Susan J. Demas: Badge of Honor: How Reporters Can Get over Being Hated and Just Do their Jobs

President Trump’s announcement that he would slash funding for public radio and TV stations in his budget is perhaps the least surprising thing to emerge from an administration that manages to shock the conscience on a daily basis.

This is a symbolic gesture to galvanize the right in the culture war that’s been brewing for a half-century. Time and time again, NPR and other stations have bent over backwards to incorporate conservative viewpoints, like with this recent report on charter schools that was roundly criticized by public school advocates. But no matter how assiduously fair our public media is, conservatives dismiss it as liberal — and increasingly, as the enemy.

But there would, of course, be real-world implications for these budget cuts, particularly for radio and TV stations in small markets — those that have been the hardest hit by layoffs and belt-tightening in local papers and broadcast affiliates.

The biggest losers will be citizens there who have fewer and fewer options to find out news about their communities. While there’s been a proliferation of flashy national political sites that recycle mainstream stories with a heap of propaganda or outright lies, they won’t tell you what’s going on in your local school district or township hall.

And Trump’s move was meant to send an unmistakable message to all media: “There are consequences for reporting things I don’t like, so be very, very careful.” Some charter members of the access journalism movement are already on board with the plan, like Mark Halperin, who sniffed this week on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the press “should not be combatants trying to beat the people we’re covering.”

Some of us get into journalism to speak truth to power — no matter who that is. Others just want to buy a boat or get invited to tony Georgetown cocktail parties (or the more downscale Lansing equivalent at Troppo).

The Trump presidency is helping to make this distinction crystal clear.

I’m happy to wear my “enemy combatant” label as a badge of honor. It helps that I was never popular in high school — or ever. I lack the insatiable need to be loved by strangers, my colleagues or the people I cover.

That’s been my philosophy during my 15-year career in journalism, working as a reporter at a half-dozen mid-size newspapers in the Midwest, writing a syndicated column and doing analysis for trade political publications.

It hasn’t always been rainbows and sunshine. I’ve had bosses lecture me because a backbencher senator didn’t like me enough — not that he refused to talk to me, just that he didn’t like me. I’ve had an emergency editorial meeting called because a super-sensitive press flack didn’t like a column I wrote criticizing his boss’ campaign strategy.

It’s called working the refs. It’s something that politicians and other powerful figures have been doing since the first newspapers rolled off the printing press. But if journalists allow this kind of interference to impact our work, we’ll cede power that we’ll never get back.

For the last three years, I’ve run the ultimate insider publication, Inside Michigan Politics. And I haven’t changed a bit. I’m still holding leaders’ feet to the fire and figuring out what makes them tick.

And you know what? People still talk to me from across the political spectrum because I know my stuff. I’m tough, but fair.

Over the years, I’ve called out Republican Gov. Rick Snyder for a variety of actions, from caving on an anti-LGBT adoption law to signing Right to Work (after repeatedly insisting it wasn’t on his agenda). I’m quite certain that he and the rest of his administration aren’t exactly my biggest fans. But I just sat down for an in-depth interview with his lieutenant governor, Brian Calley, who in all likelihood will try and succeed him next year. It was a fascinating and candid conversation.

I had a similar dynamic with the previous Democratic administration of Jennifer Granholm, which some of my right-wing critics conveniently tend to forget.

But there’s no doubt that conservatives are more hyper-sensitive these days about media bias, real and often imagined. In my experience, liberals will whine incessantly about stories they don’t like. Conservatives will try to get you fired (and it can work!)

I’ve been writing political columns for 10 years. People know where I stand on issues. I’m upfront about everything instead of pretending that being a journalist has somehow neutered my opinions or made me a moral eunuch. If you don’t like it, fine. You don’t have to talk to me. But most people do.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had conservative Republicans tell me they prefer dealing with me over other reporters who pretend to be unbiased, but they know are definitely liberals.

The truth is that most conservatives assume every reporter is liberal nowadays, so let that set you free. They’re going to try to pick apart anything you write. Any story they don’t like is “fake news,” even when you get every fact correct. Some people just crave propaganda.

I know this is deeply unnerving for many of my colleagues. The temptation to scribble puff pieces to try to appease sources can be strong. Wanting to be liked is basic human nature.

