Transcript
Speaker: What happens to a community when the people in power realizes nobody is watching them? We gonna get into it. Let's get it!
Speaker: welcome first of all welcome this is unsolicited perspectives i am your host bruce anthony here to lead the conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today's society join the conversation and follow us wherever you get your audio podcast subscribe to our youtube channel for our video podcast youtube exclusive content and our youtube membership rate review like comment share share with your friends share with your family hell even share with your enemies On today's episode, local newspapers are disappearing, government secrecy is expanding, and ordinary citizens are being forced to uncover the truth on their own.
Speaker: But that's enough of the intro. Let's get to the show.
Speaker: I've always had a deep respect for journalism because at its best, journalism is about searching for truth, revealing the truth, pointing out hypocrisy, and standing up for the people who don't always have the power or the platform to stand up for themselves.
Speaker: And I think somewhere along the way, we've started confusing commentary with journalism. Opinion segments, debates, and people arguing their personal point of view can be informative and unat entertaining. But that's not the same thing as doing the work to uncover the facts.
Speaker: True journalism is not about finding facts that support your argument that you already wanted to make. It's about finding the evidence wherever it leads and even when the truth is uncomfortable, inconvenient, or challenges what you already believe.
Speaker: That work becomes even more important at the local level. When local newspapers disappear, we don't just lose sports scores, community announcements, or coverage of city council meetings. We lose people whose job it is to pay attention. We lose reporters who know the neighborhoods, understand the history, recognize the people in power, and notice when something doesn't add up.
Speaker: And when nobody is paying attention, entire communities can be ignored, overlooked, or left to fall through the cracks. How are we supposed to understand people, let alone empathize with them, when we do not truly know what is happening in their communities? How can we recognize injustice, corruption, or neglect when there is nobody there to document it?
Speaker: For 20 years, Miranda Spivak covered government and corporate accountability at The Washington Post. During that time, she watched local newspapers disappear one by one and began asking a simple but unsettling question, what happens to a community when nobody is left to cover City Hall?
Speaker: What she discovered led her to ordinary people who decided to start asking questions themselves. Her book, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards, follows five people who had no press credentials, no legal teams, no special access. They simply believed something was wrong, began searching for the answers, and refused to stop digging.
Speaker: In this conversation, Miranda and I are going to explore what journalism is supposed to do, what happens when local institutions are allowed to operate without meaningful scrutiny, and why ordinary citizens are increasingly being forced to fill the gap left behind when reporters disappear.
Speaker: Without further ado, journalists, former Fulbright scholar and author, Miranda Spivak. As I said at the top, I'm here with Miranda Spivak, author of Backroom Deals in Our Backyards, How Government Secrecy Harms Our Community and Local Heroes Fight Back. Miranda, thank you so much for joining the show. We're going to be talking about something that's near and dear to to my heart, and that is journalism. And that is also fighting for the little person. And you have this book where you have five people who fought for themselves. So I'm really interested to hear about that and just about your take on journalism and whole. So thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker: oh thanks, Bruce. It's great to be here. Normally, I start the show with saying, let's go back and tell me about your background and your childhood and stuff like that. But I am going to steal a line from one of my favorite movies called Brown Sugar.
Speaker: And in that line, the journalist would ask anybody in the music industry when they fell in love with music. So I'm going to ask you, Miranda, when was it that you fell in love with journalism? Yeah. That's a great question, actually. So I would have to say that it was probably in high school in Fairfax County, in Virginia, and then not in college because I was like watching this profession even then. And this is ah eons ago, ah start to really decline. And also my father was a journalist in Washington, D.C., and he died when I was a freshman in college of a heart attack. And I just understood, I think, just what a stressful occupation this could be. So, of course, I thought I was going to be a lawyer. However...
Speaker: So hold on. i Okay. You thought journalism was too stressful. So you decided I'm going to be a lawyer. Okay. In Washington, D.C. Yeah. Well, forget that, too. So what happened actually was that I was between my junior and senior years of college, I got a job on a small newspaper.
Speaker: Had a great editor. I probably one of the best editors I've ever had. And then I was like, oh, man, this is too much fun. You know, this is what I'm going to do. i i was resisting it, but I'm going to do it. So that, you know, it goes way back. And I've been a journalist for 40 plus years. I really never strayed from the profession.
