Well, this is going to be the real news of the season at Olympia: Dave Ammons is leaving the Associated Press to go to work for the secretary of state's office.
We've not had the pleasure of meeting Ammons, in person; but years of reading his weekend columns on Washington politics for so many years makes that seem a detail. Political reporter at Olympia for the AP since 1971, he may be one of the handful of truly key statehouse reporters in the country, in place so long as to develop an overwhelming memory of what has been (with insight into what will be), and the best news platform of all, the AP. For those outside the news business: Most news used by newspapers and broadcasters gets there via the AP, and the AP's coverage of stat events and politics is what most people around a given state read about it.
David Postman of the Seattle Times wrote a 2001 column on Ammon. It's worth a read, and a reflection on how little point there would be to such a column at all if the subject were most journalists. But Ammon - the source, certainly, of a large chunk of what we've come to learn about Washington politics - is one of the exceptions.