Screw that. We’re here to hold leaders accountable. Your sources aren’t your friends. By and large, they’re trying to use you to get a message out. That’s what they’re supposed to do. And you’re supposed to get information out to the public.

So do your job. Be hated. Respect yourself.

And remember: The people you go home to at night are the only ones you have to worry about liking you.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Is Trump’s War on the Media a Sign of Weakness?

No one can say that President Trump’s war on the media was unexpected. And while the conservative base is euphoric, the bigger question is if the public will view it as a sign of weakness.

Just a month into the job, the new leader of the free world used his vast power to ban from briefings three well-established and well-respected news outlets: Politico, The New York Times and CNN.

Sure, that goes back on Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s December 2016 promise that the White House wouldn’t do so. (He famously said on a panel, “That’s what makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship.”)

But Team Trump has made the calculation over and over again that charges of hypocrisy don’t stick when you stick to your guns. And anyone could see where this was going during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump jousted constantly with various news organizations — even going so far to eviscerate some reporters by name at rallies. That delighted his frenzied supporters, some of whom started deploying the Nazi slur “Luegenpresse.” Several journalists were assaulted at rallies, prompting some outlets to invest in private security.

The Republican also repeatedly declared that he wanted to change the entire First Amendment to because it has “too much protection” for free speech and to make it easier to sue reporters. After winning the election, his first tweets raged against protests against him as “unfair” and threatened those who burned the American flag with jail or loss of their citizenship.

Talk about taking extreme positions.

Trump has now announced he’s boycotting the White House Correspondent Dinner (i.e. “Nerd Prom”), which is meant to be another shot across the bow at the media. But, in fairness, if that symbol of beltway incestuousness dies, I won’t be shedding any tears.

Now it’s no secret that Trump’s media bashing is a winner with Republicans. Since the era of Richard Nixon, they’ve bitterly complained that the press is biased against them. At this point, this is taken as gospel — no evidence required.

It’s gotten so bad that many reporters I’ve talked to have, like me, had to routinely defend our profession to conservative friends and family who apparently want to hold us personally accountable for all the sins of the “crooked media.”

This animus (and paranoia) has given birth to a robust right-wing media like Breitbart and Fox News, which, not surprisingly, are enjoying unparalleled access to the new administration. Breitbart, which was previously run by Trump’s top adviser Steve Bannon, seems content to function as Pravda did in the bad old days of the Soviet Union (or perhaps more aptly, RT during the era of Trump chum Vladimir Putin).

During the campaign, various reporters commentators insisted that Trump was no worse for the media than Hillary Clinton, who went months without holding press conferences. That was a laughable argument then, as Trump clearly posed a unique threat to press freedom. And it’s been proven especially so since he took office.

Now the argument seems to have moved on to positing that Trump is no worse than President Barack Obama, who also wasn’t fond of press conferences and frequently complained about the media’s shallowness. There’s a slew of hot takes in right-wing media insisting that Obama is the real bad guy (I guess we can safely assume he’ll continue to play the role of bogeyman for the right for awhile).

But this is a tried and true tactic that Trump and his allies used throughout the campaign with Clinton. Whenever criticism came their way, like about Trump’s myriad business conflicts of interest, they stubbornly insisted that Clinton was the same or worse. That probably helped Trump hang onto just enough skeptical Republicans to eke out a win.

The real question is how Trump’s war on the media will play with the general public. Journalists have never been terribly popular figures, as we’re known for being nosy troublemakers.

Now we live in an era where everything takes on political meaning, from the movies you watch to what stores you frequent. So it’s no surprise that people’s views on journalism and specific outlets are colored by politics. And people of all political stripes have pretty strong views on the media.

So Trump may have picked a ripe target in going after the media. Even those who defend reporters tend to include caveats about what we do wrong. It may turn out to be a good political strategy, even if it’s a disaster for democracy.

But there’s one big problem in having a president who spends more time tweeting about reporters and news organizations he doesn’t like than about world affairs. It looks weak, thin-skinned and even erratic.

That’s a much bigger problem for America than any real or perceived media bias. And I think the public knows that.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Welcome to the Liberal Tea Party

Women's March on Washington, January 21, 2017

Liberals are often parodied as effete, humorless, latte-sipping politically correct yuppies living in blue-state bubbles.

