No News at the Statehouse?

__"Missing the Story at the Statehouse" by Charles Layton and Mary Walton, in American Journalism Review (July–Aug. 1998), 8701 Adelphi Rd., Adelphi, Md. 20783–1716.__

"You can vote any way you want to up here," first arrived in Raleigh in 1991, "because the Carolyn Russell, a state representative from folks back home will never know." Even as Goldsboro, North Carolina, was told when she power and money have been devolving from

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Washington to the states, newspapers have been paying less attention to state government, report freelance writers Layton and Walton.

"In capital press rooms around the country," they write, "there are more and more empty desks and silent phones. Bureaus are shrinking, reporters are younger and less experienced, stories get less space and poorer play, and all too frequently editors just don’t care." Nationwide, only 513 newspaper reporters and 113 wire service colleagues now cover state government full-time. The number of newspaper reporters has fallen in 27 states since the early 1990s (while rising in 14 states and staying the same in nine). Much of the decline is due to cost cutting by major chains, such as Gannett and Knight-Ridder.

"Fewer reporters means fewer stories," note Layton and Walton. "In the daily crush, state news loses out to crime stories, lighthearted features and lifestyle reporting—all of which editors insist readers prefer, even though [scientific opinion] research shows otherwise."

An influential research program conducted two decades ago by the Newspaper Advertising Bureau and the American Newspaper Publishers Association had an especially unfortunate impact. On the one hand, their telephone survey of 3,000 newspaper readers showed that they read newspapers mainly for hard news; on the other hand, a companion series of focus groups in 12 cities indicated that people wanted "personally helpful" stories. Editors chose to believe the unrepresentative focus groups, with their lively quotes, rather than the scientific phone survey, with its daunting array of statistics. In succeeding years, many editors altered their papers accordingly, giving readers less of what they said in surveys they wanted. In a 1991 survey of reader preferences, not only did hard news triumph over features, but state news did very well, ranking ahead of 28 other categories, including crime news, health news, and "news that’s helpful with everyday living." But "the flight from government coverage and hard news" continued, note Layton and Walton.

The picture is not entirely bleak, they observe. "Thanks to computers and to campaign finance disclosure laws in all 50 states, journalists have the power to explore the secret world of money in state politics, something previous generations could only dream of." The Indianapolis Star and News, owned by former vice president Dan Quayle’s family, have led the way, showing in hard-hitting series how the Indiana legislature had been "hijacked" and "plundered" by "an extraordinary coalition of about 40 big-business interests, led by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce." "As editors seek alternatives to ‘boring’ governmental process stories," say Layton and Walton, "database journalism (despite a name that suggests geeks-at-work) has the power to rivet readers with accounts of how democracy operates."