The News-Journal is going into the legislative session minus two veteran reporters.
Jonathan Starkey, a legislative reporter, has taken the post of communications chief at the Delaware State Housing Authority.
Jon Offredo is also believed to have left the Gannett newspaper that saw the departure of more than a half-dozen of its veteran reporters late last year in a company-ordered buyout.
Both Offredo and Starkey were known as solid reporters with investigative reporting skills.
“There will be coverage,” News Journal Editor David Ledford wrote in a brief E mail statement. He said the company plans to put “new folks in place.”
The departures come after a long period of cutbacks that included the exit of more than a half-dozen staffers over 50, each with decades of experience at the News Journal.
The most recent departures were already in evidence in the News Journal’s politics blog, which has not been populated since early December. Both Dover reporters were prime contributors.
Delaware ranks low, even among less populated states in staff assigned to the legislature, according to a 2014 report from the Pew Research Center.
In that report, the number of full-time legislative-government employers numbered a mere three. By contrast, Wyoming has a half a dozen full-timers, with the press corps in Vermont adding up more than a dozen.
State agencies have responded by hiring many of the former journalists in public information positions.
The communications functions of Delaware State government and the University of Delaware are now heavily populated with former NJ staffers.
The short-staffing comes in a state with a reputation for a state government that is heavily influenced by a “good ol’ boy” network of insiders, pay to play practices and outright corruption, as outlined in a report from a panel headed by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Veasey.
The most recent revelations have come in a report on racial discrimination within state government.