Variations of that stereotype popped up in a seemingly endless array of hot takes following Donald Trump’s shocking win last year. Politicos rushed to declare that left-wing smugness was the culprit, with many deciding that feckless Democrats were destined to wander in political desert for years to come.

So it seems to have come as quite a shock to just about everyone — the nascent President Trump administration, Republicans who control Congress and plenty of members of the beltway media — that liberals aren’t simply rolling over in 2017.

From the Women’s March in Washington (which dwarfed the attendance for Trump’s inauguration) to protests of his Muslim ban in airports across the country, progressives have proven they’re capable of organized displays of outrage — and even doing so effectively.

Many Republicans and pundits expected Democrats to follow their defeatist playbook after George W. Bush’s narrow, U.S. Supreme Court-decided 2000 victory. The Dems would privately sulk but would largely go along with the new president’s cabinet picks in the name of national unity. They’d work with him on issues that were popular in the polls, while liberal activists wouldn’t be heard from for years.

That wasn’t a bad bet to make. Democrats have been more prone to compromise than Republicans in recent years.

And the party clearly has big cracks cutting through it, as some Bernie Sanders loyalists sat out the general election or voted for third-party candidates over Hillary Clinton. Disaffected Sanders supporters likely exceeded Trump’s margin in the three states that put him over the top in the Electoral College: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

As a result, state Democratic parties are facing upheaval, although an insurgent movement petered out at Michigan’s state convention last weekend. But the Sanders-vs.-the-establishment dynamic is still playing out with the Democratic National Committee chair race.

So you could see why conservatives and analysts might think progressives would be too preoccupied with internecine warfare to fight Trump.

As it turns out, liberals can walk and chew gum at the same time. They haven’t forgotten that Clinton actually won almost 3 million more votes than Trump, even if pundits eager to blame out-of-touch lefty ideas for her loss have.

Every day, the new president does something to make progressives’ blood boil — and it’s fueling demonstrations, donations to liberal causes and interest in the Democratic Party.

Just consider the first month of Trump’s presidency. He’s tapped exceedingly controversial figures, like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a blockbuster GOP donor whose disdain for public schools is well-known to those of us in her native Michigan.

Even more troubling is the faith Trump instilled in now-resigned National Security Advisor Michael Flynn — who has a fondness for baseless conspiracy theories and may have jeopardized American interests with Russia.

Trump also threatened the U.S. judiciary (a co-equal branch of the government, courtesy of the Founding Fathers) after judges rebuffed his sloppy executive order banning immigrants and refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

These have been mobilizing events. Liberals regard Trump’s presidency as a national emergency.

Pundits looking for the progressive playbook in the Trump era needed only to go back to 2009. That was when the Tea Party became a driving force in the GOP, spurred by Barack Obama’s historic victory that would usher in the stimulus, Affordable Care Act and Wall Street regulation.

Conservatives packed the town halls of Democratic members of Congress and shouted them down. Now it’s turnabout fair play, with progressives jamming GOP members’ events.

Count me among those who expected the new leader of the free world to get off to a flying start, aided by GOP majorities in both the House and Senate. After all, that’s worked out pretty well for Gov. Rick Snyder, who’s been blessed with strong legislative majorities to rubber-stamp much of his agenda.

I thought House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would already have his tax cut for the wealthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would have slayed Obamacare as promised.

But Trump’s Twitter tantrums and national security follies are throwing a wrench into the long-awaited implementation of an ambitious conservative agenda. And Republicans are clearly unnerved by angry liberal protests.

Now progressives won’t be able to block Trump and the GOP Congress on everything. There will be plenty of setbacks. But they’re certainly enjoying more early success than anyone ever imagined.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: What Would Michigan’s FOIA Reform Really Do?

Susan J. Demas

As a nosy reporter, I always want to know what politicians are up to.

That’s harder to uncover in Michigan than most states — 48, to be exact. Because unlike those states, we shield both the Legislature and the governor’s office from our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

So while you can unearth a wealth of information about your township clerk’s office or the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, you’re out of luck if you try to FOIA your state senator or Gov. Rick Snyder's office.

I think most people would like to know more about how their government operates. I think they’d like to know how the governor and legislators are spending their tax dollars and how they’re tackling problems, whether it’s the Flint water crisis or House members abusing their offices (i.e. former Reps. Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser).