Speaker: Well, you worked for The Washington Post for over 20 years? Yeah, about 20. About 20 years. And while you were at The Washington Post, you saw local newspapers start to disappear. Right.
Speaker: This probably happened in the late 90s going into 2000s when the internet is is is really taking shape. I know, living in the Washington, D.C. area, going to the University of Maryland, Riding the Metro back and forth, it was very easy for me to get that Washington Post before I hop on the Metro and and read it.
Speaker: When did this disappearing of local newspapers, though, when did that start to cause alarm for you? Yeah, I think you're right. I think it does coincide lot with the growth of the Internet, the failure, I think, of news organizations, including The Post, to really understand what this was going to mean. And then, actually, it was Craigslist that really killed off local news because it sucked up all the local ads. And, you know, those little classified ads that used to see in newspapers, those were worth about $100 a box. Oh, wow. especially The Post, but, you know, smaller newspapers, but they were very valuable. And they were also way that communities communicated, frankly, with each other. I mean, journalists are always like, oh, advertising, blah, blah, blah. But actually, it's another, wouldn't call it local news, but it's another form of local communication. So you know what the local... bookstores doing, they don't exist anymore, you know, where you could buy clothes, where you could buy groceries, whatever. And so when Craigslist and, you know, the guy who started that actually has done a lot of philanthropy subsequently for local news, because I think Craig Newmark feels guilty about it, but
Speaker: as opposed to Jeff Bezos, who doesn't care. But, you know, it I think it goes back to the early 2000s. The Internet was really starting to come on. And, and you know, I remember this debate. I was at the Post starting in 1998, and there was in a whole internal debate about sort of what to do. And Steve Call, who was then the managing editor and left,
Speaker: It's kind of, i think, in frustration, but he saw it coming. And, you know, much as I love the Graham family, and I do respect and admire them a lot, then I think that everybody was a little behind on this. And then and then when Bezos bought the paper, he really started to diminish the local coverage, which continues now. It's been eviscerated. But this is also playing out in communities all around the country. It's not just the D.C., the DMV, as we call it. It's not that. It's really going on everywhere. And it's really the loss of local advertising and local businesses. So Amazon hits you in two ways. You know, they suck up all your local business. They took the book industry. You can get anything you want from Amazon, including groceries. So why should I have to go to the grocery store? door i'm mean, all this stuff is, you know, i look people are living on the Internet now.
Speaker: Yeah, that's interesting because I think a lot of people look at newspapers as in their source of revenue as subscriptions, but no, it was ads and those. could I didn't even think about the community advertisements that would be in the newspaper for jobs or people selling stuff.
Speaker: It's almost as if Craigslist, as you say, started it, but then like the Nextdoor app where communities are literally speaking to one another yeah and they're advertising what has gotten rid of Craigslist. So that's another aspect of that extension. right But so when this is happening to the Washington Post, these local newspapers are disappearing because that ad revenue is disappearing. What is happening to the local news media?
Speaker: and the community at large when these newspapers are disappearing. Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's sort of what my book is about, too, because what happens, local news, people see themselves in the newspaper or they see their neighbors in the newspaper or they see high school sports in the newspaper. These are all community unifiers, you know, public issues that are discussed in the newspaper, you know, covering the city council, the school board, you know, public school issues, whatever.
Speaker: So when they're not being reported on, i think it it it's sort of a chicken and egg, but I think it fractures the community. The community looks for other ways to communicate that aren't as verifiable. i mean, I'm sorry, but, you know, all this stuff on Facebook and elsewhere that people post without even checking it. It's who knows, you know, what is really true anymore. So which, of course, Trump has played on tremendously. But It just, you know, with community listservs. I mean, when I went to research my book, which is about five local communities where the news organizations are basically gone, except in one case, and it's local people who step in and step up and and discover a problem in their community and go about trying to solve it. frankly, without much media coverage. And, you know, this is what's happened is I think that civilians, as I call them, they're not lawyers, they're not journalists, they they are, to the extent that they are able and have time, they are stepping in and filling the void. But, you know, they're not all i'm I'm not saying that they're dishonest, but they're not verifiable communicators. And, you know, journalism is a profession, despite what people think. And certainly, ah you know, every news organization I've worked at, which was local all the way to national, we worked very hard to be accurate. And when we made a mistake, we owned up to it. And i think that doesn't happen now with all this stuff on the Internet. So, If you're somebody interested in an issue, you really have to look long and hard to find the truth.
