When I told my close friends in Washington state that I was moving back to Indiana, many did not understand. Why would I trade the mountains and ocean of the Pacific Northwest for the Rust Belt, Middle America, Flyover Country? In my friends’ eyes, I was heading to an unwelcoming, featureless, and highly segregated area of the country.
Indiana is misunderstood.
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It’s clear to me that those dismissive labels rob us of our true identity. Just because our landscape is flat doesn’t mean we are one-dimensional. Just because we aren’t an airline hub doesn’t mean we aren’t worldly. Hoosiers are diverse, generous, community-minded, and enthusiastic sports fans. The Indianapolis I’ve come to know since I moved here in 2021, is friendly and welcoming, a foodie town and a sports mecca.
Why does this gap exist between how we see ourselves and how the world sees us? Much of it is due to the rising influence of national media and the declining influence of local media.
The national media narrative flattens us into caricatures, a habit that misrepresents who Midwesterners are and leads to distrust of the news media in general.
Indianapolis is the first media market anywhere to have a citywide public editor. And I have the privilege of being the first person to fill the role. I will serve as a liaison between news consumers and the Indianapolis news ecosystem, answering the questions of my audience and holding the press accountable.
The challenge
This is a big and daunting job, and I’m well aware of the challenges. Many people mistrust the news media, and our polarized political ideologies make it hard for us to trust each other. The mainstream media is widely regarded as elitist, serving the agendas of people in places like New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. and ignoring the needs of everyone else, including those of us living here in Indianapolis.
And yet, we have a wide range of local newsrooms here in Indy, including both commercial and nonprofit, recently formed and legacy companies that have served the city for decades.
In an effort to understand more about the trust gap, I reached out to a few experts who’ve been studying Midwesterners’ mistrust of the media and who also share an appreciation for places like Indianapolis.
Joy Mayer founded Trusting News, a nonprofit resource that helps journalists build credibility with audiences. “It’s so valid for people to feel overwhelmed by all the disparate, sometimes contradictory information they find around them,” she said. “And it is genuinely really difficult sometimes to know what is credible. Distrust has increased as people have more and more options for information.”
Mayer’s research shows that people are distrustful of information when they don’t see their lives and values reflected in the news.
She’s also clear-eyed about the myth of journalistic objectivity, or the idea that journalists don’t approach stories with their own biases. And, it’s not as simple as just political bias. Journalists see the world through the lens of their profession.
“It’s absolutely true that journalists are different from the communities they serve. More journalists live in urban liberal cities than the public overall. Journalists have higher levels of education than the public as a whole,” she said. “Journalists are products of their environment, the same as all of us.”
In some newsrooms, reporters and editors are unaware of this dynamic. And, as a result, they don’t know how to correct it, Mayer said.
I recognize that I could easily slip into this trap. I’m an African American woman who grew up with the rainbow of diversity represented in my classmates, in the suburbs of liberal Seattle, although I was born in Chicago and lived the first two years of my life in northern Indiana. My new job requires that I find ways to listen to everyone, not just people who have experiences similar to mine.
Of course, that’s how journalism is supposed to work all the time, according to journalism experts. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel the authors of “The Elements of Journalism,” stress in their book that verification and checking one’s bias are paramount to reporting.
“Acknowledging or being aware of one’s biases and initial reaction to events is obviously also the first step to a discipline of rigorous open-minded inquiry,” they write.
I intend to investigate audience questions and commentary on local media, being mindful that my experiences and bias might shape my initial reaction, but my reporting should inform my work. I’ve done much to acclimate myself to my new home and lay a foundation for understanding the city through volunteering, attending community events, cheering on teams and expanding my friendship circle. As a somewhat recent transplant to Indy since 2021, I am aware that there is a learning curve.
Repairing trust and rebuilding connection
Journalist and author Beth Macy gained a lens into this divide while collecting research for her latest book, “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America.”
Resentment grows when communities feel left out or left behind economically, having their working class decimated by globalization, Macy documents in her memoir “Paper Girl.”
“So many cities have been hurt by the conglomeration of the media, hedge fund owners, decline, the thinning out of reporters,” Macy said.
It’s easier for people to get their news from cable TV or Facebook than local news sources, Macy said, pointing to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology statistic that says lies spread six times faster than the truth on social media.
And yet, Macy finds hope in the resources and journalism models available to us here in Indianapolis. Efforts like nonprofit newsrooms, found in Mirror Indy, which celebrated its second anniversary in December, and Indiana Capital Chronicle, part of the nationwide States Newsroom network, Macy called “amazing.”
Nonprofit newsrooms are a growing part of our news landscape. They rely on funds from grants, donations and memberships rather than on advertising or subscriptions. But commercial media like the Indy Star, the Indianapolis Business Journal and our local TV stations, Fox59, WTHR, WRTV and WISH-TV, all play substantial and critical roles as well.
Macy believes that when journalists focus on listening and explaining, rather than entertaining or predicting the future, the news is more useful to consumers. So does transparency. Why do journalists think a topic is important? Why invest so many resources on one particular story? Regularly answering those questions can do a lot to restore trust and connections, she said.
That’s where I come in. I intend to ask and answer these questions as well as other inquiries from news consumers here in Indianapolis.
How I’ll do the work
Here are the foundational principles I’m bringing to the job:
- Primary loyalty – There are many important stakeholders surrounding me as I start this process, but my first loyalty is to the people who live here in Indianapolis and the surrounding area.
- Listening – I will seek out ways to meet and listen to as many people as possible. I’ll be asking everyone where they find helpful news and what leaves them frustrated. I’ll also seek out the answers to your questions about how our local newsrooms operate.
- Fairness – Several newsrooms have signed on as partners to this project, meaning they will publish my columns. Currently, that list includes WFYI, Mirror Indy, and the Indiana Capital Chronicle. But I will scrutinize all the newsrooms that serve Indianapolis. The partners don’t get preferential treatment.
- Independence – This project was conceived by and I am an employee of the Poynter Institute, a global nonprofit that has taught journalism ethics and covered the media and complexities facing the industry for 50 years. This structure provides me with the support I need to independently report on our local newsrooms.
- Funding – The Hearst Foundation and the Lumina Foundation are backing this project. Both philanthropies have an interest in local journalism.
- I believe in journalism – I come to this work with an affinity for the hard work that journalists do. As an advocate for the free press, my mission is one and the same as Poynter’s: to uphold the integrity of the free press and the First Amendment, to the U.S. Constitution, building confidence in journalism and the media.
Ask me anything:
You can reach me by email, IndyPublicEditor@Poynter.org.
Or join me for some refreshments at the Indy Public Editor Meet And Greet from 6-7:30 p.m. March 11 at the Central Library. It’s free. Please register here.
Finally, if you want to get my weekly column in your inbox, please sign up here.
The Indy Public Editor is a grant-funded pilot project run by the Poynter Institute. This column is edited by Kelly McBride and copy edited by Lauren Klinger. The project is managed by Nicole Slaughter Graham with support from Amaris Castillo.
Mirror Indy publishes the Indianapolis public editor columns as part of a partnership with Poynter Institute to increase media literacy and trust in local journalism.