NEW YORK — When the Indianapolis Star broke the news Monday night that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a possible 2016 Republican contender, was planning to launch a “state-run news outlet” to compete against local media outlets, journalists widely took umbrage on Twitter over an idea that seemed more likely to come out of an authoritarian country than a Midwestern state.
Indiana journalists took particular offense at the idea of taxpayer dollars funding a service that would publish reports presumably favorable to Pence’s administration, under the guise of authentic news stories. (Monday’s report indicated that the outlet will be helmed by former Indianapolis Star reporter Bill McCleery.)
“Every professional journalist in Indiana should join me in denouncing Gov. Pence’s state-run ‘news service,” Indianapolis Star investigative reporter John Russell tweeted Monday night. And the paper’s opinion editor Tim Swarens urged Pence on Tuesday to “do the right thing and pull the plug on this horrible, terrible, really no-good idea.”
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Mary Beth Schneider, who worked at the Indianapolis Star for 35 years and spent much of that time covering the state government, told HuffPost on Tuesday that there were probably three times as many reporters in the statehouse when she started covering the legislature in 1991. Schneider, who left the paper last year, expressed concerns that some smaller Indiana publications, which don’t have a reporter in the statehouse or can’t afford news wires like The Associated Press, would consider running state-generated articles.
“There will be a temptation to pick up these so-called new stories,” she said. “They’re not news. They’re press releases.”
