Is the Lansing State Journal on its death bed and why should we care?
For the past couple of decades a good conversation-starter has always been about how poorly the State Journal covers the local area. It worked whether you were in a coffee shop, a bar, at church or in the grocery store.
Now the issue of the State Journal’s continued existence takes on fresh meaning as the paper gets thinner and thinner in its coverage of just about anything. The buzz around town and the perception by reading it is that the paper is struggling for its life.
Will it be a loss for our community if and when it stops publishing?
Now keep in mind that the historical role of the news media is to keep public officials at all levels accountable. The role of newspapers in our culture has been vital to our democracy in keeping readers informed by being their eyes and ears. When they have stumbled in the role, politicians have run amuck and abused their power.
The quality of life in mid-Michigan will be directly affected by the potential closing of the State Journal.
A case in point are the property tax troubles of one of Lansing’s newest city council members Tina Hougton. The City Pulse, a weekly newspaper with a beat reporter for Lansing City Hall, broke the story that Houghton and her husband had substantial unpaid local property taxes.
To be fair, plenty of local families have had problems coming up with the dough to pay their semi-annual taxes to the city. That’s not unusual in itself. But, when she ran for her city council seat which she subsequently won, she apparently failed to share that her property taxes were in arrears.
As a result, there are questions about whether she lied on the paperwork for her candidacy, whether she violated the city charter and whether city officials failed to properly vette her as a candidate to see if she was qualified to run.
None of this was reported in the State Journal until the City Pulse published its story. Both stories failed to answer logical questions to give local residents a proper and complete view of the situation.
Other examples of no reporting or incomplete reporting exist. The result is that citizens have lost an independent and powerful set of eyes and ears watching their local units of government. This means that local officials will be emboldened to take short cuts or to act improperly without any accounability.
There will be more “Tina-gates” with local public officials who will be tempted to act as if there are one set of rules for themselves and another set for the taxpayers.
What can we do? One thing is to demand that the Lansing State Journal be more transparent about its situation and about the number of reporters it has covering the local area.
Can it merge qualified citizen journalists to fill-in the coverage gaps?
Or should it be honest that its future is hanging by a thread and its breaking could shutdown the paper at anytime?
Anybody have any thoughts, comments, ideas or alternatives?
I think that the owner of the LSJ, Gannett Corp., has sacrificed sustainable papers such as the LSJ used to be in order to prop up non-sustainable papers like the Freep. Instead of having a few good papers fulfilling their proper roles as watchdogs, they would rather have a lot of pee-poor papers not doing any job except bringing in a straggling few ad dollars here and there but keeping up the print count overall to maintain Gannett’s stranglehold on the market. It’s pathetic to see what the LSJ has devolved into.
Wes, you put into words what a lot of us have been thinking for a long time. Here’s a quiz about Lansing media that I have been playing around with. It would be interesting to see whether your visitors agree with this assessment:
WHICH LANSING MEDIA ARE YOU?
I am a young public relations professional who only wants to hear good news. (Capital Gains)
I am an old right-wing crank who lives for the joy of leaving nasty comments at the bottom of online stories. (LSJ)
I should be living in Ann Arbor. (WKAR/Michigan Public Radio)
I like playing Sudoku between classes. (State News)
I am a fabulous person who keeps up with the times and cares passionately about my local community. (Lansing Online News)
My lips move when I read and the only news I care about is sports scores, school closings and the weather. (WILX/WJIM)
I like reading long, meandering articles without any index to act as a roadmap. (Lansing City Pulse)
Too harsh? Too kind? Or Goldilocks - just about right?
Yes, LSJ is a shrunken shadow of what it was just a few years ago.
But, part of the problem is that many former readers just refuse to support their own local newspaper and rather than buy or even look at the LSJ bemoan the terrible abyss into which it has fallen.
Losing the LSJ will be a tragedy for our community. The City Pulse, online media, and broadcast media are not a replacement for a vital community newspaper covering local. national, and international news. And, are difficult to ponder with toast and coffee each morning.
Dick-Is the LSJ too far gone to be moved from the abyss, as you described it? Why do you feel that the community has been so tepid in its support of the paper? Poor editorial decisions? The movement to online content?
By-the-way, I too feel it would be a tragedy to lose a newspaper that has a long history in this area. To me, it seems like the devolution of the LSJ started long before the ascendance of online content-Wes
Thanks for posting this Wes. And thank you Bonnie for your insight (for the record, I used to live in Ann Arbor).
This is a very difficult time for local media. But with challenges come opportunities (or something like that). I don’t pray for the survival of any individual media outlet in Mid-Michigan. I pray that those who care about what happens in their communities will recognize the importance of quality, reliable information.
How many people does it take to cover a city like Lansing and a region like Mid-Michigan? Those people cost money…and you get what you pay for. I would love to see an organization or organizations find a realistic and durable way to finance journalism in this region. I don’t think Ganette is that organization. Perhaps it’s Lansing Online News. Maybe it’s WKAR. Or maybe, by some miracle, we all work together.
Rob South, Reporter/Producer WKAR
There’s a reason they make both chocolate and vanilla. I agree with Rob South that waiting for Gannett to invest in quality journalism is like waiting for the fox to come up with a retirement plan for chickens. The non-profit model offers much more opportunity for journalistic independence, but even then, I would argue that most existing models are far too timid. It’s akin to academic freedom - the people granted the freedom are almost always those who have proven they won’t speak out. Remember that the prevailing concept of journalistic objectivity was not introduced as an ethical solution to a problem of bias - it was a corporate commercial decision designed to broaden the audience by not offending anyone. LSJ has been a toothless watchdog for years. Now it appears they don’t even send a reporter to City Council. That’s not a failure of investigative journalism - that’s just a failure. I am beginning to think that journalism is too important to be left in the hands of the professionals. Could the citizens do a worse job? I think of Tom Paine and his pamphleteering as the model for a new online citizen journalism. Passion may ultimately prove more important than a paycheck.
Why not start something insane: one of those great non-profit journalism models? Something like http://www.propublica.org/
I am certain there are other ventures, some where journalists come together and tackle a specific issue, some where journalists are pulled in to a new business, etc. There’s a lot slipping through the cracks, and it’s because there’s simply not enough people who think they ought to pay for news. If every person who complained about the LSJ instead gave money to a non-profit media outlet, imagine what could be done.
Bonnie, your comment about the media outlets made me laugh out loud. I, too, wish CP had a table of contents.