Now Is The Time To Invest In Accountability Journalism
Last week, I accepted the position of chief executive officer of True Blue Media. In that role, I will be launching a new independent investigative journalism outlet focused on scrutinizing political power in Washington and in state capitals throughout America. In my email box and on social media, the response to this move has been overwhelmingly positive, as many seem to appreciate the value of projects designed to devote more resources to the important work of accountability journalism. That is gratifying.
Some, though, have asked why I would work with David Brock. Those questions are valid and deserve an answer.
The good news is that the short version of the answer is pretty simple: While it is no secret that David and I have disagreed in the past and that we come from different lines of work, we both strongly agree that independent, fact-based accountability reporting is required more than ever at this moment in our country’s history. Simply put, with our generation and our children’s generation facing imminent emergencies, we do not have the luxury of letting past differences and ancient grudges prevent us from forging alliances in support of the kind of journalism that is so desperately needed today.
Now, I’d encourage you to read on for the longer answer — and for a description of what our plan is all about.
The Media Crisis Is A Journalism Opportunity
From the very beginning of our discussions, David made clear that he agrees that my team and I will have full editorial independence. Having worked in various media and political environments under myriad forms of pressure, I know well that guaranteeing this independence is absolutely critical. While David comes out of Democratic Party politics, he and I also agree that the original reporting we do must be motivated not by partisanship, but by a clear set of progressive values. The professional journalists I hire will be focused on the truth, regardless of which politicians, political parties or powerbrokers may want the truth obscured, ignored or suppressed.
Americans deserve no less from journalism — but right now, they are getting far less. In the 24–7 news cycle, hard-hitting journalism has too often been replaced by half-truths, cheap hot takes, partisan propaganda and stories that have little connection to people’s daily lives — and this information garbage fire is raging just as major crises threaten our country and our planet.
In 2016, you could see this inferno most prominently both in the much-ballyhooed rise of so-called “fake news,” but also in the “real” coverage of our new president. Much of the reporting on Donald Trump was vapid — news cycles became echo chambers for stories about his erratic personality and his Twitter feed. There was certainly some substantive reporting — stories that spotlighted Trump’s business entanglements, his tax practices, allegations of self-dealing at his foundation. The problem, though, was that many of these stories did not explain how the issues at play might actually affect millions of Americans. They were inherently political stories — of interest to the political class, but not necessarily to a broad audience struggling with the challenges of daily life.
Knowing all this, we could spend the next four years in a state of perpetual Festivus, airing grievances over and over again. Or we could finally try to do something different. In a miasma of noise, we can work to create a clear, unwavering signal. Indeed, instead of complaining about the state of journalism, we have the opportunity to do our own journalism — with our own media that holds lawmakers’ feet to the fire.
A number of factors have converged to make this simple idea one of the most important endeavors of this moment. Consider these factors:
1. At a time of strong demand for news content, the current media has been plagued by mass layoffs of real journalists. That has left a gap between journalism supply and demand — a vacuum that can be filled with our own media. Journalism is in crisis — but crises can be perfect opportunities for innovation and revolution.
2. This moment of political reawakening and protest suggests there is a huge audience for journalism that not only educates readers, but informs them about specifically how to put their political beliefs into action.
3. Thanks to email, websites and social media, the cost of publication and distribution is lower than it has ever been in human history.
4. With polls showing Americans’ trust in media at a historic low, journalism faces an enormous credibility gap. People suspect that the content they are reading is really partisan or corporate propaganda manipulated by unseen forces. That leaves an audience desperate for well-grounded journalism that avoids invective, and instead uses irrefutable facts to illustrate what is really happening in the halls of power.
Building a news organization that maximizes these opportunities is not rocket science. We will prove that such a project is achievable — as long as we have adequate resources and the right kind of leadership.
On that latter factor, my move to lead True Blue Media is the logical next step in my own career, which has straddled the political and media worlds.
