Why the Absence of Journalism Matters

In a recent column for the Washington Post, Rachel Maddow highlighted why the presence–or increasingly, the absence–of local journalism is so critical. And by “journalism,” I don’t mean puff pieces about local celebrities, or articles about the best way to take care of your ingrown toenail, or “reporting” on new shopping or dining venues.I mean reporting. Journalism. As Rachel wrote:

If it weren’t for the dogged local press corps, Christie would still be ridiculing this story,attacking the legislators investigating it and persuading most of the national press to dismiss it.

…..

The bridge story is still unfolding. But the pattern of how the scandal came to national attention is familiar.

When Connecticut Gov. John Rowland was still denying the allegations of corruption that would ultimately force him out of office, his wife read a poem (to the meter of “The Night Before Christmas”) mocking Hartford Courant reporter Jon Lender at a local Chamber of Commerce meeting:

“When out on the yard there rose such a hub-bub,

I thought maybe Jon Lender had jumped in the hot tub.

Now surely that man needs to go soak his head,

but there on the lawn stood Santa instead.”

Lender didn’t jump into anything, but he did stay on the story, and the aforementioned hot tub turned out to be one of the illegal gifts that would send the governor to prison.

When then-South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was not hiking the Appalachian Trail but visiting his mistress in 2009, reporter Gina Smith from the State newspaper drove 200 miles to be in the Atlanta airport at 6 a.m. as Sanford got off his overseas flight. His ruse thus unraveled.

When Mayflower, Ark., learned the hard way last March that an aging ExxonMobil pipeline ran under it, the Arkansas Times’s dogged reporting included a crowd-funding effort to pay for its reporters to team with journalists experienced in covering pipelines to get to the bottom of what ExxonMobil did and whether other communities with buried pipelines should feel protected by existing regulations.

Most of the time, national news happens out loud: at news conferences, on the floor of Congress, in splashy indictments or court rulings. But sometimes, the most important news starts somewhere more interesting, and it has to be dug up. Our democracy depends on local journalism, whether it’s a beat reporter slogging through yet another underattended local commission meeting, or a state political reporter with enough of an ear to the ground to know where the governor might be when he isn’t where he says he is, or a traffic columnist who’s nobody’s fool.

Here in Indianapolis, since Gannett acquired our one remaining newspaper, coverage of the statehouse has dramatically diminished, and coverage of city hall has pretty much gone missing.  About the only way citizens can gauge how well–or how poorly–Mayor Ballard is doing is by how long the snow remains on the ground and how many more people got shot overnight. (Local media does report on the kinds of overt criminal activity that don’t require investigation.)

I don’t know about you, but I’m curious about all the stuff we don’t know.

I miss having real news.

 

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Who’s Talking?

As long as we’re on the subject of First Amendment Free Speech rights, a federal judge has just handed down a decision that illuminates another aspect of those rights.

As I explained yesterday, our right to free expression is protected against government interference. Usually we think of that interference in terms of censorship, of government shutting us down. But this judge’s decision–which rests on decades of settled law–reminds us of another thing government cannot constitutionally do: it cannot compel our speech, either.

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday struck down a 2011 North Carolina law requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound and explain it to a woman before having an abortion, arguing it violated the constitutional right to free speech of doctors.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles found that a state does not have “the power to compel a health care provider to speak, in his or her own voice, the state’s ideological message in favor of carrying a pregnancy to term.”

If the right to free speech means anything, it means that we have a right to form our own opinions, based on the widest possible access to information, and to share those opinions with others, or not, as we see fit.

Being forced to recite a script and pretend it represents our own views, like being forced to affirm allegiance to a deity or a nation (see Barnett v. West Virginia Board of Education), isn’t just intellectually dishonest; it violates our most fundamental liberties.

Compelled speech is especially pernicious when it intrudes upon the doctor/patient relationship, which depends to a great extent upon the patient’s ability to rely upon the candor of her provider–to trust that her doctor is acting in her best interests.