Speaker: So, Miranda, the audience knows this, but you don't know this. My first major at the University of Maryland was journalism. I wanted to be journalist. I I loved and wrote for this a little while for a school newspaper, at both in high school and college. i ah ended up being secondary education in history, but more importantly was a... is a researcher. Those jobs are researchers. right And it's not about...
Speaker: Proving your thesis is about finding the truth, whether the truth leads you to back up what you believed or sends you down a path where you're like, and I was wrong. And a lot of people, though well-intentioned, as you say, don't have that training because it is absolutely a profession. Me as a researcher...
Speaker: Still can't be a journalist because there are other aspects of journalism that I did not learn. I had a problem when writing of not having my personality come out.
Speaker: And they're like, you're you're a columnist. You're an opinion You can't write just facts because your voice always comes out. How can people that are getting information from Facebook...
Speaker: They're getting information from people who aren't journalists, even the ones that are on TV that speak for a living. right How can they decipher or research on their own and find out what is truth and what is opinion?
Speaker: You know, that is a hard question to answer. And the reason is that AI is taking over the Internet now.
Speaker: And, i mean, I've looked at stuff that I know. from either my own work or experience or whatever, and you put it into AI and it spits out gibberish and, you know, bad information in, bad information out. It's not a big mystery why this isn't working.
Speaker: So, you know, I think the public library and the librarians, frankly, are great sources of how to verify information and how to get information. They also have access to online databases that are fact-based. And that, you know, frankly, i would, you know, hooray for librarians. I mean, I would go to the public library, which you can also reach online through your library card. But, you know, that's certainly one way. I think there are news organizations, I would in particular point to the New York Times, that I think still do very good work. I, you know, full disclosure, I have freelanced for them. But I i do think they're a step above pretty much everybody else in this country. So yeah, I mean, they are not perfect, but they really do. For example, this whole story about Trump's
Speaker: airplane that needed to be retrofitted, which nobody wanted to admit why he wasn't flying back from the fancy Qatar gift plane from Turkey and from NATO. Well, the Times got that story.
Speaker: and And now they're being sued, basically, or pursued by the administration because, you know, obviously it was based on some kind of classified information or at least secret information if it wasn't classified.
Speaker: You know, that's the reaction of the government to truth when actually the Times performed a public service by alerting everybody to the fact that this plane wasn't safe for the president of the United States.
Speaker: Why would you argue against that? And it turns out to be true because, of course, they're now taking the plane out of service and retrofitting it. So I will say, you know, you have to really know your sources. I'm You know, I would say The New York Times is a good source. I think there are other good sources. But also, you know, trust but verify.
Speaker: Go to the library. Talk to, get access to their stuff and and try your hardest. And, you know, you talk to people. I mean, when i I'm a journalist, I interview people. But you know what? I don't take everything they say at face value. I use that as an opportunity to look elsewhere for information.
Speaker: But it's ah it's a process. And certainly sharing stuff on Facebook without verifying it is just irresponsible. Yeah. Going back to the loss of local news and local newspapers, what what happens in city government or what does city government do differently the moment they realize nobody's watching? Nobody's watching. Yeah. Right.
Speaker: Well, I mean, that is a huge issue around the country. And that's why these accidental activists, as I call them in my book, who become the community watchdogs, I mean, they show up.
Speaker: You know, they are at the city council meetings and and when or they are asking for documents and data from the government, which you're entitled to get under most state public records laws.
Speaker: But when they're not there, nobody in the community knows what's going on. And when the local reporter goes away or is too overworked or is discouraged from attending meetings, which frankly was happening at The Washington Post, where I was just saying,
Speaker: Oh, come on. You know, when I go to a meeting, yes, 90 percent of it, I'm not going to write about. It's not interesting to our readers. But there's that 10 percent that if I weren't there, i wouldn't hear. So, you know, it it takes a lot of legwork to do this. But this is you know what's happening is that governments know nobody's watching. And that's when all the backroom deals start to occur.
Speaker: Why? OK. I want to go back to specifically the Washington Post. Why would the Washington Post fight against sending a reporter to these local town halls and meetings and things like that? Is it purely just an economic situation where they don't want to pay? Or do they feel like that news isn't important or isn't salacious enough to sell newspapers?
