum for a smaller newspaper. (Or a larger one either these days!) For instance, Boyd had a turkey sandwich and cup of soup; cost for that $116.62. (He must have used the pepper to account for the extra 62 cents.)

The bus transportation -- $226.17 -- seemed a little large for less than an hour but it was chartered. Then, the paper got nailed for another $91.41 for something labeled ‘Files.’

The facts are that the increasing costs of covering political campaigns in recent years and declining revenues for many news operations have seen the traveling news media contingents dwindle considerably, even from 2000. This, of course, reduces the independent coverage of candidates seeking the nation’s highest elected office and the means of spreading the candidate’s message.

With prorated airfares added in, it can cost thousands of dollars a day to maintain a full-time reporter with a major political campaign.

‘This was a rare primary,’ says Zaltsberg, ‘and thus a rare opportunity for an H-T reporter to travel with a campaign, even for such a short distance.’

The editor, who provides an itemized copy of the campaign’s bill here, notes that Obama claims he will make Indiana a battleground state come fall.

But if that traveling circus does come back through his newspaper’s area, Zaltsberg says, ‘We’ll probably skip the all-inclusive bus package and drive along behind.’

-- Andrew Malcolm