I was Bernie Sanders’ press secretary 18 years ago, then was the spokesperson for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, and then was one of the first hires at the Center for American Progress. I also worked on the Democratic campaigns of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Ned Lamont, who famously challenged Sen. Joe Lieberman over his support for the Iraq War. After that work in politics, I became a full-time journalist — first publishing books and a syndicated column, then working as an investigative reporter. Most recently I’ve served as the senior editor of investigations at the International Business Times — the sister company of Newsweek — where we have won recognition and awards for our accountability journalism on elected officials of both parties.
With that experience in hand, I knew David’s offer to harness ShareBlue’s resources and build out a new journalism operation was a big opportunity.
At the very moment a new Trump administration poses grave threats to our democracy, we are right now witnessing the rise of new people-powered and people-focused media. You can see this independent media ecosystem emerging through outlets like The Young Turks, Democracy Now, Capital and Main and Tarbell (among others). With our new project, I am confident we can play an essential role in rebuilding the ethos of fearless accountability journalism that this country needs, and that this historic moment demands.
Not a New Breitbart — But An Answer to Breitbart
Now, it is fair to ask: when we launch our effort later this year, what strategies are most likely to be successful, and what will success look like?
To begin answering that question, consider the lessons from a well-known reference point: Breitbart. That website — which now gets over 37 million visits a month — played an enormous role in motivating the right and shaping the election. Setting aside value judgments on Breitbart’s particular policy goals and demagoguery, it is worth learning from three key factors that have been integral to the site’s success.
First and foremost, Breitbart developed credibility and traction among its audience because it evinced editorial independence and because it openly discarded Ronald Reagan’s old Eleventh Commandment about “thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican.” On the contrary, Breitbart at times attacked Paul Ryan as vigorously as it attacked Democrats, because that fit into its anti-establishment worldview.
On a tactical level, that willingness to produce journalism rooted in a value system — and without regard to political party — is critical to understanding Breitbart’s success. The site’s refusal to toe a party line and to follow the Eleventh Commandment has built its credibility and loyalty among a devoted readership.
Our new investigative journalism operation will similarly refuse to follow such a commandment as it relates to either party — and proudly so. It does not matter if you are a Republican selling out working people or a Democrat selling out working people — we will scrutinize you. It does not matter if you are a Republican protecting Wall Street or a Democrat doing the same, we are going to demand answers. It does not matter if you are a Republican pushing another insane war, or a Democrat helping them push that war — our reporting will challenge you without fear or favor.
That honors the words spoken only a few days ago by President Obama. In his final presidential press conference, he concisely articulated the core ethos that we will follow. He said that reporters are “not supposed to be sycophants, you’re supposed to be skeptics, you’re supposed to ask me tough questions, you’re not supposed to be complimentary, but you’re supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power and make sure that we are accountable to the people who sent us here.” We will do exactly that.
Second, if you carefully assess Breitbart’s site, you will notice that it is not organized by political party or even by politician. It is organized by general themes — in their case, like “Big Government” and “Big Hollywood.” This structure appreciates how many people living outside the Beltway think in more visceral terms, rather than in the ways the political class thinks.
President Obama and Secretary Clinton were certainly villains in the Breitbart storylines — but they were merely starring characters in larger, more enduring narratives. By the same token, our journalism organization will not be centrally organized around one politician — it will be organized around the larger issues facing millions of Americans. We will certainly go toe to toe everyday with Trump — but in a way that contextualizes him and his administration in the larger public policies that affect Americans in their daily lives.
Finally, and perhaps most important of all, Breitbart’s strategic genius is in story selection and follow up. Breitbart does not confine itself only to the pre-determined news cycle, nor does it follow the old media habit of publishing one large story and then dropping it. Instead, it picks its own stories, breaking news on those stories and then staying on them, understanding that the Internet ecosystem rewards repetition and serialized content.
During my career as an investigative journalist, I have seen the power of rejecting the media’s herd mentality and breaking original news away from the spotlight. I have also seen the power of staying on a story until its conclusion.
One series I worked on at IBT, for instance, uncovered how the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Energy Committees set up a joint fundraising committee that vacuumed in cash from a major pipeline company just days before those chairmen rammed legislation through their committee to expedite pipeline approvals. Our team’s reporting advanced the story with a follow up, and ultimately the two chairpeople shuttered their fundraising committee.