Speaker: You know, what I'm talking about really occurred 15 years ago. i couldn't even talk to you really about the current the Washington Post and its current iteration because they basically gutted local news completely. It was already on its way out. But the last six months, they've laid off hundreds of reporters, many of them on local news. So going back, I would say, 15 years when people were discouraging reporters from hanging out with, you know, at meetings.
Speaker: I think it was that, was this the best use of our time? Was it going to be salacious enough? We don't want meeting stories in the paper. They're boring. Well, you know, I always had a different view, which was,
Speaker: You got to hang out. You got to listen. you i got one of my best stories being at a planning board meeting about this fancy art gallery, secret art gallery in in Montgomery County, Maryland, where, you know, there was millions of dollars, billions probably, of exclusive art that wasn't open to the public. But the owner, Mitch Rails, of the Danaher Corporation, wanted a sewer.
Speaker: So suddenly he had to go into the public domain. and And then, you know, I wrote about this guy and he actually gave me an interview, which annoyed the hell out of our business reporters who had tried for years to get an interview with him and he'd never done I said, well, i cover local news. He wants a sewer. That's why. But, you know, I i just never ah agreed with that. I think it was a time management thing and also a desire for the big story. But big stories come out of building little stories.
Speaker: Right. Yeah, I always tell people when I was... A student teacher and I was teaching history and people would say history is boring. I would say, no, it's not because you love the History Channel. You love documentaries. It's just the way that you teach history. If you teach it in storytelling, yeah people will will be interested in it. it Local or the small stories do often turn into big stories. And you watch on Netflix all the time. It's these little stories in these little small towns right that become these big documentaries that become these
Speaker: kind of ah pop culture phenomenons. And it starts by local reporting. Right.
Speaker: What is this? What is the common threat? You've got data centers, you got water systems, you got courtroom algorithms, you got dangerous roads. What is all this threat? Is this all coming out of these backroom deals because these city government officials are no longer being watched because the local reporter isn't there to watch them?
Speaker: I think that is generally the case, certainly in the case of data centers, which are proliferating all over the country. And are generally those agreements have been made with state and local governments to...
Speaker: give the Often they're looking for tax breaks, actually, which, you know, can really tip people off. So if your government's going to give away a big tax break or sell land at a dis discount or whatever to a data center that arguably uses a lot of electricity and a lot of water and maybe puts too much stress on the local resources, they're Governments might want to do that deal behind closed doors and often do because they sign these nondisclosure agreements, which are also proliferating around the country. And I you know find them sort of shocking that government officials would agree to that. But what's happening is these companies, Amazon, Microsoft, all the big ones, are holding that over local governments and saying, we're not coming if if ah you don't sign this NDA, this nondisclosure agreement. and
Speaker: Then the question is, OK, so you get a data center, which is this behemoth, noisy, energy sucking thing. is it producing enough jobs, good jobs, well-paying jobs to make it worth it? Or is it sort of like a warehouse, which, you know, in Prince George's County, where I worked for a long time for the Post, ah that was what was happening there is they were just getting warehouses. They weren't getting well-paying you know jobs. And so that's sort of the next question. If the government is going to give away all this stuff and do it in secrecy, what what are the people getting out of it? and And that's a lot of what my book was about, which was these secrets were being ah agreed to, whether it was a nondisclosure agreement or a dangerous road, as you say, and documents about
Speaker: car accidents and other data, you know, what's the public benefit to that? And that's really the question. And I think the hard answer for governments is we don't really know, you know, we're just sort of being held up by these companies and and we're afraid because if we turn them down, then maybe we are going to lose jobs. And it's very murky. and But the common thread is that I think, A, the government's It's easier to do stuff in secret. You know, you don't have the annoying public looking over your shoulder. And there's no question the public can be annoying, but it's usually because they're so frustrated that they just lose it. But, ah you know, I think those and NDAs should just be outlawed across the country. And then it would be an equal playing field. So if the data center company wants to come in, no, nobody's going to sign an NDA with you. You can stay here or you can go next door, but nobody's signing an NDA.
Speaker: So these NDAs are recent, right? And are they specifically just for, like, local governments? Do state and federal agencies also sign and NDAs with major corporations? Yeah, yeah. I mean, what I have researched and what I know is state and local. There is, you know actually the Trump administration is trying to get federal employees to sign and NDAs just so they won't leak, I guess. But, you know I can speak to state and local, really. They are proliferating and they are being signed by state governments, local governments, small municipalities.
