What D.C. journalism needs is a whole lot more D.C. and a whole lot less standard-issue national news and opinion. The collapse of the local news infrastructure nationwide — including in the Washington area — has systematically stripped America’s news diet of what matters most to readers: news about people who live, work, rule and play nearby. A muscular local news report identifies the culprits who mess with readers’ daily existence and investigates the causes of troubles such as declining home values, uninspired schooling or unsafe streets. Where local news runs dry, voter turnout decreases, as does participation in civic affairs. The more emotionally disconnected the news, the more mistrustful its audience becomes. What connects is what’s intimate and immediate — not what reporters hear in the halls of Congress or what the White House briefing room is atwitter about.

Anytime you see suits yelling at each other on TV or YouTube, you know you are being fed cheap swill, not healthy journalism. Punditry and partisan potshots are distractions from the harder work of gumshoe reporting — the kind that happens door-to-door, not by email, not through A.I., not at news conferences.

Marc Fisher spent 39 years at the Post as a reporter, columnist and editor. He is now a freelance writer and book editor.

I’d stop reporters from devoting so much time to blindly chasing the events of the day. Don’t join the journalistic herd filing a million riffs on whatever the White House press secretary said an hour ago. Politicians shouldn’t control the topic of the moment, you should. Set off for territory unknown. Choose the most boring, most neglected subject you can find, then dig deep until you know more than the experts and have uncovered what makes it fascinating and important. (Full disclosure: I once spent a full year reading real estate easements. But I had a heck of a yarn by the time I was done.)

Joe Stephens is a former investigative reporter at the Post. He is incoming executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, where he will also be an assistant professor of journalism, and was founding director of the Program in Journalism at Princeton University.

My dream new journalistic standard would make it unacceptable to quote a lie in a news story. In the deep-fake, bot-infested Trump era, it’s no longer enough for news organizations to seek truth; we need them to protect the public from lies. Lies should be treated like obscenities, graphic violence or sexual content. That means literally refusing to repeat a transparent lie — not quoting it early and then offering corrective facts two paragraphs or 30 seconds later. Sure, sometimes it’s a judgment call whether a statement falls just to the spin side of the mendacity line. But sometimes it’s obvious. You know how news stories avoid quoting profanity by saying things like “he said, adding an expletive for emphasis”? That’s how reporters should deal with lies: e.g., “he said, before repeatedly lying about …” As for lying on live TV? Bring on the bleeps!

Kate Cohen is a former contributing columnist for the Post. She is the author of “We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (And Maybe You Should Too)” and writes an independent column called Scratch.

The most dazzling figure during my years at The Washington Post was of course Ben Bradlee — an editor made famous in two movies, separated by 41 years, with portrayals by Jason Robards and Tom Hanks.

The most important leaders shaping my two decades in that newsroom, however, are not famous. Yet they are vividly emblematic of a mindset and values that have been diluted in recent years — both at the Post and in the profession broadly. Len Downie and Bob Kaiser met each other as summer interns in 1963, and in a succession of roles helped run the place for four decades. They represented an amalgam of self-confidence and clear purpose. With quite different personalities and backgrounds, they shared a conviction that smart, disciplined, revelatory and, above all, sustained journalism made a difference in Washington and the world — and they made a younger generation of journalists believe that, too.

The notion that genuine impact flows from enduring values, more than theatrics and trend-chasing, has been challenged in contemporary times, but it is striking how alive it remains among the younger journalists I admire most. Leaders of my generation, and the next one, need to give more people more reason to believe.

John F. Harris is a former reporter and editor at the Post. He is co-founder and chairman of Politico.

Get out of Washington, I beg of you! D.C. journalism, like all the big industries in this town (politicking, lobbying, lawyering, think tanking, contracting), would benefit immensely from popping the bubble of the nation’s capital every once in a while. Yeah, yeah, democracy dies in darkness and blah blah blah. We get it, what happens here on a regular ole Tuesday morning has national and global consequences. But readers need alternative programming for their sanity, and Washington hasn’t been some sleepy small town since “Scandal”: It’s a cosmopolitan city filled with readers whose interests go beyond the political news cycle. Find out what’s happening in the arts, in the air and on the ground in the many other cities of consequence across the map. Only then will the echo chamber chillax.

Helena Andrews-Dyer is a former pop-culture reporter in the Style section of the Post. Last year, she was recognized with a second-place award in the Feature Writing Portfolio category by the Society for Features Journalism.

To hear many D.C. journalists — and their readers — talk, the entire history of Washington reporting comes down to a few names: Watergate. Woodward. Bernstein. Katharine Graham. A more expansive view of D.C. journalism history could inspire a more varied and vigorous future.

How many D.C. reporters have read, for example, Mary McGrory? “Mr. Welch came to Washington to defend the Army,” she began a June 10, 1954, column about the moment when an Army counsel stood up to Sen. Joe McCarthy’s rampage, a scene she observed in person. “But he had his finest hour defending a friend.” Lots of people can do the sort of daily reporting that occasionally allows them to witness history. Fewer have the clarity to recognize what makes a moment indelible, and fewer still can rein in their prose in service of that insight.