Another series was the one this year on Connecticut and the proposed Cigna-Anthem merger, which would have created the largest health care conglomerate in American history.
We broke open the story about how Connecticut Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy appointed a former Cigna lobbyist to spearhead the national antitrust review of the deal. Our three-month series ended up prompting a formal state ethics probe and a recusal — all of which set the stage for the Obama administration to intervene to try to block the merger.
But my favorite series where serialized, nonpartisan investigative reporting delivered real results was the one I worked on about Republican governors Chris Christie and Charlie Baker.
Over the course of 2014 and 2015, I reported on how Christie’s administration had been delivering state pension money to financial firms whose executives were giving his political groups huge campaign donations. I discovered that one of those donors was Baker — whose firm soon received a state pension deal from Christie months later. I also tracked how the firm of Christie’s top political aide, Robert Grady, had been investing in some of the same investments he was directing pension money into. While Grady directed public pension investments, documents showed he was also in touch with Christie’s political campaign team.
The series soon prompted a major editorial in the state’s largest newspaper, saying the “findings might make your head explode.” It also prompted a state pay-to-play probe.
But in my career as a journalist, the real way you know you are having serious concrete impact, is when a politician begins attacking you personally with insults. It happened in Connecticut with Malloy, and it happened even more bombastically in New Jersey with this:
That kind of invective and attempt to intimidate did not stop the scandal from exploding. Instead, we saw a flood of follow up reporting citing our work; a legislative initiative designed to stop Christie’s administration from awarding pension deals to political donors’ firms; and New Jersey moving to divest its holdings in risky hedge funds as Christie’s approval ratings plummeted.
This type of serialized, unwavering coverage will be the hallmark of our new project — whether we are reporting on the Trump White House, on Congress or on local and state issues across the country. We will reject the “one and done” mentality that suggests once you’ve published a single story on an issue, it is time to move on. For us it will be the opposite: once we have invested significant resources in breaking open a story, we will follow that story for as long as it takes.
Journalism Needs Alliances That Set Aside Past Differences
The record of impact journalism and hard-fought success that my team at IBT forged was not magic — it came from interminable hours of unglamorous work, meticulous fact checking, and a willingness to face blowback from political power in all its forms. I am under no illusion that expanding this kind of work will be easy — but having navigated the public and private pressures of both the political and media worlds, I am confident we can serve a readership that wants this kind of accountability journalism on a regular basis.
This kind of accountability journalism is one of the most powerful tools to protect American democracy — we know it because journalism was the force that broke open Watergate. The need for that force today cannot be overstated, and brings us back to the original question some have asked me: why would I choose to set aside past disagreements and work on this project?
If the answer is not clear after what you’ve just read, then it is worth restating again: Because we do not have the privilege of letting old battles prevent us from forging alliances on journalism projects that are clear in their goals — and that can make a real difference. At a time of apocalyptic climate change, rampant inequality and money-dominated politics, none of us can allow old disputes prevent us from finding common ground on common goals. David agrees 100 percent. The stakes are simply too high.
To those who remain skeptical, all I request is that you set aside the impulse to pre-judge or assume failure. I am not asking for your blind faith — as any good journalist knows, nobody deserves that. I am only asking you to avoid judging us — and scrutinizing us — through the prism of old animosities and hatreds. Judge us instead on the actual work we produce in the months ahead. I believe my two decades of consistent work — regardless of the situation — commands at least that level of respect, and I am confident that as we begin producing journalism later this year, the judgment on those concrete metrics will be favorable.
If we have the resources we need, we can have an enormous and ongoing impact on the public policy matters that we all care about. We can, in the words of President Obama, build an outlet that “casts a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power” and makes sure that the powerful “are accountable to the people.”
That is our mission — and with your help, we will succeed.
This article is an edited and supplemented version of a speech David Sirota delivered to the Democracy Matters 17 conference on January 21, 2017 in Aventura, Florida.