But don’t take it from me. Poll after poll shows that trust in government is at an all-time low.

That’s why I don’t buy Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof’s brusque rebuke to journalists: “You guys are the only people who care about this.”

Meekhof (R-West Olive) was appearing on a Michigan Press Association panel last month in Grand Rapids when he dismissed a question about reforming FOIA (full disclosure: I also spoke at the conference).

The good news is that such legislation exists. Reps. Ed McBroom (R-Vulcan) and Jeremy Moss (R-Southfield) introduced a bipartisan package last term, which passed the House. But Meekhof made sure it died in the Senate.

Now Moss has teamed up with Rep. Lee Chatfield (R-Levering) to reintroduce the bills this term (McBroom was term-limited in 2016). The press conference announcing the legislation was staged with great fanfare, and was attended by both new House Speaker Tom Leonard (R-DeWitt), Minority Leader Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) and most members of the lower chamber.

Meekhof seems to relish his role as the bespectacled cartoon villain in this scenario, serving as a one-man wrecking crew against open government. (Although there are rumblings that he’ll eventually be willing to allow the legislation on the floor, so long as it doesn’t go into effect until 2019 — when he and the majority of senators will leave Lansing due to term limits).

But I wonder if some of the focus on Meekhof’s obstinence is inadvertently obscuring the fact that the package has serious flaws.

When it comes to the executive branch, the legislation is pretty straightforward. The governor’s and lieutenant governor’s office would be subject to FOIA with a few basic exceptions, such as materials related to pardons or special messages to the Legislature.

But if you read the many bills outlining the new process for getting information out of the Legislature, it’s hard not to conclude that it’s a bit of a mess. Instead of subjecting the House and Senate to FOIA with the same executive branch exemptions, the legislation creates a different law, the Legislative Open Records Act (LORA), complete with a new bureaucratic body.

There are more exceptions for the legislative branch, including advisory communications between public bodies and caucus records (i.e. internal Democratic and Republican communications), which sounds fairly broad. It looks as though the Legislature wants to play by its own special rules.

Another (likely intended) consequence is that as written, the law could put the governor at a tactical disadvantage in negotiating with the Legislature, as more of his/her records could be open to scrutiny.

Under the bills, the House and Senate would put LORA administrators in charge of approving records requests. If they’re at-will employees, that raises concerns about their willingness to disclose information that legislative leaders don’t want the public to see. And I’m concerned that citizens may not have recourse in the courts if their requests are denied.

Most disturbingly, the public wouldn’t have access to records related to ongoing internal or legislative investigations or litigation. That means that LORA would still keep details secret in another Courser-Gamrat debacle. Let’s not forget that the sex scandal, however delectable, was the least significant detail in that case. The Michigan House had to shell out $350,000 to two whistleblowers — meaning that taxpayers ended up footing the bill.

While Meekhof may not believe the public cares about government records, I’m fairly certain that people would like to know more about why hundreds of thousands of their tax dollars were spent in this tawdry episode.

Many of the package’s supporters see it as a good first step and want more transparency measures down the road. You can certainly make the case that something is better than nothing.

But that shouldn’t stop citizens, especially those of us in the media, from casting a critical eye at this FOIA package and digging into what it really will do. That’s our job, after all — and we shouldn’t forget that.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Michigan’s Unemployment System Fiasco Has Damaged Too Many Lives

Being fired was one of the low points of my life.

Sure, it taught me a lot about the media business and basic human nature. And it (quite unintentionally) paved the way for me to run two companies and have far more time with my children.

But as someone who gave their all and devoted upwards of 90 hours a week to work, being fired made me question everything --- who I was, what was important, what I really wanted to do with my life.

I’ve written about this before in columns and humorously in the FAQ in my website, which one dour former colleague begged me to take down (“It has too much about you being fired,” he warned). Honesty is something I’ve always promised my readers, however, which is why I’ve shared my personal experiences, like my miscarriage and being raped, when I’ve written about related policy matters.

So I admittedly have a rather visceral reaction to the fact that there are at least 20,000 cases in which Michiganders were falsely accused of unemployment fraud from October 2013 and August 2015. If I had claimed benefits, I could have been one of them.

The problem seems to have primarily stemmed from a new computer system, Michigan Integrated Data Automated System (MiDAS), which falsely flagged people for committing fraud and thus receiving payments they weren’t entitled to.

