Local news reporting: Who killed curiosity and when did it die?

My hometown newspaper ran a story today that said there are 12 reported cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant in West Virginia. The story was reprinted from another newspaper owned by the same media chain, and failed to mention that one of the cases is right here in Marion County. That would have been useful to know, so my wife—a curious sort—went to another source and found that piece of information.

Now, before you click off, this is not another essay about Covid-19 and its variant cousins. It’s an essay about local news in the year 2021 and the apparent death of curiosity.

First off, it’s bad enough that the local paper only publishes four days a week now and operates with a skeleton staff, or that it doesn’t cover a lot of important stories and has to print news from its sister publications, or that most of the stories it does publish are days old and have already been posted on Facebook … but what’s really sad is that on a story as important as the Covid pandemic, no one bothered to pick up a phone, call the local Health Department and ask if there was a Delta case in our county. It would have been so easy to add a single sentence to the story they had taken from somewhere else.

A couple of years ago, our hometown college basketball team went on a two-game road trip and the star player sat on the bench and never played in either game. There was nothing in the paper to explain what happened, so I emailed the Sports Department and asked if he was hurt or just being disciplined for some infraction, and got this reply: “I don’t know. We don’t go to away games.”

Seriously? We have a highly successful Division II basketball team in our city and you don’t go to road games? Okay, but don’t you watch the live streams like I do, and weren’t you a little bit curious as to why the star player was seated on the bench wearing a sweat suit?

Here’s another sports story: This year, the second-best player on the women’s team was injured early in the season. When she didn’t return after several games, I asked the Sports Department if she was coming back at all. The reply: “I don’t know. She’s on the bench during games but she’s not in uniform.” Again, where’s the curiosity?

(You realize that even small colleges like Fairmont State have sports information departments who exist solely to deliver sports information to the public. That’s why they call them the sports information department. I’m sure they have both telephones and email so here’s an idea: Why don’t you call them up and ask?)

And here’s one more: Back before Covid, there was a traffic accident in which a car struck a fire hydrant releasing an unknown quantity of water into the street. The quantity was unknown because no one bothered to ask the Water Department. I believe the story mentioned “a lot of water.” Also, if I recall correctly, the story also failed to identify the driver of the car, even though he was still at the scene and was just standing around when the reporter arrived. I guess the question, “What is your name” was too challenging for him to ask.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know that things are different from when I was a reporter. That struck home when our local paper ran an ad seeking a “multi-media specialist”—what they call reporters today—and I realized I wasn’t qualified for the job despite 13 years in the business. It seems that newspaper technology has passed me by, not that I care, being retired and all. Still, it saddens me to see what has become of local reporting. 

Aside from the ability to write, the key qualification for a journalist should be natural curiosity … as in the ability to know what questions to ask, how to ask them and who to ask, and not being afraid to ask them. Many years ago, when I thought I knew everything, my first editor taught me to stop writing for myself and start writing for my readers. “What does it mean to the people out there and why should they care?” he told me once, adding that a good reporter never writes a story that raises more questions than it answers.

So with that in mind, I want to know who killed curiosity and when it died. Was it the sound bite that did the deed? Or social media? Is everybody writing for the website now and the serious reader be damned? Is it so important to get the news first and fastest that accuracy and thoroughness have been thrown away? Or are staffs too small, too overworked, too poorly paid and too poorly trained to get the complete story, or even to care what the complete story ought to be?

I suspect it is all of those things, and someday, when all of the newspapers have closed their doors and local print journalism is dead, we may look back and think that as much as anything, it helped to kill itself.

I wonder about these things because, well, because I’m curious, and I wish that today's local reporters were, too. I mean, I still don't know what happened to that basketball player who got hurt or whether we'll ever see her play again. I guess I'll find out when the next season starts.

Or maybe not.

When you connect the dots, whose face do you see?

A lot of people are wondering these days why Joe Manchin, the senior senator from West Virginia and a Democrat, opposes the legislation known as the “For the People Act.” It’s a bill that would expand access to the ballot box for all Americans, establish non-partisan commissions to carry out congressional redistricting and enhance election security, among other provisions.

