What's so special about federal fellows?

In response to an Oct. 11 article about furloughed federal fellows, a reader commented:

Should one infer, from the article's exclusive focus on "federal fellows," that rank and file civil servants are not similarly disheartened and frustrated by federal furloughs?

Reid Davenport responds:

Not at all. FCW has done a number of stories on the shutdown's many ramifications for  federal employees of all stripes.

For example, Amber Corrin wrote on Oct. 9 that, "A week into the partial government shutdown, the ripple effects are becoming clearer. Cybersecurity is in jeopardy while deliverables are at a standstill, and some agencies are hollowed out. But at the center of the shutdown's impact are people."

Frank Konkel wrote an Oct. 8 article that centered around the tremendous bite the shutdown has taken out of the IT workforce at Veterans Affairs. And on Oct. 3, I wrote a piece on the hit the public IT workforce has taken across the federal spectrum.

The story about the fellows seemed inherently interesting because of the specificity of their work, stringent limits on their time of service and how their positions relate to federal technology. It was not intended to put their work on a pedestal that rose higher than other federal employees -- simply to offer another angle in FCW's continuing coverage of how the shutdown affects federal IT and the people who make it happen.