Jim Shella: Local journalists are the linchpin of democracy

The news. It keeps changing.

A few months back, I wrote about the growing number of online news options in Indiana. I left out the Indiana Citizen, a website at IndianaCitizen.org that began primarily as an effort to increase voter turnout. It is now focusing on political journalism and government coverage. There is also the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University. It uses the efforts of students, both graduates and undergraduates, to carry out projects that get reported by established media outlets.

Now the Local News Initiative, with backing from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, is joining the fray. It hopes to have 25 Indiana reporters.

So, is there enough journalism to hold the powerful accountable and keep the public informed?

No.

That’s because the audience is fractured. It’s hard to know which website to bookmark to learn the news of the day. And that means reporters lack the notoriety and gravity that helps them get answers to difficult questions. When local newspapers ruled the roost, front-page bylines led to access. Established columnists had voices that carried the weight to affect public opinion and change the minds of elected officials. The same goes for TV and radio reporters, who were allowed to devote themselves to a beat and establish sources in ways that are difficult to accomplish under current approaches to broadcast news.

Now, while fledgling websites lay down roots, many of us still look to The Indianapolis Star for a record of what goes on in this state. Too often, we’re disappointed. A couple of weekends ago, multiple tornadoes struck Indiana on a Friday evening. Five people were killed. The Star print edition reported nothing about the storms (there was ongoing coverage at IndyStar.com) until Monday. That’s not the behavior of a trusted news source.

A former Star reporter sent a tweet recently spelling out that, in the year 2000, 300 people worked in the Star newsroom. Now, there are fewer than 50. Blame Gannett Co. Inc., but Gannett is not going to change its business model.

That means it’s up to us, the news consumers, to figure out where the best sources for news are and follow them so that someday we can all replace our memories of a “newspaper of record” with something more current.

And that brings me to Donald Trump.

Didn’t see that coming? Stay with me.

Trump began his first campaign for president by labeling the mainstream media as “fake news.” His obvious goal was to hurt the credibility of respected journalists. I was on the media stand at Trump rallies and saw how his supporters cheered the name-calling and jeered at journalists who might well have been writing a positive story about their candidate.

Now indictments accuse Trump of a scheme called “catch and kill.” The idea was to identify damaging stories and make payoffs intended to keep potential sources quiet in order to protect Trump’s image. It began in 2015, according to the indictment.

The publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, would identify the stories and help arrange payments made by Trump, according to the district attorney, suggesting that Pecker’s publication is, in fact, fake news.

Real news outlets, meanwhile, are still engaged in reputation repair for crimes they didn’t commit.

Help them. Support your local journalists. The ones at established media outlets and the ones at the online startups. They are a linchpin in this experiment in democracy.•

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Shella hosted WFYI’s “Indiana Week in Review” for 25 years and covered Indiana politics for WISH-TV for more than three decades. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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