Pros
As this is technically government work, the work-life balance is pretty great. No overtime allowed or offered, so you can pretty much leave when your day is done. Lots of people immediately check out once 5pm rolls around; even more are impossible to reach outside of work hours. Male employees with children seem to get a lot of leeway to take time off for family business. Not many women with children in my immediate division, however.
Cons
Horrible parental leave — so don't plan on having children if you can swing it. Sick leave is pretty much all that's offered after FMLA and employees basically have to ask for fellow employees to donate their sick leave to you if you want any time to spend with your newborn. Pay is laughably low. Expect to make at least $20-30k less than in the private sector, especially for editorial roles. When you're working in the D.C. office, $40k a year is not a lot to work with. Impossible to support a family on such a sad salary. Most managers and upper level employees are men. Workplace is lacking in ethnic diversity, especially in management roles. When management or higher positions are opened, the tendency is to hire from outside instead of promoting from within, which leads to good talent leaving the company or becoming disillusioned. There seems a low sense of employee loyalty due to this. The business practices are very rooted in the "old guard" and this leads to a lack of understanding of how 21st century media workplaces are run. Very old school. Management is mostly concerned with hitting yearly review quotas as defined by how your job description is written. Don't rock the boat, or you become a target for being "let go."