FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, Jan. 5, 2001

John Hall Named Senior Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON — Longtime Washington Bureau Chief John Hall has been named senior Washington correspondent for Media General News Service, a move that will free him to concentrate on his award-winning commentary and news analysis. In a related development, Gene Marlowe has become acting bureau chief, taking over the day-to-day operations and administration of the Washington Bureau.

"John has expressed a desire to do what he does best — write and report about politics, as well as national and international trends that help our readers understand the world. This move allows him to do just that," said H. Graham Woodlief, president of the Media General Publishing Division.

Hall, a correspondent in the nation's capital since 1965, is largely responsible for building the six-person Washington Bureau that gives Media General newspapers the lowdown on national news and politics. He will continue his twice-a-week columns, which regularly rank among the top 10 stories distributed throughout the Southeast by the Media General News Bank.

A graduate of West Virginia University, Hall worked for United Press International as national security writer and the Hearst Newspapers as chief political writer before joining Media General in 1979. He has won the H.L. Mencken and Raymond Clapper awards for investigative reporting, and is a member of the Gridiron Club.

Marlowe, who was deputy bureau chief, has been a writer and editor in Washington since 1978, when he arrived as the Winston-Salem Journal's correspondent. His weekly economics column is popular with Media General newspapers. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1966.

Media General is an independent, publicly owned communications company situated primarily in the Southeast with interests in newspapers, television, interactive media, and diversified information services. Media General's publishing assets include The Tampa Tribune, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Winston-Salem Journal, and 22 other daily newspapers in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina, as well as nearly 100 weeklies and other periodicals and a 20 percent interest in The Denver Post. Media General's 26 network-affiliated television stations reach more than 30 percent of the television households in the Southeast.