* Thirty-six days before the election and Mike Riopell was just laid off by Lee Enterprises.
Lee owns the Post-Dispatch, Bloomington Pantagraph, Decatur Herald & Review, Quad City Times, the Southern Illinoisan, the Mattoon Journal-Gazette and the Charleston Times-Courier. Mike was a hard-working Statehouse reporter who really knew his stuff. His ejection will create yet another gaping hole in the press room.
* The American Journalism Review looked at this topic last year…
Many people running newspapers say they still want to cover state government. But as the news industry contracts, they say they feel forced to abdicate that role due to economic pressures.
“It’s definitely a loss,” says John Beck, executive editor of Illinois’ Champaign News-Gazette, which eliminated its sole statehouse reporter position in January 2008. “It was not an easy decision to make, but we had to make it for economic reasons.”
That’s a decision shared by many of his counterparts across the country. More than 140 newspapers have cut back on their coverage since 2003, and more than 50 have stopped providing staff coverage of state government altogether.
Beck’s coverage area is dominated by the University of Illinois. If there’s a newspaper in Illinois which really ought to have a Statehouse reporter, it’s that one. But, no. Instead, they rewrite press releases and reprint AP stories.
*The Illinois Times ran an article on this topic last month…
Rich Miller – an [Illinois Legislative Correspondents Association] member, the author of a syndicated column that runs in Illinois Times, and owner of Capitol Fax, an insider’s newsletter and blog detailing Illinois politics – says his business has grown “exponentially” since he started it in the early 1990s but says Capitol Fax was never intended for a general audience but to supplement regular news coverage for the benefit of “political junkies.”
“For them [traditional news outlets] to be cutting coverage is not only shortsighted but greed-based and moronic,” Miller says, pointing to the state’s budget deficit, imprisoned Gov. George Ryan and impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich. “On a citizen level and a journalistic level, I’m just appalled by it.”
[ILCA president Ray Long, the Chicago Tribune’s Statehouse bureau chief] remains optimistic. “I think that we’re just probably hitting the nadir and are about to climb back up,” he says. “I believe that journalism is in the recovery mode and that will translate into more Statehouse reporters. … Every news organization understands that there has to be keen observance of a major legislative body like the Illinois General Assembly.”
[Charlie Wheeler, former Statehouse reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times and now the director of a Statehouse reporting program at the University of Illinois Springfield] says that, going forward, news organizations must recognize that covering Statehouse action is a duty. “I would hope that the people who are in charge of these media properties would think about …some of the responsibilities that come with the First Amendment, freedom of the press privilege and realize that there is a certain responsibility they have to serve as the eyes and ears of their readers … and keep track of what’s going on in state government. And you really can’t do it from a distance.”
Unfortunately, Ray and Charlie were wrong and I was right. I truly hate being right about stuff like this. But I long ago stopped underestimating the extreme stupidity and boundless greed of editors and newspaper owners in this state. They don’t care about state news, and we can plainly see the results.
Oy.
- Ghost - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:19 pm:
As an aside, Rich have you ever thouh about expanding into the local stuff by sdding in localized subs and hiring these folks to fill the pages with an eat what you kill kind of thing?
- Rich Miller - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:21 pm:
I’m a reporter/columnist as well as a publisher, so I long ago decided that I’d rather just focus my efforts on what I know best.
- wordslinger - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:22 pm:
A Trib lifer friend of mine likes to tell stories of the decades he was there when the newspaper itself netted 25-30% year in and year out like clockwork.
A lot of dominant hometown newspapers did the same thing. Now that the ads are all gone, no one can figure how to run a good journalistic model.
- Draznnl (Rhymes with orange) - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:27 pm:
Rich, pretty soon you may be the lone active member of ILCA.
Meanwhile, the media companies think they don’t need reporters anywhere. It’s so much easier to just reprint press releases.
- Reddbyrd - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:28 pm:
Mike is a talented reporter and part of a group who don’t start out thinking all pols are crooks, which dear reader is true.
The real irony is the existence of entities like the Illinois State House News and Chicago News Cooperative. These two not for profits funded by donors who seem to be willing to pay reporters and give away the product.
Some are hand wringing about funding sources, but let’s face it do want news from not for profits or bankrupt companies who slimed around with Blagoof to get $100 million for Wrigley?
This should, as the late Steve Neal would say, start a little fun.
