21 states have no local newspaper with dedicated reporter to cover their representatives and senators in D.C.

Pew Research Center map; click the image to enlarge it.

As newspapers keep tightening their belts, more and more have stopped paying reporters to cover readers' representatives in Congress.

"Between 2009 and 2014, the number of D.C.-based reporters for local newspapers around the country who are accredited by the Senate to cover Congress declined by 11 percent, according to data from the U.S. Senate Press Gallery, which accredits Capitol Hill journalists," Kristine Lu and Jesse Holcomb report for Pew Research Center. "Papers that do employ these reporters – who are tasked in part with interpreting the decisions and policies of Washington for readers back home – are not clustered in any one part of the country, but rather are spread out around the United States. But 21 of 50 states do not have a single local daily newspaper with its own dedicated D.C. correspondent accredited to cover Congress."

Some of those have to divide their attention between the needs of more than one paper in a chain. McClatchy and Gannett, for example, have D.C. reporters who keep tabs on several states. "One Gannett correspondent describes her beat as encompassing Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Virginia and North Carolina," Lu and Holcomb report.

States with no dedicated reporters tend to be those with smaller populations and smaller delegations, with the exceptions of Arizona and Indiana, which have nine-member delegations, Pew notes.

The downward trend in coverage troubles some D.C. correspondents. Todd Gillman, Washington bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News, told Pew: "It is only the regional media outlets that keep close ongoing tabs on lawmakers, politicians, lobbyists, issues, interest groups from discrete geographic areas, and as the number of regional reporters has dwindled, that watchdog function has absolutely been watered down."

A few papers have re-established D.C. coverage, and some digital news startups and public-radio outlets are trying, but that isn't enough to fully replace the lost coverage, Lu and Holcomb report.