Marsha Mercer

MARSHA D. MERCER is bureau chief of Media General News Service and a weekly columnist on national and political affairs. Since joining the bureau in 1980, she has logged well over 70,000 miles on the road, listening to what people say about their government, politicians and policies.

Mercer began her newspaper career writing bridal announcements at The Richmond News Leader. In 1976, she joined the Richmond Times-Dispatch in the Charlottesville bureau, later becoming bureau chief. She has covered every national Democratic and Republican presidential convention and New Hampshire primary since 1984. Mercer covered the White House from 1993 to 2003, when she was named chief of the Washington bureau.

The recipient of numerous state and national writing awards, Mercer won Media General's D. Tennant Bryan award for column-writing in 2006 and 2007, and for feature writing in 2001 .

A graduate of Stephens College in Missouri, Mercer earned a master's degree in English from the University of Virginia. She has been an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland's College of Journalism.

Mercer is a member of the Gridiron Club and National Press Club.

Marsha Mercer can be contacted by e-mail or at 202-662-7670

Read Marsha's columns

Billy House

Billy House joined the bureau in March 2007.

House came to Media General after five years as The Arizona (Phoenix) Republic's Washington reporter. In that job, he covered Arizona's members of Congress, traveled to several 2004 presidential primaries and debates, and wrote on other subjects, such as the friendly-fire death of former NFL player-turned soldier Patrick Tillman.

House previously worked at Gannett New Service as a Washington correspondent for nine New York state newspapers, and for Gannett as a state capitol reporter in Albany, N.Y. He graduated from The Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree. He also has a law degree from the University of South Carolina.

Billy House can be contacted by e-mail or at 202-662-7873.

Sean Mussenden

Sean Mussenden joined Media General News Service in June 2005 as a national correspondent in the Washington bureau.

Mussenden came to Media General from the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel's state capital bureau in Tallahassee. During his tenure at that paper, he traveled Florida and the Southeast covering a variety of subjects – state and national politics, the Walt Disney Co., NASCAR, multiple hurricanes and the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia.

The Washington, D.C.-area native previously worked for The (Annapolis, Md.) Capital, Capital News Service, and American Journalism Review magazine. He graduated from Maryland's St. Mary's College with a bachelor's degree. He has a master's degree from the University of Maryland.

Sean Mussenden can be contacted by e-mail or at 202-662-7668

Amy Dominello

Amy Dominello joined Media General News Service in January 2008 as a senior multimedia reporter in the Washington bureau.

Amy came to Media General from the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record. She covered a variety of beats and was the paper's first reporter dedicated solely to the Web site. During her five years there, she covered several major stories including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Virginia Tech shootings.

Prior to joining the News & Record, Amy worked as a city editor for the Montgomery (Md.) Journal, where she directed coverage of the 2002 deadly sniper shootings in Montgomery County. She also covered Maryland politics for the Prince George's (Md.) Journal and Capital News Service.

Amy has a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland.

Amy can be reached at 202-662-7671 or adominello@mediageneral.com

Neil H. Simon

Neil H. Simon joined the Media General News Service Washington Bureau in January 2008 as senior multimedia reporter.

A native of Oregon and an award-winning television news reporter, he first came to the Capital as a Congressional Fellow, with a small group of U.S. journalists selected by the American Political Science Association to study Congress from the inside.

With a focus on making government more accessible through reporting, he began his Washington work as a freelance reporter and producer for WRC-TV (NBC-Washington), the CBS News Washington Bureau, Fox News, and public radio.

Simon has reported at KNDO-TV (NBC-Yakima,Wash.) KTSM-TV (NBC-El Paso), KOB-TV (NBC-Albuquerque). In his career he's covered three national political conventions, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, presidential debates, drug smugglers and human rights conditions in Mexico, state and local government in Texas and New Mexico.

He has also produced several award-winning documentaries, including "Inside Bill Richardson," and "Clearing the Air," a study of the politics behind municipal smoking bans.

Simon is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

He can be contacted at (202) 662-7669 or nsimon@mediageneral.com.