In a stimulating conversation with Dartmouth Dickey Center’s director Victoria Holt, VTDigger’s editor-in-chief Geeta Anand said that when she reported for the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, she stepped back from perpetual narratives and looked at the problem with a fresh angle. For example, she deeply reported on the biotech industry for WSJ that culminated into her book “The Cure,” which won her a Pulitzer Prize and inspired the movie “Extraordinary Measures” starring Harrison Ford.
Anand, a ’89 Dartmouth graduate, was the dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate College of Journalism before she returned to Vermont and assumed leadership at VTDigger, the state’s largest news organization. At the Dickey Center she talked about why local, independent journalism matters for democracy and civic life, particularly now when journalists face trust and credibility issues. Then there is the challenge of the evolving medium of journalism, from traditional newspapers to digital, nonprofit, local models such as VTDigger.
She said that VTDigger is primarily an audience supported news organization, implying that it is not beholden to big corporations. But its publisher, the Vermont Journalism Trust, is a nonprofit organization that limits its freedom especially in controversial politics where it must stay neutral. I have been associated with VTDigger as a contributor from the beginning when Anne Galloway pioneered the news organization. In June 2016 when Donald Trump was the first-term presumptive Republican presidential nominee, I submitted a column “Trump’s Reckless Theater of the Absurd” to VTDigger. The editor wrote back to me saying that as a nonprofit organization, it cannot publish the column. But Valley News had no hesitation publishing it.
Having enjoyed immense freedom at WSJ, The New York Time, and other newspapers, as well as an academic at Berkeley, Anand would soon realize her limits at VTDigger, though, ironically, the topic of her conversation on Tuesday at Dartmouth was “Reporting Without Borders.” I wonder if a nonprofit news organization will ever be in a position to give a place to a fiercely independent investigative reporter-columnist like Jim Kenyon whose adversarial-constructive analysis of issues no one could ignore.
But local journalists cannot limit themselves to local issues. The critical role of independent journalism in an era of misinformation, political polarization and rapid technological change cannot be underestimated.
A core function of a free press is to hold power accountable. It’s what our founding fathers fought for, and it’s why they enshrined press freedom in the First Amendment. But in this new era of President Trump, the media is facing a strategic campaign to undermine its legitimacy, drain its resources and choke off its access.
Today the media deals with deluge of information. This is the art of flooding the zone. It’s a strategy where the volume and speed of claims are so high that no matter how good the correction is, the original, sensationalized lie always wins the race. The genius of this strategy is that it doesn’t even matter if the claims are believed. It only matters that the public stands perpetually confused. People shrug and say, “Who can you trust, anyway?” And when you can’t trust anyone, you fall back on believing the voice you like best.
Holding power accountable requires looking behind the curtain. But what if the curtain is replaced with a stone wall? The clearest example of this was the recent face-off with the Pentagon. The Defense Department introduced a new press policy that was ridiculous. It said reporters couldn’t seek any information that hadn’t been explicitly approved for release. It was an attempt to turn reporters into state media stenographers.
But the press had its moment of defiance. In a spectacular show of unity, nearly every major news organization, from The New York Times to conservative Newsmax, rejected the policy. That collective action was critical. It was the press saying that they will not give up their First Amendment right to ask tough questions for the privilege of standing in the briefing room. When access is used as a loyalty test, the independence required to serve as the public’s watchdog is compromised.
The battle is costly. Every time the administration restricts credentials or uses access as a loyalty test, it forces news organizations to spend resources on lawsuits, distracting them from the actual reporting. It wears them down.
In this new era, holding power accountable requires more than just good reporting. It demands a relentless commitment to fact-checking, a grueling fight against institutional stonewalling and lots of financial resources. So, what’s Geeta Anand going to do in the age of Trump’s Truth Social?