Media Must Do Better Job Holding Elected Officials Accountable

One of the things you guys ask me a lot is why I take on other people in the media. Why do I do that? Maybe it’s a good time to talk about it. It’s Friday, let’s have a little fun with it. Our government will not be held accountable until the media holds them accountable. It’s really that simple. One of the reasons government has gotten so bad comes down to two things: First, and I’ve told this story before, a friend of mine in state government once said something that stuck with me. He said COVID taught politicians they can do whatever they want. They shut down businesses, put people out of work, forced masks, pushed mandates, and people largely didn’t fight back. Politicians realized that if people tolerated that level of control, then the other things they do—bad housing developments, bad investment decisions, giving money to mega corporations—pale in comparison. If people didn’t push back on the bigger things, they probably won’t push back on the smaller ones either. The second issue is the decline in the number of people covering government. We’ve seen the slow decline of terrestrial radio, television, and newspapers. They’re owned by large corporations that cut budgets. That means fewer reporters, fewer people in newsrooms, and fewer people covering the statehouse or attending county and city government meetings. In many places, local newspapers and radio stations have simply disappeared. In those counties and towns, no one is covering the meetings anymore. Politicians have figured out that between the public not pushing back and fewer people covering what they do, they can get away with almost anything. That’s why it frustrates me when people who still have large platforms in the media choose to buddy up with politicians instead of holding them accountable. And I’m talking about this broadly across the state, not singling out one person. When media members would rather be friends with politicians than question them, it makes the situation worse. If the governor of Indiana sits down in front of you and you don’t grill him on raising taxes by $6.5 billion on I-70, or on raising taxes to fund a stadium for the Bears, or on giving $1 billion away through the Indiana Development Corporation after previously saying the agency was so flawed it needed an $800,000 audit, then you’re making the problem worse. Media should not be friends with politicians. Media should hold them accountable. People have asked why my relationship with Micah Beckwith changed after he was elected. It’s simple. Once he was elected, I told him the relationship changes. I’m not your friend anymore. If you do what you said you would do, I’ll support you. If you don’t, you’ll be held accountable like everyone else. And he didn’t do it. The same thing happened with Braun. We supported Braun because he said he was going to do certain things. Once he became governor and didn’t follow through, we grilled him and roasted him. That’s how it should be. If someone campaigns on specific promises, it’s fair to give them the benefit of the doubt. But once they’re in office and fail to deliver—and in the case of the Braun-Beckwith administration, they’ve failed on almost everything—you have to call it out. Yet now they’re standing together at events, taking photos, acting like everything is fine. How do you not hold them accountable? How do you give them a free pass? I was thinking about this on the drive into work today. It really comes down to the fractured media culture we have now. There are essentially two spheres. On one side you have traditional establishment media—newspapers, television, traditional outlets. On the other side you have the conservative media ecosystem: talk radio, podcasts, digital platforms. And because of social media—especially Twitter—some people in the conservative media world judge their value based on digital attention. How many likes did I get? How many shares? How many photo opportunities with politicians? How many invitations to speak at events? You see it everywhere. People measure success by being invited to a dinner, speaking at a conference, appearing on a TV panel. How do they get those invitations? By being liked by politicians. By giving them free passes. Those politicians know when they go on certain shows they won’t be challenged. The interview will be soft. It will be friendly. Instead of doing the job they’re supposed to do—holding politicians accountable—some people use their platforms to elevate themselves. They take pictures with the politicians, act like they’re friends, and move on. They’re not doing the job for the audience. They’re doing it for themselves. Getting invited to speak at the Lincoln Day Dinner, sitting on a panel at a conference, appearing on cable television—that’s what matters most to them. Until more people are willing to step up the way we’re trying to do here, things won’t change. I was willing to risk everything to do this. You have to be willing to lose things. You have to be willing to take hard positions. You have to be willing to make people angry. You have to put your audience ahead of politicians and ahead of your own career. Most people won’t do that. And that’s why politicians keep lying. They know they won’t be held accountable. In a state like Indiana, accountability is going to have to come from conservative media and conservative influencers. But again and again, many of them have shown they’re not interested in holding politicians accountable. They’re interested in elevating themselves. They measure success by which politicians like them or support them, because that opens doors and creates opportunities. But I believe you are the opportunity. Unfortunately, many people in our own camp don’t believe that, and that’s why things never change.