The Indiana Publisher

cannot agree on the 'who,' 'what,' 'when,' and 'where.'" Now the subjects of many complaints have shifted to reflect the controversy surrounding school curriculum and library books. "A lot of it is driven by the news cycles, and tomorrow it'll be something completely different," Britt said. Baiel called the public access counselor an "important resource" and said the office is accessible and responsive. He noted he is "kind of bothered" by the case numbers on the advisory opinions not following a sequential order, with some numbers being left out altogether. Britt explained the gap in numbering is created when the complaint is resolved promptly and an opinion is no longer needed. As an example, he highlighted a complaint about the Indianapolis Police Metropolitan Department not responding to a public records request. When Britt called, the department said the request had fallen through the cracks, then the officers contacted the requester. The complaint, in instances like that, is then withdrawn because the requester is usually satisfied. Britt and his team will stop the process and not write an opinion since the dispute has ended., Even so, Baiel said the coun- selor should at least post every complaint that receives a case number regardless of whether an opinion is issued. The public can learn from those complaints and possibly identify problematic patterns, such as an agency consistently losing track of public records requests. Often traveling around the state, Britt gives presentations, explaining what the public access counselor does and encouraging everyone to use the resource no matter how small the matter. Britt acknowledged sometimes the complaints do spark questions within the office. The staff may wonder why an issue was important to a complainant or where some individuals find the time to file the complaints. But, Britt continued, "We realize that it's not for us to make a value judgment. They should be civically engaged. Who are we to say what level of engagement is appropriate?" Al Cross National Newspaper -Association Rural newspapers are missing out on a great deal — subsidized, eager, young reporters who can boost coverage and build the paper's brand as a public service. The deal comes from Report for America, an initiative of the nonprofit Ground Truth Project, which for several years has placed journalists in hundreds of local newsrooms to report on under-cov- ered issues and communities. That includes rural America, and many of its "corps members" are doing rural stories, but not for rural newspapers, so RFA is trying to change that. "RFA has and will continue to work at sustainability related to local news and rural communities. This is at the heart of our mission," says Earl Johnson, its vice president of recruitment. The list of news outlets that have had RFA reporters includes very few rural newspapers, but the smallest news outlet on the list is an illustration of the impact one can have. That's the Ouray County Plaindealer in Ridgway, Colorado. The county in the San Juan Mountains has fewer than 5,000 people, but it has a fine newspaper run by Mike Wiggins and Erin McIntyre. Their third RFA reporter just joined the staff, replacing Liz Teitz, who was the first RFA reporter at any Colorado paper and is now at the San Antonio Express-News. "While we're thrilled for her new position (and have warned her she's not getting rid of us), we know we'll miss her dogged reporting on affordable housing issues here in Ouray County," McIntyre told the paper's readers. "Liz has produced hundreds of articles, shed light on complicated problems and sat through countless hours of meetings. She also reported extensively on other topics for the community, using public-records requests and making sense of issues. She listened and told your stories." And she may have helped preserve the paper through the pandemic, Wiggins told me. "I don't know if we would still own the newspaper if we did not have the reporters that were available to us through Report for America," he said. He and McIntyre bought the paper in April 2019 and heard about RFA several months later. Teitz's three-year contract had RFA pay half her salary the first year, a third of it in the second year and 20% this year. The rest came from the Plaindealer, which got much of the money from its readers by asking them for it. The weekly raised "tens of thousands" of dollars to help make the match, Wiggins said, agreeing with me that it helped solidify the paper's brand as a public service. "If you give people a quality product and you put the resources into the journal- ism side of things, people will support it," he said. Johnson says RFA helps newsrooms "unlock additional streams of revenue that can then be applied to sustaining their news coverage." He says newspapers that might be interested in applying for an RFA reporter should have: An editorial staff and a "mentor- ing community" that can support an early-career journalist. A salary range mindful of a living wage. "We like to see a minimum of $35,000 per year," Johnson says. "We find that anything less makes it difficult to recruit and retain a good reporter for the newsroom." An interest in embracing RFA's fundraising model and a willingness to work with its sustainability team to seek support from the newsroom's community. "We provide a significant amount of help here," Johnson says, "and newsrooms who have embraced this model have witnessed fundraising success." Other rural newspapers that have or have had RFA reporters include the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon, the People-Sentinel of Barnwell, South Carolina; the Tioga Tribune of North Dakota; the Traverse City Record-Eagle in northern Michigan; the Buffalo Bulletin in Wyoming; and the Rappahannock News in northern Virginia, in conjunction with its supporting foundation, the Foothills Forum. Rappahannock News RFA reporter Julia Shanahan won second prize for feature writing in the group's annual contest for her story headlined "A local family's journey tracing an inescapable lineage of slavery, and their efforts to confront it." Applications for the next round of RFA corps members will open in early July, and RFA is actively seeking applications from rural newspapers. They reached out to me, and I'm reaching out to you — in my belief that newspapers must get more revenue from their audiences and my conviction that in the long run, people aren't going to pay good money for mediocre journalism. If you have any interest in having an RFA reporter, let me or Earl Johnson know. He's at ejohnson@ reportforamerica.org. And you can always feel free to call me for any kind of help at (859) 257-3744. Al Cross edited and managed rural newspapers before covering politics for the Louisville Courier Journal and serving as president of the Society of Professional Journal- ists. He directs the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. He's at al.cross@uky.edu. July 2023 Page 9 PAC Continued from Page 8 Report for America is looking for rural newspapers Cross

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