The falsely accused were then forced to pay back their benefits –– and were hit with interest and penalties that were often two to four times their original payment. Their wages and income tax refunds were garnished.

As a result, many who were already reeling from the loss of a job —— which is pretty traumatic, in and of itself —— say they lost their homes or had to file bankruptcy. It’s amazing how many lives can be damaged and how many families can be uprooted by a computer program error.

A judge just approved an agreement that halts most collections for those claiming benefits during that two-year period. And the state is looking into another 30,000 cases during that time for possible errors.

But for too many people, it will be too little too late. And it’s fair to ask, as some like U.S. Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Royal Oak) have done, why it took so long for the state to admit error and take action to help people.

I began hearing of problems with MiDAS back in early 2014 and discussed this with Tony Trupiano on his Detroit-based radio show. But the state repeatedly dragged its feet and only seemed to respond after TV news shined a light on the problem.

It’s hard not to see parallels with the Flint water crisis. For months, residents pleaded with government officials to no avail about their foul-smelling water that was sickening children. Only after doctors, scientists and reporters started raising hell did the state begin to respond. But that was after too many kids tested positive for lead and too many people died of Legionnaire’s disease.

The poor and unemployed have traditionally been forgotten members of society. As dozens of readers have pointed out to me over the years (often in curiously spelled screeds), these folks deserve what they get. They’re just too dumb or too lazy to succeed, so why should we care about them?

I don’t think Gov. Rick Snyder or his administration are that callous. But it does seem that the problems of the dispossessed consistently don’t rate as high as those of business owners. And there’s been an unhealthy level of skepticism leveled at many who are needlessly suffering.

The governor has less than two more years to leave a legacy. Doing more to help everyday people would be a good start.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Michigan Is the New Illinois in Voter Fraud Myths

I was born and raised in Cook County, Ill. So if you think you have an original joke to impart about dead people voting there, trust me, you probably don’t. I’ve heard them all.

Now elections in our country haven’t always been clean. Chicago, of course, was notorious last century for machine politics and its larger-than-life leaders, like the late Richard J. Daley, subject of the colorful bio simply titled “Boss.” To this day, Republicans bitterly maintain that John F. Kennedy stole just enough Windy City votes to become president in 1960 (conveniently ignoring that vote-counting in conservative downstate areas wasn’t exactly a pristine process).

But presidential elections in Illinois haven’t really been competitive since the 1980s. Democrats have won seven straight elections there.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton thumped Donald Trump by 17 points and almost 1 million votes, even improving on former Illinois U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s 2012 performance. If the Dems stole the state last year, they should teach a master class on theft.

Still, despite a profound lack of recent evidence, the Land of Lincoln remains, for many conservatives, the epitome of voter fraud. This makes some sense, since their crusade against tainted elections is mostly a faith-based proposition.

Consider that in the last election, the Washington Post only uncovered four voter-fraud cases in the entire country out of 135 million ballots cast.

Those inconvenient facts didn’t stop Republicans in the Michigan Legislature from trying to ram stricter voter ID bills through in the lame duck session, although it ultimately petered out. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if the legislation comes back this term.

Michigan is fast becoming the new Illinois. The myth of Michigan voter fraud is growing, with a number of conspiracy theories circulating well beyond our borders. That’s not surprising, as we were the closest state in the country in the 2016 presidential election, with Trump eking out just a 10,704-vote margin.

But because the correct candidate won, it’s kind of odd for some conservatives to keep grumbling about Clinton stealing the state. She didn’t. She lost.

That’s not to say there weren’t problems with Michigan’s election. Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, who’s a Republican, launched an investigation last year after voter irregularities were uncovered during the state’s partial recount. Disturbingly, 87 optical scanners broke in Detroit, the Detroit News reported. And ballot box and recorded vote totals didn’t match in roughly 60 percent of the city’s precincts.

But Bureau of Elections Chief Chris Thomas, who probably enjoys the most sterling reputation of any public servant in the state, says there’s no evidence of “anything we’d call fraudulent” so far.

What’s needed is better training for election officials and new equipment. The state is thankfully set to get new voting equipment in time for the 2018 gubernatorial election. But Thomas believes that improved training is the key for smoother elections in Michigan.

