The latest addition to the Carolina Journal staff is no stranger to North Carolina. Wilkesboro native Rick Henderson, CJ’s managing editor, recently discussed journalism and free speech issues with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Martinez: You are now at the helm of Carolina Journal newspaper. What’s it feel like?
Henderson: It’s a big challenge, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a challenge to the extent that I’m having to learn state politics all over again. I’ve worked for editorial pages in three different states now, and every time, you want to get immersed as much as possible on what’s going on in the local scene and figure out where your particular skill set happens to apply to controversies in the news and the sorts of things that are happening as far as politics and local government are concerned.
Martinez: Now this isn’t completely foreign territory for you. You actually grew up in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Then you went over to UNC-Chapel Hill. You have been in several high-level journalism positions all around the country, and now back here in North Carolina. … In fact, as I understand it, when you were at school at Chapel Hill, you were instrumental in some of the journalism publications on that campus. You were friends with John Hood, the president of the John Locke Foundation. So your journalism roots go way, way back. Let’s talk a little bit about the changing nature of journalism. At one point, you were working for the Rocky Mountain News, which was a highly respected newspaper. It no longer exists. Things are really changing.
Henderson: They really are. The Rocky Mountain News folded at the end of February of this year, about seven weeks short of its 150th anniversary.
Martinez: Incredible.
Henderson: It was the largest newspaper in Colorado. And for various reasons, largely dealing with economic forces that are roiling all daily newspapers right now, the Rocky Mountain News’s ownership, the E. W. Scripps Company, decided to get out of the Denver market. Denver had two thriving newspapers as of about five years ago, and only one survived that. There is an awful lot of commentary from people – especially on the conservative side of the political spectrum – talk about media bias having a role in the demise of newspapers. I think that it plays a role to the extent that, if you’re talking about people who were active in conservative circles or who are conservative in political perspective and interested in the news, the fact that you have an awful lot of media coverage that is perceived to be or actually [is] biased, turns off a demographic you would want to attract. That would be people who are educated, people who are involved in the community, people who have money. And the fact that newspapers are losing subscribers for that reason was something that had an impact, certainly on newspaper journalism. But the big thing was larger economic forces, mainly dealing with the fact that retail advertising — things like classifieds, display advertising from furniture stores, car dealers, things like that — has just evaporated. It’s gone to the Web. It’s gone to other places. And so now, the revenue base, which some say was as much as 40 percent of newspapers’ actual operating revenue budgets, is just gone. And it may not come back.
Martinez: What is really curious, I think, is that while we’re experiencing this incredible change in media landscape that you just described, on the one hand you see the demise and the change that’s occurring. On the other hand, we have publications like Carolina Journal, produced by the Locke Foundation — the publication you’re now the managing editor of. Why is it [Carolina Journal] growing and thriving?
Henderson: Well, there’s never been any diminishment in the desire and the demand for information about public institutions and about the community at large. The way of finding people to get that information out to an audience — and to some extent paying them to do so, because at some point people have to put bread on the table — what’s happening is, there’s actually a demand that’s larger than ever. The way of supplying that demand is getting more challenging. And so, the Locke Foundation, Carolina Journal, nonprofit institutions from the free-market side, from the progressive left side, or those that seem to have more of a community focus, they’re going to be providing more and more of that information and analysis and commentary as time goes by, simply because you’re appealing to a different audience to some extent. You’re appealing to people who believe in the cause, who are willing to support it financially, and who may not be as interested in, say, a general-interest publication, who may find that a nice thing to have, but they find that supporting the causes they believe in to be of a higher priority. And so, therefore, they’re going to provide support for publications like CJ over things or publications and institutions that may have a completely different philosophy than Carolina Journal.
Martinez: Rick, you have come back into North Carolina at a really fascinating political time. Right now Carolina Journal is receiving all sorts of accolades, in addition to a couple of other publications around the state, for its investigative work as it relates to some of the questions and activities of former Gov. Mike Easley. Is investigative journalism going to continue to be a priority at Carolina Journal?
Henderson: Absolutely, because that’s one area that we can provide some expertise and also some resources that a lot of daily newspapers may cut back on over time. I was encouraged to learn a few months ago that the News & Observer, for instance, is sort of doubling down on its investigative coverage. That’s very good, but that’s also very unusual because, in a lot of markets, what you’re seeing newspapers going to is more and more nuts-and-bolts coverage, covering the automobile accidents and the fires and the natural disasters, and not really spending as much time covering the inner workings of government, regulatory agencies, legislative bodies — those sorts of things that newspapers, during their real heyday, say from the late ’70s to a few years ago, did better than anybody else. So, what we can offer is knowledgeable reporters, people with contacts, people with a lot of information, and people with the ability to find out these stories and to be receptive to digging further, and also a willingness to sort of buck the establishment, to do the public records requests, to fight for things that are really important to advance the cause of liberty.
Martinez: You know, Rick, it’s very interesting as well that another issue that seems to be growing around the country, and certainly right here in North Carolina, relates to the environment, climate change legislation — all sorts of activists as well as state legislators who are putting forth policies they believe are necessary to fight what they think is something very perilous to our country. Environmental journalism — is that also going to be an area you focus on?
Henderson: Absolutely. That’s one area that, certainly, the Locke Foundation in general has worked on over the years, but also something that I have a great interest in because I did a lot of that in an earlier incarnation at Reason magazine. I did a lot of work on environmental coverage. It’s something we’re interested in at CJ because you have issues. For instance, over the past couple of years, drought management — which was something that was unheard of in North Carolina until the recent drought, which has ended — but we still have lawmakers who are attempting to regulate, in some cases, private interests and private property, for a drought that no longer exists, and so, areas dealing with drought management, with water management. … Those are the sorts of things that are going to be very high on our priorities from now on at Carolina Journal.