WASHINGTON — I just won an unfortunate game of "Survivor."
I am now the last Washington-based correspondent working directly for any Utah news media.
That's because KSL-TV closed its Washington bureau last week. That pushed longtime correspondent Charles Sherrill into retirement three years earlier than he had planned — and sent his cameraman looking for a job.
It should save KSL money, but it will cost Utah.
It leaves me as the last reporter specifically watching out for Utah interests here, examining how federal agencies, courts and Congress treat the state. With only one person watching, it increases chances that stories — and misdeeds — may be missed.
When I arrived here 12 years ago, seven other Utah media had full- or part-time correspondents. They all now have disappeared. Most bureaus closed during bad economic times and never reopened. But KSL's closing comes now even when the economy is healthy.
The Salt Lake Tribune had a two-person bureau when I arrived. Tribune Editor James Shelledy closed it quickly when he took over about 10 years ago. He told journalism groups that Washington is irrelevant and that newspapers are wiser to spend money at home.
Other Utah media apparently agreed.
Since I arrived, KUTV closed its bureau here; KSL-AM lost its last full-time reporter here last year; Scripps League newspapers closed a bureau that provided a correspondent for the Provo Herald; Thomson newspapers closed one that reported for its Spectrum newspapers in St. George and Cedar City; and the Ogden-Standard Examiner dropped a free-lance correspondent.
That leaves me.
Of course, TV networks and national wire services will still cover Washington and provide feeds to Utah media. But they cover the big national stories. The Utah stories here — both big and small — will now often be ignored unless I find them.
Of course, other Utah outlets will still try to cover Washington — but by phone, fax or an occasional visit. Their main sources for news will be press releases telling them what members of Congress and federal agencies want them to hear.
The stories that such agencies don't want Utahns to hear normally are dug out only by building sources here, by digging through documents here, by listening to debates here, by overhearing things here, by seeing firsthand what is happening here, and by talking to people on the spot here.
The Deseret News Washington Bureau has done that to dig out many big stories through the decades including: revealing secret, intentional meltdowns of government nuclear reactors in Utah; revealing the extent of thousands of Cold War tests that bombarded Utah with nuclear, chemical and germ weapons (leading to some compensation); digging out much of the Joe Waldholtz "fake millionaire" scandal; and even disclosing later-changed U.S. plans (developed in Utah) to attack Japan with germ weapons during World War II.
Americans esteem freedom of the press as a hallowed right. They would surely revolt if the government ever tried to revoke the First Amendment and remove the ability of the news media to report on events of local interest in Washington.
But most Utah media have surrendered that right voluntarily — to save a buck or two.
Maybe they should remember a quote from George Sutherland, the only Utahn ever appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. He wrote in a 1935 decision, "A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to be fettered ourselves."
If Sutherland were alive to say such things today, most Utah media would likely miss it unless it were mentioned by national media — because they wouldn't be here to hear it.
Here's another quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy, and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged."
Utah's freedom of the press in Washington is hanging by a thread. I'm it for now.
Deseret News Washington correspondent Lee Davidson can be reached by e-mail at lee@desnews.com