By Eric Freedman
This column originally appeared in Domemagazine.com.
When I joined the Lansing Bureau of the Detroit News, the paper was in the process of vastly expanding its Capitol staff to more than a dozen, including a photographer and political columnist. We were by far Michigan’s largest bureau covering state government and politics.
That was 1984, when the newspaper’s then-editor felt that major issues affecting Southeast Michigan as a region and the state as a whole could be better covered from Lansing than from Detroit. We had a House reporter and a Senate reporter. Another covered the governor’s office. Still others covered prisons, the utility industry, social services, the attorney general, the environment and agriculture. My beat was covering the justice system, including the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
It wasn’t perfect: Our bureau in a converted house on Seymour Street had too few computers and parking spots, and we sometimes tripped over each other as our beats overlapped. But stories from Lansing got great play on the front page. We had time for enterprise stories and investigative projects.
We had money to travel on assignment. We had enough staff to follow the goings-on at cabinet departments and commissions that have a direct impact on the day-to-lives of our citizenry.
Not to sound unrealistically nostalgic or curmudgeonly, but those were heady days.
And the News wasn’t the only news organization willing to devote resources to state government coverage. Our major rival, the Free Press — although substantially smaller than the News’ in Lansing staff size and circulation– was an aggressive competitor.
The Associated Press had four correspondents plus a photographer. Booth Newspapers — predecessor to today’s MLive — had a hefty-sized and talented bureau. United Press International was here. So was the Oakland Press. A Detroit TV station stationed a journalist here full-time.
Overall, there’s now far less competition, which translates into less aggressive coverage.
Two recent events brought this media history to mind for me.
First, a Capitol press corps reunion last August — organized by Larry Lee, erstwhile of Gongwer, and Lani Jordan, formerly of UPI — drew journalists and ex-journalists from the 1960s to the 2010s, most no longer in the news business. There were reminiscences and war stories. There were embarrassing moments and journalistic triumphs remembered. There were scandals relished and rehashed. There were friendships rekindled. And given that journalists were the focus, there were drinks and food.
Then the Senate Fiscal Agency invited me to an early January staff meeting to talk about changes in the Capitol press corps and how the Legislature and state government get covered, or don’t get covered today. It was an opportunity for me to recall the 32-year trajectories I’ve participated in, including a continuing contraction of state government coverage. AP, down to two. Bloomberg down from one to none. The Detroit News and Free Press with a couple each. MLive Media Group recently laid off its Lansing editor, and the Michigan Radio Network did the same with a veteran reporter. No commercial TV station in the state assigns even a single journalist in Lansing full-time to cover state government and politics.
The Lansing State Journal is the dominant hometown news outlet for the state government’s geographic community. Government and related services, vendors, public affairs-related nonprofits, and political and advocacy organizations are major employers and economic forces in its circulation area. Yet the number of LSJ journalists focused on state coverage has yo-yoed over the years. Many public affairs stories in the LSJ aren’t original but come from the Free Press, also owned by Gannett.
Meanwhile, Michigan Public Radio is hanging strong — fortunately — with two strong and knowledgeable reporters. Archrivals Gongwer and MIRS continue to produce in-depth and comprehensive coverage for those who can afford to subscribe — and the comprehensive nature of their coverage underscores the gaps in what other news outlets cover. Inside Michigan Politics continues to provide insights for its subscribers.
Why so many drastic changes?
One easy answer are sea changes in the news industry and access to technology that have brought financial chaos — and sometimes oblivion — to many traditional print and news organizations.
The 24/7 news cycle that used to rule only the wire services is now standard as newspapers and broadcast stations constantly update their online content — often for news consumers who pay nothing for that content.
A reporter who used to generate one or two distinct stories a day now may end up doing multiple versions of a single story with updates throughout the day, tweets, blog posts, taking their own photos and shooting their own video. There’s less time for the essential fact-checking, editing and context that would reduce mistakes and improve clarity.
Certainly we’ve long gotten our public affairs news and information from multiple sources — daily local newspapers, community weeklies, national dailies like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, local and national TV news, commercial and public radio, TV interview shows and news magazines such as Time and Newsweek). Now we get more and more directly from advocacy groups, from politicians with their own cable shows, from bloggers and activists and from government agencies. Meanwhile, some Michigan newspapers have dropped AP membership, making them rely more on handouts from legislators, public agencies, members of the congressional delegation and other unfiltered news sources. I see press releases reprinted as if they were written by journalists.
And increasingly, the public isn’t willing to pay for online news content — a lesson that most newspapers — with the prominent exception of the Wall Street Journal — were too slow to learn. And once you give content away free, it’s tough to convince people to start paying for it again. That lack of revenue doesn’t reduce the cost of gathering and reporting the news, however.
Why does it matter?
First, the shrinking number of journalistic watchdogs makes it easier for the ne’er-do-wells and their apologists to shield favoritism, incompetence, corruption and partisan hanky-panky from public scrutiny. And when there are fewer reporters at the Capitol, many stories about what government does well and gets right don’t get told either.
Alongside independent media, we’ve long had publications with a pronounced political or policy point of view but with transparency about their funding, orientation and affiliation — such as publications from the Michigan Association of Manufacturers, the Sierra Club and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Beyond those affiliated outlets and beyond established, respected brands of newspapers and broadcast outlets, it’s often tough to weigh the credibility of a blog or online newsletter. While it’s good for the public to have rapid access to a wider variety of sources of news and information, those sources often don’t share the traditional professional journalistic commitments to fairness, balance, ethical standards and accuracy. Is there a partisan or ideological bias? An undisclosed or opaque affiliation? Hidden sources of funding? Are the writers and bloggers doing real reporting — conducting interviews, attending events, reading documents, seeking independent expert views, for example — or just ranting, spouting and making up “facts” to support their positions?
We’ve seen experimentation in ways to expand independent political journalism. On a national level, the biggest success story is Pro Publica, which describes itself as “an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.” It makes its work available to traditional print, broadcast and online news organizations and has won two Pulitzers, two Emmys and a Peabody Award.
Closer to home are Bridge Magazine from the nonprofit Center for Michigan on a statewide level and the Detroit Journalism Cooperative, focused on covering Detroit’s “bankruptcy, recovery and restructuring.” Both were created and operated primarily with foundation funding, opening the question of what would happen to such nonprofit journalistic enterprises if the money runs out.
“Betty Dupree,” a classic Peter Paul and Mary song, has this chorus:
Lie down Betty, see what tomorrow brings.
Lie down Betty, see what tomorrow brings.
May bring you sunshine, may bring you diamond rings.
But if you lose your man it won’t bring you anything.
When it comes to the future of the Capitol press corps, I’d tweak the lyrics this way:
Lie down public, see what tomorrow brings.
Lie down public, see what tomorrow brings.
May bring you sunshine, may bring you diamond rings.
But if you lose the press, it won’t bring you anything.