Here are some of my quick thoughts on IndyStar’s scoop that the administration of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (billed as a “small government” conservative) is starting a state-run taxpayer-funded news outlet called “Just IN.”
— The optics are distinctly odd. “State-run news service”? If they’d just called it “community journalism” or some such and steered clear of the North Korea/USSR references in their internal materials, this hullaballoo would probably be half as large.
— I can’t remember a similar initiative by a GOP administration to take a function already provided in the private sector (despite the media’s numerous cutbacks, we still plug away at public-affairs coverage) and allocate taxpayer money to in-source it. Usually officials who believe in small government want to spin off these functions, right? Perhaps Pence’s previous career as a broadcaster hosting a conservative talk-radio show influenced his thinking.
— For my part, I’m worried about the whole idea of this — like Matthew Tully I’m sitting here wondering if that’s as a journalist, as an American or as a taxpayer, and it might be all three — but I’m trying to take a wait-and-see attitude toward what they produce. My ex-colleague Bill McCleery heads it up, and he’s not a partisan guy. Like me, he is open to experimenting with new forms of journalism and was an early adopter with the rest of the IndyStar staff of social media and alternative story forms such as charticles. And he is far from alone in making the transition from journalism to a government and/or PR career.
— The “Just IN” project is of a piece with other “content marketing” initiatives in the business and nonprofit worlds. (Read this overview of Mashable.com’s recent coverage for more.) Brands such as sports teams and consumer goods makers hire experienced journalists to produce polished, engaging coverage that can be presented directly to your audience via the Internet, no mediation thru another outlet required. I value and support direct-to-the-public channels (Facebook is one) for journalism content and other information of importance to our lives.
— Generally, journalists who came up the traditional way and work for mainstream media outlets see the verbatim use of any sort of news release as a very poor practice, akin to plagiarism. This explains some of the outrage from professional journalists over the project’s initially reported aims. The IndyStar would not run a release’s wording verbatim or close to except as a news brief in an overall roundup of notable happenings — and that would just be for uncontroversial advisements such as “Trash collection is suspended Wednesday.” Anything regarding a matter in dispute should be independently verified and put in the writer’s own words. We do monitor the news releases for story ideas, but those are just supposed to be a starting point.
— Ironically, it was then-Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., who helped lead the push in 2011 to stop public funding of NPR. (See this March 2011 Fox News transcript.) Besides NPR, another example of existing public funding for news outlets are the legal notices that are required to be placed by local governments as classified ads, which is an implicit public subsidy especially of small newspapers. I don’t have a problem with such public funding of journalism and news media. However, I think that any media that receive a public subsidy in whatever form should have a nonpartisan mission (we can debate whether NPR or “Small Town Times” fulfills this in practice) or otherwise provide for a balanced and fair channel for presenting information about public affairs.
— Someone on Facebook asked me what my guess was as to the percentage of content used by IndyStar, my former employer, that came from official news releases. I can’t make a good guess, but I know that it is north of zero. It would be interesting to do an audit to compare local media coverage vs. the Just IN coverage for its first 3 months of existence. I’m curious too as to what % of coverage is driven or is similar to the govt & political parties’ PR releases, for TV and radio and other print/web, not just the Star. It would help evaluate to what degree, if any, Just IN will displace traditional news gathering and/or add to public understanding of policy issues.
What do you think? Add a comment or join the conversation on my Facebook page.
