Capitol beat

“Were it left for me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Sheryl Gay Stolberg (Government ’83), a Congressional correspondent for The New York Times, agrees. And she thinks it especially appropriate that The Cavalier Daily, the oldest collegiate daily at Mr. Jefferson’s University — and the newspaper that launched her career in journalism — reflects the value Virginia’s founder placed on freedom of the press.

“It’s a rarity to have a university newspaper that is completely free and independent,” she said from her small cube in the Times’ Washington Bureau.

Stolberg can recall a time when the CD’s independent status was on less certain footing than it is today. The year before she came to Virginia, the CD staff refused to recognize the authority of a University Media Board and was expelled from their offices on Grounds. After angry student protests on the Lawn, however, University officials backed down, and by the time Stolberg arrived the following fall, the staff had reclaimed their offices and the CD was once again a free and independent paper.

And that made all the difference, in Stolberg’s experience. “The fact that it was entirely student run left us free to forge our own way and make our own mistakes, but also to relish our own triumphs.”

Stolberg worked for the CD throughout her time at U.Va. and served as executive editor her fourth year. “It shaped my entire career,” she said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t be where I am today had I not written for the Cavalier Daily.”

Where she is today, most of the time, is the U.S. Capitol. After years on the science and medical beat, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The New York Times, covering such issues as AIDS, cloning and the 2001 anthrax scare, Stolberg quips that she is finally putting her government degree to good use.

Now she runs up and down the stairs of the Capitol all day, uses elevator rides to grab brief interviews with senators and congressmen and waits outside closed-door policy lunches for a chance to speak with members of Congress as they emerge. (She confessed that when she started covering Congress and her editor told her, “Make sure you attend the lunches,” she assumed she would actually dine with the members.)

It’s certainly not all glamorous, but Stolberg finds her work a lot of fun.

“The Capitol is a lively and interesting place, and it’s a privilege to see it up close. You’re seeing democracy unfold in a gritty and real way. It’s chaotic, yet it’s also very inspiring.”

But a recent front-page story she wrote for the Times, on former Republican minority leader Trent Lott’s descent from power after his remarks at the 100th birthday party of Sen. Strom Thurmond, reminds her of the downside of working on Capitol Hill.

“It is a place where people always put themselves first,” she said. “As I wrote in that article, ‘Your friends are not always who you think they are.’”

Despite the pace and the political wrangling, however, at the end of the day, Stolberg thinks it’s worth it. “Working in the Capitol is a daily reminder of the beauty of the political system that our founding fathers created because you can see it as a living, breathing thing. It adapts over time and changes with the people who populate the Capitol, but it works. It’s true that it’s a place of politics, but it’s also a place where ideas matter.”