Unfortunately, in our choose-your-own-facts era, this will fall on deaf ears. Those who want to believe dastardly Democrats are stealing elections in Detroit (however poorly in 2016) will continue to do so.

And too many Republican officials are willing to entertain their tin-foil hat theories because there’s a practical benefit in laws that typically make it harder for African-Americans and young people to vote. Those are key Democratic voting blocs, after all.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Can Gov. Snyder Save Part of Obamacare?

Gov. Rick Snyder is jetting off to Washington, D.C., this week on a dual mission. The Republican governor, who was a vocal critic of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign and refused to endorsement, will make nice by attending the inauguration.

But he’ll also be pushing back against part of one of the new president’s biggest priorities: repealing Obamacare. Snyder is also set to attend a GOP roundtable on Medicaid, which was expanded under Obamacare.

During his first term, Snyder dueled with many conservative members of his party to shepherd the Medicaid expansion through the Legislature. He doesn’t want Congress to scrap it. He will, no doubt, sell the reform aspects of the “Healthy Michigan” plan as a conservative alternative to how Medicaid operates in other states.

Now 640,000 Michiganders have Medicaid coverage under Obamacare, which shattered all expectations. And Rick Snyder is their best hope for keeping their health care.

There are roughly 240,000 Michigan residents on top of that who gained health insurance under Obamacare, according to ACASignups.net, the nationally acclaimed site tracking data run by Bloomfield Hills web designer Charles Gaba. That’s thanks to measures like health care exchanges aimed at those without employer-based plans, the ban on insurance companies refusing coverage due to preexisting condition, and the provision allowing those up to age 26 to stay on their parents’ health plans.

In total, about 885,000 Michiganders gained health insurance under Obamacare. So roughly 9 percent of Michigan’s population could lose their coverage if the law is repealed.

If Snyder can help sell Trump and Republicans in Congress on keeping the Medicaid expansion, that would make a huge difference for Michigan. But it still isn’t clear what will happen to the more than a quarter-million people who obtained insurance outside Medicaid, many of whom are small business owners who have long struggled to find affordable coverage. It will be interesting to see if Snyder and other Republicans advocate for them, as well.

Snyder spent much of his seventh State of the State address this week touting the state’s economic comeback, his favorite theme.

But the governor clearly recognizes that state’s recovery could be jeopardized if 9 percent of Michiganders suddenly lose coverage under the GOP Obamacare repeal. No doubt he and other governors on the front lines will forcefully make that case, both at the roundtable and behind closed doors.

We’ll have to see if President Trump and the Republican Congress ultimately decide to listen.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: For Local Media, It’s Death by a Thousand Cuts

Just in time for the New Year, the newly profitable Washington Post announced it would be adding dozens of newsroom jobs.

That was greeted with universal delight from journalists, including some who recently became unemployed. Most observations were a variation on this theme: Maybe this is the sign that our industry is finally turning around.  

I hope so, too, but I sincerely doubt it. The safest places to work in journalism have long been New York and D.C., but even that’s not a failsafe plan. After all, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and USA Today all announced layoffs not too long ago.

The picture in Michigan remains grim. MLive, which includes eight publications, did some major downsizing a year ago. Both Detroit papers (the News and the Free Press) offered buyouts for two straight years and laid off staff this time around. Smaller papers like the Lansing State Journal and Battle Creek Enquirer have, too. The Michigan Radio Network closed shop. And it goes on and on.

Most presses have been mothballed in the name of consolidation. Grand downtown newspaper buildings have been shuttered due to expense. Many papers (including some I’ve worked for) are operating with a quarter of the news staffs they had even a half-dozen years ago. It’s death by a thousand cuts. And it’s somewhat amazing they still put out papers at all.

As a result, lots of reporters and editors are doubling as sales staff –– at least on their personal social media accounts –– urging folks to buy the Thanksgiving edition or gift subscriptions for the holidays. Any breach of the wall between news and sales used to be verboten, but desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.

Journalists tend to be a self-analyzing bunch (although there are plenty of elite reporters who muck it up for the rest of us by insisting they can do no wrong). So there’s rarely a shortage of hand-wringing, especially in election years, over errors, tone, bias and missed stories.