- Downstate - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:29 pm:
It’s not that the ads are gone, it’s the growth of media conglomerates listed on Wall Street that think they have to grow ever larger to keep their stock price up.
The only way they can grow is to borrow debt to buy more papers. They only way they can pay for that debt is to slash costs. The managers of these companies have no interest in news, literally! They simply don’t care.
It was bad enough when companies like American Publishing just raped local small-town newspapers, but eventually their appetite grew to include big city papers like the Sun-Times.
The management at Lee Enterprises makes Conrad Black look like a saint. They keep growing deeper in debt expanding their footprint throughout the state as their stock price continues to decline.
Really, you who run Lee, do you still think buying the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was a good investment?
There are no economies of scale in newspapers spread across multiple states and locations.
Out papers today are so overburdened with debt they resemble Greece or the federal government.
- Downstate - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:30 pm:
That should be “our papers today”.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:32 pm:
Downstate, you are pretty much right on point. Newspaper companies snagged up papers at inflated prices and borrowed heavily to do so. They screwed up very badly and their readers have paid the price ever since.
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:32 pm:
Why have any political/government reporters when all the political leaders have communication/press people to tell the papers what is going on?
I mean, if you can’t trust Steve Brown, who can you trust?
- Ghost - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:44 pm:
I wonder if the demise of local coverage in local papers will see na influx of huffington style specialized blog/news centered around politics. i.e. more boutquie political reporting (like cap fax)
- Ghost - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:45 pm:
boutique*
- Reddbyrd - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:46 pm:
Mr./Ms. Pot C.K.:
Home run for you!
Actually you are likely to get a straighter story from the vertern you mention than say the CountdownClockers at the Trib
Kidwell…..Kidwell!
- bored now - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:47 pm:
rich, i wonder if they don’t understand their business model as well as you do. perhaps they are cutting out statehouse reportage because their average consumer couldn’t care less about what happens in the capitol?
i noticed several decades ago that voters didn’t think government had as much effect on their lives as they had previously. part of that was because the electorate had become better off financially and thus felt more independent of government to get what they wanted. they could get it themselves.
i’d imagine the news media has discovered the same thing. and, in illinois, the capitol is so far away from the state’s population that lawmakers and state leaders go down there and are basically invisible to the rest of the state. no one knows what they do, and a lot of people think they just waste our time and money while they are there.
now *i* think that covering government should be a fundamental obligation of any organization that purports to cover “the news.” but we live in a celebrity culture today, and i can’t think of any celebrity legislators/state officials that would instantly demand media attention. and, yes, i’m including blagojevich…
- MKA1985 - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 12:55 pm:
That’s a terrible loss for Lee Enterprises. Riopell is a great guy and an excellent reporter. Best of luck to him.
- Peter - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 1:01 pm:
At my downstate small market radio station I tend to cover statewide stuff heavier than the station did in the past and much moreso than our listeners would desire, but tough - I really don’t care if they want it or not, they’re going to get it. It affects them far more than they’ll ever realize. Of course most of our stuff is regurgitating a lot of the reporting from the wire and the good work of IRN, so it’s hardly original reporting, but a car crash on a rural road impacts far fewer people than the activities of the General Assembly, and I’m going to use what sources I can to follow along.
Interviewing a downstate state senator every month, he and I seem to commiserate on a regular basis that much of the lack of understanding of the issues facing the state right now stem from the fact that the average citizen has no clue of anything going on in their state government, and the obsession is with national news. Not that federal politics don’t matter, but what passes for that is rumor, gossip and witchcraft, apparently. All distractions, and it’s gotten us to this point. Yes, the budget is boring, but its paramount.
- Barton Lorimor - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 1:07 pm:
So sorry, Mike. That’s no way to reward someone whose busted their hump the way you have. I guess that’s a benefit of the job they forgot to mention.
There’s something wrong with this field if my professors who led respectable careers in newspapers are telling me to change majors. There’s something wrong when Rich is telling me I need to go to law school to make it in America. There’s something even more wrong when someone who actively contributes so much to our state’s good is cut loose because a company in Davenport, IA doesn’t think they can afford him (even though their stock prices have been going up as of late).
I don’t think I can say anything without sounding like I’m running for office, but you get the point. Best of luck, Mike! Thanks for everything you did for us.
