NORTH CAROLINA — When the North Carolina General Assembly reaches its frenetic final days in session, news organizations traditionally feel the strain of too much to cover in too little time. As this summer’s “short session” concluded, legislators tackled issues that are playing out across the nation and in Campaign 2012: fracking, education funding, and climate change, plus compensation for eugenics victims.
Add to that a number of mid-summer congressional runoffs and a looming national political convention in Charlotte, and the capacity of the state’s political reporting class was stretched to its limit—all the more so because of cuts that have left North Carolina, like many states, with fewer statehouse reporters. The loss of public-affairs jobs at newspapers—like The Charlotte Observer, where cuts have left the paper with no full-time employees in the capital and relying on its sister publication, the Raleigh News & Observer, for statehouse coverage—has created a “giant sucking sound,” says Penny Abernathy, the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina. In this environment, traditional legislative wrap-ups still happen eventually, but the stories and summaries get buried deep, or come after the deals are done.
(The McClatchy papers do still commit to projects probing industry clout in the General Assembly, such as the joint investigation of nonprofit hospitals by Ames Alexander, Joe Neff, and Karen Garloch, published in April. The fourth of five parts specifically examined hospital influence in the legislature.)
Enter a proposal for a statewide C-SPAN-style service—online, on-demand, and searchable. The concept gained traction during a January workshop hosted by UNC’s Center for Media Law and Policy to address issues raised by the FCC report, “Information Needs of Communities,” and emerged as the leading recommendation in a
report issued by UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication in June.
The hope is that such a service could make it easier for journalists, citizens, and other watchdogs to keep an eye on what’s happening in the state capital, without filters from intermediaries like lobbying organizations or even, in some cases, traditional media.
“I would very much like to see a website with audio and video of committee meetings,” said Fiona Morgan, a researcher for the New America Foundation, working out of Duke University, who attended the January meeting. “That is really where the rubber hits the road in terms of decisions being made without people knowing what’s going on,” she said in a telephone interview after UNC published its report. “There’s a lot of discussion that doesn’t get recorded…. I feel like that’s the most urgent need.”
And that web presence should be independent of funding and influence from the legislature itself, Morgan added. “The rule is we get to see what you’re doing.”
Media members and policy advocates in the state have reason to be cautious about who would control such a service. A statewide public television network, UNC-TV, is licensed to UNC’s board of governors, which, in turn, is appointed by the General Assembly. That reporting structure caused issues in 2010 when a reporter produced a series examining aluminum giant Alcoa’s battle to retain control of a dam. A legislator subpoenaed unpublished footage, sparking a controversy over journalistic integrity and source confidentiality.
Other media and policy leaders nationally have called for strengthening state public affairs networks, and both the FCC and UNC reports helped bolster their cause. In a June interview, Paul Giguere, president of the National Association of Public Affairs Networks, argued that stable, financially sound, and independent networks are vital to the public interest.
Here in North Carolina, some activity in the General Assembly is already broadcast on Voter Radio, a service of the nonprofit N.C. Center for Voter Education. The service enables voters and remote reporters to listen in.
Ironically, the agency that was poised (and had offered interactive programs) to provide this service, The Agency for Public Telecommunications, was disbanded this spring. Numerous efforts through the years explored creating just such an initiative. The weekly cable television program, OPEN/net, aired, giving citizens an opportunity to talk directly with their elected officials. Again, I find the timing of all this ironic.
#1 Posted by mary leaver, CJR on Fri 6 Jul 2012 at 03:09 PM
Thanks, Mary, for the comment. Fiona talked about this group, and the report done by the Center for Public Policy Research in North Carolina.
It sounds like some of the planning needs to focus on a way to exist without state funds, or when state funds get tight.
Charlotte's WTVI faced similar budget challenges recently, and its license was transferred to the local community college.
#2 Posted by Andria K., CJR on Fri 6 Jul 2012 at 07:36 PM
Adding to the previous comment, the late founding director of the North Carolina Agency for Public Telecommucations (APT), Ms. Lee Wing, her successors and staff at APT, and others in NC state government championed this same concept and led many efforts over the past 30 years to establish C-SPAN-style coverage of the NC General Assembly.
OPEN/net, produced by APT and supported by NC cable television leaders and elected officials for nearly three decades, was a nationally recognized model for providing -- through television and later online -- unfiltered, interactive public access to, and information about, NC state government, its lawmakers and public officials. Unfortunately, and for as many decades, our state's highest legislative and adminstrative leaders in Raleigh have yet to prove to be as visionary as Ms. Wing and others -- including the US Congress and the cable industry -- have been about using television and online technologies to enable more open and accessible government.
It is more than ironic that this leading recommendation from a UNC report comes just two months after NC Department of Administration officials ended OPEN/net and closed APT -- the sole state agency for 32 years that had been staffed, equipped, dedicated, in planning, and best positioned to implement C-SPAN-style coverage of the legislature. The demise of APT and its loss to the state is referenced in the UNC report, noting "North Carolina has the dubious distinction of being the largest state in the nation without a [C-SPAN-syle] channel, and the recent closing of ... APT has added urgency to the
issue for advocates who’ve worked 30 years to create one."
North Carolinians all should endorse this proposal from UNC’s School of Journalism and call on our state elected officials to finally implement the same form of modern democracy that our Congress has provided for the nation all since 1979. If NC officials truly believe we are a progressive state, here is an ideal opportunity to demonstrate that belief.
Esse quam videri, remember?
#3 Posted by Eugene Murray, CJR on Fri 6 Jul 2012 at 07:38 PM
The need for a statewide C-Span in North Carolina (as in many other states) is a wonderful idea because it create broader transparency among the both legislative bodies with their citizens. There are some state legislatures(i.e., Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc.) that already have statehouse C-spans where citizens, activists, and related interests gain closer insight into the innermost workings of their legislatures.
#4 Posted by Adrian DeVore, CJR on Sun 8 Jul 2012 at 09:51 PM