When Al Hunt was brought in to be Executive Washington Editor of Bloomberg News, I don't know what fellow media counterparts thought. Was this man past his prime? Could he move from a corner office at the Wall Street Journal into a cubicle and manage an entire bureau of mostly young, motivated, technologically savvy individuals? Well, we surely all know the answer now: a resounding yes.
It would be hard to write this piece without saying that Al didn't teach me a lot about writing op-eds as a visiting professor at the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania, and he was a superb one at that. Our friendship has grown over the years and he has mentored me on certain career moves. But here is the point: As he would say himself, Al Hunt is definitely not the new kid in town, but he sure knows how to rock it.
He has literally grown the Bloomberg Washington Bureau into one of the most credible and formidable bureaus not only in D.C., or nationally, but internationally. The man deserves credit.
So when it comes time to award Helen Thomas' seat -- I hope the White House Correspondents' Association takes this into account. We have enough seniority in Washington with Congress. Don't base the decision solely on seniority; base it on who you think can shake things up the most in the Briefing Room. Give it to Bloomberg News. Look at what Al and his bureau have done in only a few years: see what they can do in the years to come.
David Helfenbein has also posted this blog posting on his site, TheBeanPredicts.com, under his blog, The Bean Blog.
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The seat should go to the news organization who deserves the seat the most. That should be the critiria. I know many are less concerned with who gets the seat, and more concerned with who doesn't: FOX news. Currently the front row has six center/left news outfits, and no center/right outfits. Even though FOX news is the top ranked news channel in the country by viewership, they don't deserve the seat? People's lack of fairness is appalling.
Liberals are all over the Internet trying to keep FOX news off the front row. They feel that only liberals like themselves should occupy the front row. Kind of like Stalin only wanted Communists to be in the Politboro. It is time for FOX news to take it's rightful place, front row center....
My main point is that DC has too much standardized seniority-based institutions, such as Congress and that it would be nice to see this seat be given to an organization based on merit. If I were trying to make purely the liberal case, I could have said to give it to NPR, which is also in the running.