- Amalia - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 1:26 pm:
the problem is with communications mechanisms in general.
it’s all fast and loose and flashy. and some journalism
schools are blurring all the lines and forgetting to create
actual reporters, people who abide by the traditional rules
of journalism, an ethics code, and who ask the tough questions.
Journalists in Mexico are dying for what they have reported.
the publisher of one paper actually asked the cartels the lines
that should be drawn so no more reporters die. those who report here should remember those whose lives are actually
in peril as they “try” to do their work here. try better.
- Ray del Camino - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 1:42 pm:
This is what happens when bean counters run the news business. It’s been going on in TV for some time, as the hairdos who do best in viewer focus groups edge out the real journalists. (See Cooper, Anderson) The hard working men and women who string together the facts on the ground for the benefit of the folks back home cannot be replaced by the news wires.
- Ghost - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 2:28 pm:
If “video killed the radio star”, then the blog has killed the mainstream political reporters.
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 2:40 pm:
==the blog has killed the mainstream political reporters==
I don’t think so. I place more of the blame on leveraged buyouts. Big media companies grew by acquiring outlets using borrowed money. Then, to make ends meet, they cut staff. The Trib is a flagship example of this.
- SIUPROF - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 2:42 pm:
Without this blog, I would be totally in the dark about what is going on in the Illinois capitol. Coverage in Carbondale is absent. The SI may go weeks without a state issue article.
- Samwise - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 2:46 pm:
That’s awful news. Hope you land on your feet, Mike.
- Ghost - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 2:50 pm:
PCK yes and no. Papers cut political coverage based on the percepion that it does not generate ad revenue. A chunk of the market for political news seems to be locked onto various blogs and online sources so they are not buy papers for political coverage; which creates the cost decision to cut when you need money.
- Doug Dobmeyer - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 2:50 pm:
Without a vigilant media that has something other than greed for motivation, there is no hope for democracy.
- Vote Quimby! - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 2:53 pm:
==do you still think buying the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was a good investment?==
Lee’s market cap (outstanding shares times market price) today of $100 million is roughly one-tenth of what it paid for the P-D.
- wordslinger - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 2:53 pm:
Lee Enterprises went all-in on newsprint years ago, even cobbling up every little penny-shopper they could.
Whoops.
- Cincinnatus - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 3:15 pm:
Rich,
You should leverage your extensive knowledge of the Capitol. Have you thought of a mini-AP business model, providing state newspapers with reportage and opinion of state issues. Also an audio and video component.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 3:19 pm:
Cincinnatus, that’s being done, well, by Illinois Statehouse News right now. I’m glad they’re doing it. And they’re offering it up for free.
- Cincinnatus - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 3:34 pm:
Rich,
Thanks for the source, never knew about it. I just look it over, it’s good, but it ain’t no CapitolFax!
- Ghost - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 3:40 pm:
C for some reason your comment made me think of it this way:
If Don [miller] had all the judges, and the politicians in [Illinois], then he must share them, or let us others [news outlets] use them. He must let us draw the water from the well.
- hisgirlfriday - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 4:30 pm:
What a ridiculous and irresponsible decision to make in a statewide election year just six weeks before Election Day.
I thought Lee was getting their crap together after they were teetering so close to bankruptcy and almost got delisted from the NYSE after they bought the Post-Dispatch. Guess not. Ugh.
- Chicago Cynic - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 4:43 pm:
I feel bad for Mike. He’s a nice guy. This is sad. As to democracy, that’s definitely the whole nonprofits like BGA, Chicago News Coop, Propublica, etc. are trying to fill. But as important as their investigations are, it’s no substitute for regular coverage of daily papers.
No wonder people are ignorant of political facts. The more of this that happens, the more people get their info from political ads. Not exactly good for our democracy.
- Elizabeth Austin - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 5:27 pm:
Mike is smart, hard-working, straightforward and professional. This is yet another loss to Illinois readers and voters. I wonder when publishers will realize that you don’t regain lost readership by giving your readers less and less. I am sure Mike will land on his feet; I am less certain about the newspaper industry.
- Amber K - Monday, Sep 27, 10 @ 5:55 pm:
Mike is an outstanding reporter, and I’ve had the privilege of somewhat leading his life during the past three years in the way we’ve worked at the same newspapers, albeit during different times. Lee made a mistake. I wish the best for him.