Reporters have never been popular and they shouldn’t be. Those who go into the business looking to make friends are in the wrong industry. But there’s no doubt that there is a profound lack of trust in the media, particularly when it comes to covering politics. Most of this is a proxy war for warring ideologies. More and more, people are only looking for stories that confirm their own ideas and biases (and folks get rather snippy in their absence).

But I think that our withering (and dying) local media institutions have contributed more to this mistrust than we realize. It wasn’t that long ago that local papers and radio and TV stations employed far more people than today — and it wasn’t just writers and on-air talent. There were a lot more employees on the technical and sales sides, too: press operators, sound engineers, grips, classified sales associates, etc.

These were people who you saw at the grocery store or on the bike path. Many companies had explicit policies that you had to live in the community you served. So even if you hated the media, you may not have hated your local paper (at least as much) because you knew people who worked there. And if you had a problem with a story, you knew who to call.

That’s one reason why people trust local government more than state or federal government in surveys. (Although, ironically, far fewer people vote in local elections than in state or federal ones).

Social media is now how millions get their news, which has allowed fake stories to flourish. Convenience is one reason for this. But I would also posit that trust is a big issue. You trust your friends and family. So if they’re sharing a story, you’re probably more likely to presume it’s true.

Rebuilding our local media institutions could help rebuild some trust with readers. There would be many other benefits, including boosting local economies and better informing people about what’s happening in their neighborhoods, schools, township boards, etc.

But newspapers and radio and TV stations aren’t charities. They’re businesses. And so far, no one has come up with a business model that currently works at the local level. While Amazon saw an opportunity in acquiring the Washington Post, it’s unlikely that conglomerates will see purchasing the Escanaba Daily Press in the same light.

We’re all poorer for this, even those who hate the mainstream media with a passion.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Warren Mayor Fouts Goes Too Far

In politics, it’s usually the coverup that gets you, not the crime.

In the case of Warren Mayor Jim Fouts, I’ll take either one.

At this point, you’ve probably heard the disturbing audio recording from which independent forensic experts have said is the mayor:

“Fridays past, I would be going to meet some women. Tonight I’m going to meet a group of retards. Tonight is retard night. … It’s a prelude to the Special Olympics for the retards in the area. You see these people like, I don’t know, what good are they? They’re dysfunctional human beings. They’re not even human beings and I don’t want to be around them. I wish them well in a cage.”

Fouts is still insisting that it’s not him on the tape, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone, besides his stable of sycophants, who believes him.

It’s not just the degradation of disabled adults, but the casual cruelty displayed here that’s stunning. Even in an era of endless insults from our president-elect, I suppose we can take some comfort in the fact that Fouts’ alleged remarks have been condemned by so many, from the Michigan Democratic Party to the Down Syndrome Guild of Michigan.

“The comments represent a total lack of regard for our fellow citizens,” the guild said in a statement. “People with special needs are valued members of the community. They are not a punchline, or in the case of this recording, a nuisance.”

Interestingly enough, Fouts defended Donald Trump back in October over the “Access Hollywood” tape in which the Republican bragged about sexually assaulting women with the “grab ‘em by the pussy” comment.

“Should everyone’s private conversation be a public issue?” Fouts sniffed, according to Politics Central.

That’s probably because another tape surfaced in 2013 in which Fouts berated a city employee in a foul-mouthed tirade:

“If I had a baseball bat, I’d beat the f----- down to the f------ ground. I mean, it would take me just a little bit to get a f------ gun and blow his f------ head out. That’s how pissed off I am.”

In spite of his well-documented checkered past, Fouts has managed to push some fanciful stories in the media. He got reporters to bite that he was almost thrown out of the March presidential debate in Flint due to his Bernie Sanders love. And most recently, Fouts been feuding with Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, alleging he’s covering up an environmental disaster at a landfill. Panicking residents was the inevitable side effect.

Fouts even went to court back in 2011 to fight a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal his age. A Washington Post profile cited in the case (creepily) said the mayor “doesn't like to give his age because he says he tends to date younger women.” (For what it’s worth, Wikipedia says Fouts in 74).

If there’s one thing Fouts seems to crave, it’s attention.

It’s pretty amazing that the mayor of the third-largest city in Michigan has had so many scandals and during his three terms. Warren isn’t a sleepy little hamlet, like Twin Peaks, Washington, where everyone is just delightfully zany. It’s a major economic engine in our state and it deserves a serious, dedicated public servant at the helm.