Terrific D.C. journalism doesn’t have to be done in D.C., or by people who live there. Take Nora Ephron’s Esquire dispatch from the 1972 Democratic convention. The piece is revelatory because Ephron, a New Yorker, a woman writing for a men’s magazine, a person who “never cried over anything remotely political in my life,” looks away from the main event. Yes, George McGovern will be nominated, but the real story is whether the second-wave feminist movement can wrest any sort of win out of the Democratic Party.

And D.C., of course, means more than the Hill or the White House. The late Marjorie Williams’ profiles of figures like philanthropist Gwendolyn Cafritz expertly captured the contradictions of this place — a small city at the center of the world.

Alyssa Rosenberg is a former letters and community editor at the Post. She is now the dean of the Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Have editors insist that their opinion writers interrogate their beliefs and fortify them with facts. Instruct them to not be afraid to change their beliefs when the facts change and to never fear telling the reader or the viewer that they have done so and why. The most crucial tool that we have is our credibility, built one interview and one column at a time. Too many D.C. journalists fritter away their credibility in the pursuit of greater access or prominence and then wonder why they are not taken seriously.

Jonathan Capehart is a former associate editor and columnist at the Post. He is an MS NOW host, a contributor to the PBS News Hour, and author of “Yet Here I Am.”

As a longtime journalist, it brings me no joy to say the reward structures within D.C. journalism often incentivize the wrong kind of work. It’s no one individual’s fault, just a calcified part of the machinery of political journalism. Here’s how it happens: Political reporters and pundits often get the attention of editors and cable news bookers by outshining others within the press corps via access and palace intrigue and scooplets. The resulting attention is nice on its own — but, crucially, it’s also how people get on TV, which is how people get promotions, which is how people get raises. There’s real money at stake. And at the top of this shining hill stands the type of Washington journalist who believes doing a video stand-up from the White House Press Briefing Room is our profession’s highest calling. News coverage about D.C. from D.C. for D.C.

But what about the texture and tenor of American life beyond Washington? Genuine depth of understanding comes from hearing what people say and then testing their words against how they live. You have to see it with your own eyes. If you’re tasked with covering a campaign, that means decamping to a swing county, interviewing 30 people, then spending a week immersed with one or two of them. If you’ve done your job correctly, the story you find (and write) will always be more interesting than the one you dreamed up in Eastern Market before you got on the ground — because that story is true.

There’s plenty of lip service paid to longform and features in our business, but true commitment to this kind of journalism would require a lot more resources — and a different set of incentives. What is often most prized in Washington journalism is writing about what’s already being written about, because someone wants you to write about it. That’s a peculiar way to spend one’s time, but often a lucrative one.

Jose A. Del Real is a former national enterprise reporter for the Post.

If I could make one change to D.C. journalism, it’d be a durable business model. But if I could make one remotely viable change, it’d be mandatory semiannual sabbaticals. A certain myopia infects anyone who’s doing the same thing for too long, and myopia is a plague-level affliction when it comes to journalism. Being in Berlin has given me so much perspective on what D.C. journalism gets right and wrong. But even short vacations can do the trick.

I remember once taking a vacation with my family, then returning to work during Senate confirmation hearings for a candidate who was obviously going to get voted through. And yet the entire city was focused on covering every detail of the hearings. With a modicum of outside perspective, I was able to ask: Why does this matter? It’s something I would have had trouble doing if I’d been fully immersed in the coverage. Get out of town from time to time! It does wonders for the mind, and for the work.

Aaron Wiener is a former Berlin bureau chief at the Post.

My first full-time reporting job was in The Washington Post’s Prince George’s County bureau covering business and economic development in one of the wealthiest predominantly Black communities in the country. It was a beat that gave me and other local reporters a perch for covering the county’s governance and exploring how officials directly shaped the daily lives of residents. From housing and economic development to public safety and education, decisions made by local officials demand consistent, informed scrutiny. I saw firsthand how policy choices affect communities’ growth and equity. That experience underscored the importance of journalists who understand the nuances of local systems and can translate them for the public.

As a former managing editor at the Post, I also know that accountability journalism is not automatic; it requires sustained investment, deep sourcing and editorial independence. The DMV needs strong local news outlets. Gaps in coverage can allow inefficiencies, inequities and misconduct to persist unchecked. A vibrant local press ensures transparency, strengthens civic engagement and ultimately helps build a more responsive and equitable society.

Krissah Thompson is a former managing editor of the Post.

There’s an old-school idea that reporters should fade entirely to the background in a story. But over the years, I’ve come to believe that is often a mistake.

Journalism — at least for now and I hope for a long time to come — is a human enterprise. Any given story is the result of hundreds of human decisions — about framing and quotes and structure and much more — by writers, editors, fact-checkers and copy editors. The vast majority of us work fanatically to get facts right and to do justice to the stories we are telling, but we aren’t robots, and our methods aren’t science.

