For those who doubt the value of journalism, consider the following. In June, the Bangor Daily News reported that the Department of Health and Human Services was misspending federal money meant to help poor Maine children and families. The department’s commissioner, Mary Mayhew, told other reporters that the BDN had its facts wrong.
However, less than two months later, the department quietly updated reports it must file with the federal government, showing that it had reversed the transfer of funds in question, returning nearly $8 million in federal funds to their original account, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which pays for cash assistance, job training and placement, and child care for low-income Maine families.
The Department of Health and Human Services refused to admit to its actions — although the federal documentation is clear — and it refused to explain how it had retroactively accounted for $7.8 million that it had initially spent on services for elderly and disabled Mainers.
This is only one example of how government has become less transparent under the administration of Gov. Paul LePage. At the same time, political leaders, such as LePage and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, have managed to escape accountability for their outrageous actions and lies, whether they are about immigrants or tax and spending policies that don’t add up. As a result, the job of journalism has become more difficult — and more controversial — as reporters are called upon regularly not just to tell the stories but to make judgments about what’s true and what’s a lie.
As a consequence, journalist bashing is popular these days. LePage, upset about media coverage of his deplorable behavior, says he’s no longer talking to the press. Many state departments, including the Department of Health and Human Services, refuse to answer questions from journalists — and lawmakers.
These actions don’t just add up to a punishment of reporters that makes their jobs more difficult. They actually amount to a punishment of Maine residents. Such efforts to escape accountability have the effect of leaving Maine’s residents — those who pay the salaries of government officials and who are often most affected by government decisions — in the dark. When government officials filter news and information only through their favored channels, there is no assurance that the public gets the full story. Usually, they don’t.
The idea of the press as a watchdog on government is as old as America. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson was especially vocal about the need for a free press. In a 1787 letter about the need for the people to “censor” their government, he wrote, “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Maine residents would not have known about the misuse of TANF funds without dogged reporting by Matthew Stone of the BDN, who pieced together documents and interviews to confirm that the Department of Health and Human Services had shifted money away from poor families and children.
Without the BDN’s Adanya Lustig and Erin Rhoda reporting on the state’s ineffective infant mortality review board, Mainers wouldn’t know that Maine babies are dying at alarming rates and that no one knows exactly why and what to do about it. Without Stone’s reporting, Mainers wouldn’t know about a Department of Health and Human Services decision to turn back the remainder of a federal grant to support young adult mental health services. The Department of Health and Human Services — which called the move “a smart reduction in the size of government” — would never have been forced to explain its actions, disingenuously or not.
As government and politicians become less transparent and less accountable to those they work for, the value of investigative journalism is greater than ever.
