We Need Independent Journalism Now More Than Ever

The only way that we can ensure that Delaware’s best journalists can continue to shed light on what’s going on is–to pay for it.  Especially with Trump relentlessly going after an independent press.

I first want to share this letter from Allison Taylor Levine, who is the publisher of Spotlight Delaware:

Over the past few months, we’ve received many questions (and the occasional complaint), engaged in debate, and had some tough conversations about our role – and the role of the media in general – in this current political moment.

Does our investigative coverage of the state’s Democrat-dominated government mean we’re anti-Democrat? Does our reporting on deportation in Delaware mean that we oppose the Republican federal administration’s immigration policies?

Some say our coverage shows that we’re actively advocating for undocumented immigrants. Others say we’re being weak and should be advocating more.

And all the questions often boil down to this: “What’s your agenda?”

Here’s the answer: Our agenda is to provide the people of Delaware with local news and information they need to function in their daily lives, participate in our (small “d”) democracy and build the social fabric of our communities by sharing people’s stories.

Why don’t we take a side? Because it’s important for our community to have independent, nonpartisan, unbiased local news and reporting that serves and represents all Delawareans. Including the ones you don’t like.

There are other outlets in Delaware that provide agenda-based information from all across the political spectrum. There’s definitely a market for that kind of content, and it’s a crowded one.

But if we are to have productive policy conversations, build bridges between diverse communities, foster empathy, and make Delaware stronger, we must have basic sources of information that we can all trust, regardless of what conclusions we draw from the data.

To provide that, Spotlight Delaware strives to build trust among people with different beliefs. We want to be the place people turn to for nuanced information that fairly presents the complex issues Delawareans face.

But to say what I hope is obvious — our reporters, editors and other team members are all human beings.

Human beings are not robots. We have our unique perceptions, lived experiences, biases, flaws and, yes, personal opinions. Our team includes people who are Black, brown, white, male, female, LGBTQ+, immigrants, native Delawareans, Boomers, Millennials, Gen Zs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, parents, singles.

But the craft of journalism isn’t about eliminating those personal perspectives – it’s about recognizing them and not letting them influence the professional work we do. Much like judges, doctors, and police officers (also humans), journalists are trained to set aside emotion and personal bias in order to apply the same standards to everyone as fairly as possible while “on the job.”

The words we use, the stories we choose to cover, the people we quote — we make these choices centered on the goal of providing you with balanced, fair reporting.

Is it perfect? Of course not. But here are some of the practices we follow to make it as good as possible:

To minimize our own biases, we hire trained, experienced, talented people with diverse perspectives. This leads to endless, fascinating debates among our team of eight reporters and editors. Editor-in-Chief Jacob Owens leads this work with painstaking care.

Our full-time community engagement director, David Stradley, is entirely dedicated to listening to people in different communities and bringing those voices to our editorial team. David’s great strength is that he listens to everyone – and makes sure all voices are represented at the table in internal discussions.

We also follow the AP Stylebook, which determines the terms we use in addressing politically charged issues and removes that from our decision-making. This is how we standardize, for example, our use of “undocumented immigrants” instead of “illegal immigrants” and capitalization of “Black” but not “brown” or “white” when referring to groups of people.

Perfect objectivity is a fantasy. As much as people tell us they want “just the facts,” every story requires some degree of editorial judgement – what facts to report, what facts to leave out.

So every day, we grapple with how to present balanced perspectives without falling into “both sides-ism” or giving air to Flat Earthers and Holocaust deniers.

This is not easy.

We know we cannot satisfy all of the people all of the time. But our job is not to make friends. Our job is to give you information about Delaware so you can fully participate in the wonderful community it is.

Yours,

Allison Taylor Levine

I cannot envision a better-crafted statement about why we need independent journalism and what it should encompass.  We need the reporters of Spotlight Delaware, we need the reporters for WHYY, we need the reporters for Delaware Public Media.  Support for independent journalism can only come from US.  I encourage you to donate, once if that’s what you can do, or on a continuous basis, if you’re able to.  It’s this simple:  We need them.  They need us.  Where can you contribute?  Right here:

Spotlight Delaware.

WHYY.

Delaware Public Media.