I would guess most nonjournalists don’t realize just how much human work goes into stories — how laborious and challenging the process is, and also how subjective. So I wonder: If readers could see that journalism is the product of people — flawed and earnest, hardworking but with no claims to omniscience or perfection — wouldn’t they be more likely to give us the benefit of the doubt? Would more than 6% of Americans have “a great deal of confidence” that we are working in the public interest? And isn’t it possible, as A.I. takes over more fields, that the essential humanness of the journalistic process might come to be viewed as one of its best assets?

Reporters, of course, usually shouldn’t make themselves the story. But perhaps a bit more first-person narration — even if it’s just an occasional “told me” or “I asked” — could help readers to better understand the fundamental nature of what we do.

Richard Just is a former editor of the Post’s magazine. He is now editor of NOTUS Perspectives.

I’d love to see a serious rethinking of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. I know a lot of great, mission-driven journalists in Washington, but I think the public perception of D.C. journalists comes partly from images of a glitzy dinner where reporters clink glasses with the people they are supposed to cover. These days, with the Trump administration’s relentless campaign to undermine and disparage the press, this juxtaposition is even worse than in the past.

The disruption of this year’s event provides a perfect moment to move away from this flawed tradition into something that truly expresses its stated purpose — to celebrate the First Amendment and raise money for journalism causes. I’m not sure exactly what this would look like, but the smart, resourceful journalists in the correspondents’ association should do some brainstorming and be open to radical change. It shouldn’t be hard to come up with something better.

Margaret Sullivan is a former media columnist for the Post. She is now a columnist for The Guardian U.S. and author of the newsletter American Crisis.

Assuming by “D.C. journalism” we mean news about the D.C. region, I would have a lot more of it. Nationwide, almost 40% of local newspapers have disappeared over the last 20 years, according to a Northwestern University study. The decline of local news is a huge reason for our political polarization and dysfunction, because when people don’t get news about shared concerns in their communities (schools, roads, public safety), they turn to the partisan battlefield of national news. Our region is still healthier than most in its local news offerings, but we’re shrinking fast. That’s why I’m encouraged that The Star is bucking the trend.

Dana Milbank is a former columnist at the Post. He recently joined NOTUS and will write a political column for The Star when it launches.

This is an easy one for me. As we all know, The Washington Post has gone through troubled times. It’s a skeleton of what it once was. It’s no longer a local newspaper, which Washington desperately needs. The Metro section and Sports barely exist, and the Foreign desk has been downsized beyond recognition. This is the only real newspaper in the capital of the free world. My wish is that the Post will regain its momentum and will become once again the beacon of hope for journalism. Winning two Pulitzers this spring is a good start. But the only way this can really happen is if Jeff Bezos makes good on his promise to reinvest and create a long runway.

Sally Quinn is a longtime Post writer and the author of the novel “Silent Retreat.”

I landed in the Post newsroom as an intern straight out of college and straight into the Golden Age of Journalism. It was the summer of 1986, a time when legendary reporters like Bob Woodward still roamed the newsroom. Katharine Graham still worked in her 8th floor office, and Don Graham was publisher.

I watched with awe as reporters broke stories and wrote with fury on deadline, tapping away at keyboards on old computers. I watched as editors — who worked without spell-check — edited stories, combing for errors with nothing but dictionaries and institutional knowledge about the city.

At the end of that summer, the famous executive editor Ben Bradlee called me into his office. He put his feet on the desk and offered me a full-time job.

Over the next few decades, I tried to report about “real people” living in D.C. My reporting methodology was almost like that of a field anthropologist trying to chronicle the lives of ordinary people in the city. Scribbling in my notebook, I aimed to capture the way people spoke. It was my intent to translate “street wisdom” and honor the rhythm of real life in D.C. My goal was not to report on politicians, but to humanize the people impacted by their decisions.

If there is one thing I would change about D.C. journalism today, it would be to bring back the style of those old-time “shoe-leather” reporters, the ones with institutional knowledge of the city, the ones who left their desks daily to report, pounding the pavement in search of great stories about ordinary people.

DeNeen L. Brown was a Post reporter for more than 35 years. She is now a professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

At the dawn of my 25-year run as the Post’s food critic, I generally ate with dining companions I knew — colleagues, friends and family — mostly because I wanted to protect my anonymity. The people I broke bread with for restaurant reviews had to follow my rules: Don’t call me “Tom” in restaurants, order what I tell you to, save something on the plate for others at the table to try, don’t share your opinion of the place until we were outside the restaurant.

Along the way, I expanded the circle to include people with whom I had less in common — socially, demographically, financially and otherwise. D.C. is often viewed as a bubble, and I aimed to burst it. Since it didn’t matter who I ate with for my job, only that I tried a range of menu items, why not eat with people who could teach me something? So I did. My crowd grew to include a rainbow coalition of people from all walks. Ultimately, the exercise became a habit, and the routine proved a master class in life. I know it changed the way I look at the industry I covered and improved my reporting and writing.

I’d encourage journalists at mainstream publications in particular to get out of their comfort zones: Go somewhere unfamiliar, sit on a bench where no one knows your byline, listen more than you pitch, broaden your circle, strike up conversations with strangers. Your best stories may be where you least expect to find them.

Tom Sietsema is a former food critic for the Post. He will be the food correspondent for The Star when it launches. He is also the author of the newsletter Next Course.