To pass the bill, with the Senate split 50-50 between the two parties, either 10 Republicans would have to vote in favor (which they won’t do) or a majority of senators would have to abolish the filibuster rule that currently requires 60 votes for passage. With the filibuster in place, the legislation tagged S.1 in the Senate appears to be dead.

So why would Manchin break with his own party and oppose the most important piece of legislation to come before lawmakers this year? Let’s try to connect the dots.   

Dot 1: According to The New Yorker magazine, the “For the People Act” is immensely popular with the American people, including Conservatives and Liberals alike.

Dot 2: One lesser-known provision of the bill would shine a light on the “dark money” used anonymously by big-bucks donors to buy politicians and influence the outcome of elections.

Dot 3: A major proponent of dark money spending, and hence an outspoken opponent of S.1, is the Koch Brothers organization.

Dot 4: The Koch Brothers are also major backers of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a self-described “nonprofit” organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives who draft model legislation to be introduced into governing bodies around the country. Among other things, ALEC supports the broadening of voter identification laws to restrict minority voting, making it harder for them to vote instead of easier—the exact opposite of S.1.

Dot 5: The Koch enterprise and other dark money advocates acknowledge the popularity of the legislation, and have admitted that the only way to effectively kill it is with the Senate filibuster rule.  

Dot 6:  As late as January of this year, Joe Manchin was listed as a member of ALEC, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, a national watchdog organization. (I asked his campaign if he was still a member. They have not replied to my email query, but it's really irrelevant. At the very least, he has been reported to be a member in the past.)

Dot 7: Joe Manchin says he will never vote to abolish the filibuster.

Dark Money

In 2010, in the Citizens United case, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for millions of untraceable dollars to flow into our elections when it ruled 5-4 that corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections as expressions of free speech. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “The justices who voted with the majority assumed that independent spending cannot be corrupt and that the spending would be transparent, but both assumptions have proven to be incorrect.”

Since that time, by one estimate, more than $1 billion has been paid out to candidates and campaigns, and since the donors can remain secret, voters have no way of knowing who is trying to influence their votes. Under the For the People Act, organizations would be required to disclose donors who contribute more than $10,000 to a candidate or campaign.

The Filibuster

According to The New Yorker:

“In public, Republicans have denounced Democrats’ ambitious electoral-reform bill, the For the People Act, as an unpopular partisan ploy. But behind closed doors, Republicans speak differently about the legislation. They admit the lesser-known provisions in the bill that limit secret campaign spending are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. Their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections.”

A research director for a Koch-run advocacy group warned fellow Republicans that “conservatives were actually as supportive as the general public was” when presented with a neutral description of the legislation. As a result, he conceded, the legislation’s opponents would have to rely on Republicans in the Senate to use the filibuster to stop the bill, because turning public opinion against it would be “incredibly difficult.”

Political Pressure

Therefore, without the benefit of public support, opponents of S.1 decided they needed to pressure certain members of the Senate to swing over to their side, The New Yorker said. One such event occurred on March 20 of this year, “when conservative groups including Heritage Action, Tea Party Patriots Action, Freedom Works and the local and national branches of the Family Research Council organized a rally in West Virginia to get Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat, to come out against the legislation. They also pushed Manchin to oppose any efforts by Democrats to abolish the Senate’s filibuster rule, a tactical step that the party would probably need to take in order to pass the bill.”

Manchin has since insisted that the filibuster must remain in place to “protect democracy,” and that forcing S.1 through the Senate on a partisan vote would “further divide America.”

So let’s recap:

* The “For the People Act” would make it easier for Americans to vote, secure elections, eliminate partisan gerrymandering of voting districts and shine a light on secret campaign financing. It would benefit everybody except dark money donors who attempt to buy elections for their chosen candidates and voter suppression advocates who attempt to pass legislation to steal them.

* Most Americans support this legislation and want their elected representatives to vote for it.

* The bill passed the House of Representatives in March and was sent to the Senate, where 60 votes are required for passage. No Republican senators have supported the bill, which means it will fail unless the Democratic majority votes to abolish the filibuster rule and pass the bill on a 51-50 vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote.

* The roadblock to abolishing the filibuster is Senator Joe Manchin.

So I ask again: Now that you’ve connected the dots, whose face do you see?