The principle extends well beyond medical advice, however. If the government could tell professionals of any sort what to say, if lawmakers could impose “correct” communication on scientists, police officers, media figures… how would Americans ever be able to trust anyone?

How would we know who is really talking?

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You’re Fired!

In the wake of the Duck Dynasty dust-up, the Chik-Fil-A controversy and other events triggering “right to free speech” debates, we get this report from Huffington Post:

In the new survey, 45 percent of Americans said the First Amendment does not allow people to be fired from a job for expressing their views, while only 36 percent said such firings are allowed under the Constitution. Twenty percent said they weren’t sure.

Answers to other questions in the poll were equally depressing. The article’s provocative title was “Do You Know More About the First Amendment than Sarah Palin?”–and when the answer to that is “no,” you’ve really hit bottom.

The dismal poll results remind me of the young man who called the ACLU, back when I was Executive Director, and demanded that we sue White Castle for denying him his First Amendment rights. They’d refused to hire him, apparently because he was so heavily tattooed they found it unappetizing. I still remember him insisting “I have a right to free expression!” As I tried to explain, yes, and so does White Castle.

If the City of Indianapolis–or any unit of government–passes a law forbidding you from tattooing your body, then you’ve got yourself a genuine, real-life, rootin’ tootin’ constitutional challenge. When White Castle disapproves, you don’t.

If the government told A & E that it couldn’t suspend Mr. Homophobic Duck Guy, it would be violating A & E’s rights. If a local government refused to zone a Chik-fil-A because its owner is a homophobic jerk, it would violate Chik-fil-A’s rights. (Annoying as it may seem, jerks have constitutional rights too.)

Listen up, Americans! The Bill of Rights restricts what government can do. And one of the things government can’t do is protect you from being fired for shooting off your mouth.

Now was that so hard?

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Church and State

Here in Indiana, we’re used to religious warfare. We aren’t called the buckle of the bible belt for nothing.

Those battles generally pit people who understand religious liberty to require state neutrality in matters of belief against folks who want government to make everyone live in accordance with the “correct” beliefs (which just happen to be theirs).

That, in a nutshell (no pun intended) is what the current fight about HJR 3 is all about. Proponents can pontificate all they want about what’s best for children or society, but opposition to same-sex marriage (and the desire to send a message to GLBT folks that they really aren’t welcome here) is entirely based upon religious dogma.

Given the visibility and mean-spiritedness of so many self-identified “Godly” people, we sometimes forget that plenty of religious believers “get it.” They not only understand their God to require love and inclusion, but they also–importantly–recognize the threat to authentic belief posed by those who would use government to impose their doctrines on others.

Matt Boulton is President of Christian Theological Seminary. He testified at the legislative hearing against HJR 3, and although he made many other good points, his compelling closing observation deserves to be widely shared:

Now, my position as president of CTS puts me in relationship with a dazzling variety of Indiana religions and denominations and congregations and theological points of view.  Indeed, questions of human sexuality are matters of passionate debate within Christian circles; we have a good dose of that diversity at CTS.

 You’ll hear later today from the other side that civil unions would threaten the “traditional view of marriage” allegedly demanded by Christian faith, and so on.  I respect that perspective, even as I disagree with it.  But here’s the point I want to underline:  despite what those on the other side may say, there is no one Christian view of HJR-3.  Many Christians, even those who disagree on the underlying human sexuality issues, oppose HJR-3 because their Christian faith calls them to be open, hospitable, fair, and loving toward their neighbors.  And the role of the State, we respectfully suggest, is not to take sides in this theological debate, much less enshrine one side or the other in the Indiana state constitution.  Rather, the State’s role is to respect the religious diversity of our community on this question, and to allow freedom of religion – faith’s freedom – to flourish in Indiana by setting aside HJR-3 once and for all. (Emphasis supplied)

And let us all say, “Amen.”

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