Warren deserves far better than Jim Fouts. He’s long been considered an institution there, as he’s known for always picking up his phone and attending every senior citizen function.

But his alleged comments on disabled people –– which seem pretty in keeping with his past diatribes –– are beyond the pale. It’s not enough that Fouts was fired from his 910 AM radio show. Station owner Kevin Adell said Fouts’ alleged remarks were “so despicable, repulsive and deplorable that after thinking about it, the only right thing to do was to fire him.”

The only thing Fouts has ever seemed to care about is running Warren. But he clearly doesn’t deserve to mayor. If he has any respect for the people he serves, he’ll apologize and resign as a Christmas gift to all.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: The Michigan Legislature’s War on Voting Continues

Susan J. Demas

Fourteen years ago, I was a new mom. My life consisted of doing round-the-clock feedings and trying to catch a few minutes of sleep in between. Walking to the grocery store two blocks away seemed like an exotic adventure, especially as the fall weather had taken a quick icy turn.

So when a canvasser showed up at my door that October and asked me if I’d like an absentee ballot, I had to restrain myself from hugging her. The idea that I wouldn’t have to frantically search for clothes without spit-up, bundle up a colicky infant and then stand in line for an hour to vote sounded like heaven at that moment.

That was possible because I lived in Iowa, which still has no-reason absentee voting, like 27 other states. There was also zero controversy about the policy. Maybe that’s because Iowa still has a large rural population and trekking down to your polling place can sure take awhile when you own a small family farm in the country. Why wouldn’t you want to vote absentee?

There’s no logical reason why we couldn’t do this in Michigan. Lines in big cities like Detroit and Flint are notoriously long. But you can only vote absentee for select reasons –– if you’re over 60, out of town on Election Day, etc.

No-reason absentee voting is something that bipartisan good government types have supported over the years, like the League of Women Voters. Republican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson also champions the change, as did her two GOP predecessors, Terri Lynn Land and Candice Miller.

But savvy politicos scoff at the idea because it’s widely assumed that it would help Democrats. That’s why the Republican-controlled Legislature last December dumped the latest iteration, which was tie-barred to legislation dumping straight-party voting.

As we all know, the straight-ticket voting ban became law and was quickly challenged in court. Republicans lost their bid to enact the law for this election –– and boy, are they thrilled that they did.

The presidential election was determined by roughly 10,000 votes. In an election that close, anything could make a difference, so it stands to reason that Donald Trump benefitted from straight-party voting. Just take a look at how Republicans performed up and down the ballot in northern Michigan and Macomb County –– where deeply flawed Republicans won state House races and even unknown candidates were swept into local office.

So Republicans could definitely benefit from no-reason absentee voting. The surge of rural voters who carried Trump to victory would undoubtedly appreciate it.

That’s the thing about playing partisan inside baseball. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Not everything goes according to plan.

That’s a clear case for just going with the best policy. And making it easier for people to vote is just good policy.

But right now in Michigan, the only bills the Legislature is taking up would make voting harder. The new strict voter ID bills, which Republicans introduced after the Nov. 8 election, are part of a new national push to clamp down on voting rights. There’s also a $10 million appropriation tucked in there, which means voters can’t seek a referendum to overturn the law.

We’re told this legislation is necessary to prevent voter fraud. But I’m not aware of one case of voter fraud in Michigan this election. Indeed, the Washington Post has only found four cases in the entire country. And 135 million ballots were cast.

Now perhaps you’ve heard the president-elect claim, without evidence, that millions voted illegally. But here’s the fascinating twist. In their filing to stop the recount in Michigan, Trump’s lawyers argue –– wait for it — that “all available evidence suggests the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.”

So these voter restriction bills are the classic case of a solution in search of a problem. But we can expect they’ll become law, because Republicans hold big majorities in both legislative houses and Gov. Rick Snyder has proved eager to sign just about anything they slide across his desk.

Meanwhile, there are real problems with voting in Michigan that the Legislature could tackle. In addition to absurdly long lines, we know that 87 optical scan machines broke in Detroit on Election Day. The $10 million blithely crammed into the voter suppression bills could buy a lot of much-needed updated voting equipment.

But we’d only do that if the Legislature was truly dedicated to protecting voting rights in Michigan — and not just wringing out any partisan advantage out of the system.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.