The Agriculture Department wants to hire a new editor for its single-sheet publication, Ag AM, which provides up to two dozen or so news blurbs daily for agency brass. Pay: $33,218 a year to start, with a top of $60,683. So far there have been 41 applicants, including some USDA information specialists who see an opportunity to boost their career prospects. The Ag AM report is issued five days a week, Monday through Friday, except on federal holidays, of course. Mostly it consists of single paragraphs summarizing stories from newspapers, wire services and news magazines. Ed Curran, who retired in 1984 after 20 years working for the department's Office of Information, was privy to the inside workings of Ag AM since it began during the Carter Administration. Now publisher of his own private newsletter, Curran offers a look at the history of the publication and how it grew. Someone in USDA thought the White House practice of providing President Carter with daily news summaries would be good for then-Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland, Curran said in his latest issue. At first the daily summaries were sent only to the secretary and his office staff. But Bergland, who had read the news blurbs, ``began talking about things'' in the news that were not known to senior aides, including the deputy secretary and assistant secretaries. So the press run of Ag AM was increased, and the information office staffer who was responsible for its publication had to begin work earlier, by 6 a.m., for example, instead of the later regular starting time. ``By the time the Reagan administration came upon the scene, Ag AM was a staple at USDA,'' Curran said. Being on the offical list to get one was ``sort of like the government equivalent of a key to the executive washroom.'' The daily press run was increased to 100 copies, to take care of the demand from all the deputy assistant secretaries, administrators of agencies and staff economists. Meanwhile, the bureaucrats in the USDA's information office heard on the grapevine that Agriculture Secretary John R. Block ``was so smitten with Ag AM that he demanded copies to be telexed to him when he was on trips,'' Curran said. However, Block's successor, Richard E. Lyng, ``could care less'' about the news sheet, he added. ``One thing bureaucrats learn early in the game is that when something has the sweet smell of success about it, get behind it with all you've got,'' Curran said. ``So, why not devote more time to Ag AM? Make it a full-time job.'' Curran wryly observed that the information office, meanwhile, scuttled its long-standing weekly Farm Paper Letter, which was ``the department's main contact with the nation's farm magazine editors and farm editors of its daily newspapers.'' Curran named his twice-monthly newsletter the Farm Paper Letter, after the publication he wrote during his 20-year USDA career. Today, 100 copies of Ag AM are delivered to Lyng's office area, alone, Curran said. In all, the press run is 350 copies a day. ``This from an outfit that's vowed to save us money,'' he said. Dave Lane, director of the Office of Information, told The Associated Press it may take some time to select a new full-time Ag AM editor (the previous editor died earlier this year). Was there any consideration given to canceling Ag AM? No, Lane said. Why not? ``I guess because of the ... importance of that publication to inform our top officials,'' he said. ``It's one of the most widely distributed of all the things that we put out.'' Besides the copies distributed within USDA here, the daily news blurbs are now sent electronically to universities, state agriculture departments and other government offices. The report is also available to private users of USDA's electronic information system.
