At the Helm   

Here's a look at Washington's three minority newspaper bureau chiefs:

By the time she was in sixth grade, Alison Bethel , now the Detroit News' Washington bureau chief, knew she wanted to write for a newspaper. At the age of 15 she began interning at the Miami Herald, eventually covering religion and the city of South Miami. After finishing high school Bethel went on to study journalism and theater at Howard University. She interned at the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, the Knight Ridder Washington bureau and ABC News before landing her first full-time journalism job at the now-defunct Baton Rouge State Times.

It wasn't long before Bethel realized she wanted more. "I knew I wanted to be an editor," she says. "I wanted to be in a position to make decisions and impact what people see every day."

Bethel says two mentors, Gannett News Service Editor Caesar Andrews and Washington Post Deputy Managing Editor Milton Coleman, have helped make her stint in Washington easier and more productive. She advises young minority journalists to identify and latch onto such mentors early in their careers.

The 38-year-old Bethel suggests her race and gender have played a role in her journalism career, but they have not defined it. "You try to be as objective as possible [as a journalist], but you bring a different sort of experience to the table," says Bethel, who became bureau chief in 2001. "I'm sure my race somewhere has had something to do with my positions at various papers. I also think it had to do with how I do the job. But..it didn't hurt that I was a double minority. For some papers that was a big deal."

C aesar Andrews , editor of Gannett News Service, considers his race and his journalism inseparable. But in his view race alone does not determine or define good journalism. For Andrews, journalism is ultimately about quality.

His ethnicity "is such a part and parcel of who I am and what I am and what I think. It does not mean that every single thing is filtered through race, but the blackness is there..at the heart of the matter, so it's bound to affect and influence a wide range of things."

Andrews, 45, who graduated from Grambling State University with a degree in journalism in 1979, started his career as a reporter for Today in Cocoa, Florida. Before becoming editor of Gannett News Service in 1997, he held management positions at various newspapers, including USA Today, Florida Today, the Reporter in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, and Gannett Suburban Newspapers outside New York City.

While Andrews says the Washington press corps is becoming more diverse, he believes there is still much to be done. "It's better now than it has been before now, but not nearly good enough to serve its true purpose." And that true purpose, he says, is to improve the range, reach, depth and complexity of news coverage in Washington.

For Vickie Walton-James , the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau chief, there is no denying the need for greater diversity in the Washington press corps. "If you look at the various briefings – Pentagon, White House – you see the lack of diversity," she says. "And it shows up on the campaign trail."

Walton-James, 45, who started her journalism career as a news clerk for the Kansas City Star in 1982, believes recruiting good journalists who aren't already in Washington can help make the capital press corps more diverse.

She believes the capital is a terrific destination for young minority journalists. "The great part about covering Washington is explaining what it means to people who are out in the country or elsewhere in the world," she says. It's important to remember, she says, that "what politicians are talking about on a given day isn't necessarily what Americans around the country are really concerned about."

Walton-James, who came to D.C. as the Tribune's deputy bureau chief in 1995, joined the paper as a copy editor in 1989. Over the last 15 years, she has worked in various editorial positions, including assistant foreign editor and Sunday editor for national and foreign news.

Walton-James says having a diversity of viewpoints, backgrounds and experiences is critically important to properly covering the capital. "Everyone's background provides a different viewpoint, whether it's ethnicity or economic background or sexual orientation," she says. "We all bring something different into the newsroom."