Speaker: And you know these big corporations are coming in and saying, we want all these things from you. And it's You know, we don't want we don't want to tip off our competitors. That's what they claim is the rationale. And there's something to that. I can't deny that. But at some point much earlier in the process, this stuff should become public. So the public has a chance to weigh in and say, maybe we don't want that energy guzzling data center next door.
Speaker: Picture me naive and the audience naive. What is the benefit for these government officials to sign these NDAs for these corporate yeah corporations? Well, it ranges. I think it can be that they're saying, we've brought a lot of good jobs to our community and think you should be thanking us.
Speaker: you know And then is somebody putting cash in their pocket? I mean, that's always... the question, it seems to me, what is the benefit? Or is it a lobbyist who takes you on a fancy boat ride on on the Great Salt Lake, which somebody just told me about yesterday? You know, it may not be cash. It could just be a good meal. Who knows? But I think public officials...
Speaker: all of whom are guided, at least by ethics, laws and regulations, just need to feel more comfortable turning down this stuff because they are representing their communities. They're not representing Amazon.
Speaker: Mm hmm. These type of things have been happening, though. Like, we could go all the way back to Tammany Hall, right? And the corruption that was there. it it I don't know if you have data one way the other.
Speaker: Can you pinpoint an increase of these These type of, I don't know if it's completely corruption, but definitely on a borderline type of government, local government corruption, since the local reporter and the local newspapers have disappeared. Is there an uptick or is it just this is the way it's always been? Maybe people's eyes are open a little bit more to it. Yeah, very good question.
Speaker: I don't have data of my own, but there have been some recent studies that have come out and shown that when local news disappears, corruption of one sort or another rises. And also that costs to governments rise because their bond ratings change for some reason. There's skepticism about how reliable their finances are. So, you know, there's a cost that way, and according to these studies. And there's also
Speaker: ah you know, some kind of increase in corruption. What I have been able to document myself is an increase in secrecy. That, I think, has gotten worse over the last 20 years or so. And so what does that mean? Why are people keeping secrets? Which is exactly what you asked me. And and the answer is fear. It's potentially corruption. It's just the difficulty of having to deal with the public when you are under-resourced, which most state, most local governments are, because state legislatures don't pony up enough money for them usually. You know, it's a combination of factors. But the bottom line is that governments, low state and local governments, usually go into a defensive crouch, and it's just easier to push the public away. It's easier not to give out documents and then have a member of the public fight back as opposed to
Speaker: giving out something incorrectly and then getting sued for it. I mean, a lot of it is fear, i think, but it doesn't help. And it doesn't help ah communities understand what's going on in their communities and mount a campaign either to support it or oppose it. You know, without information, you're stuck. yeah Speaking of communities, it it seems like There might be a little bit of a correlation between the communities that are hit hardest when local press disappears and those communities usually being the ones that had the least power to fight back. Is this coincidence or is this by design?
Speaker: Well, ah God, it's probably both. I think that is absolutely true. One of the communities in my book is Uniontown, Alabama, which is an historically black community, poor.
Speaker: ah You know, low employment, low income, you name it, ah has a big catfish plant there. And that is a source of jobs, no question about it. And the catfish plant is one of the, what I would say, overusers, the community would say polluters of the water and sewer system. And they have been cited for it, but they usually get a slap on over the wrist and and it's not a big fine. And as a percentage of their costs and income, it's not a lot. And so this continues. And when the community members there have tried to speak up, they have been shut down at every turn, either by the federal government, which is funding some of
Speaker: the chain improvements, supposedly, or by the state government, which, you know, they go to Montgomery to try to lobby themselves and and can't even get a moment to speak at a public meeting. You know, it's ah it's a mix. But I would say that low-income communities of color, which aren't necessarily the same, right um are harmed a lot by the secrecy. And it is You know, i it's interesting. i i I theorize a little bit myself because I worked and as a white person in Prince George's County, Maryland, which is a majority black
Speaker: community, majority, minority community, that there is a lot of residual hesitation about speaking up and that it goes way back. I mean, it goes back, you know, to Jim Crow and that these some of the folks living there who I would write about or interact with in the government are are don't see their role or they're afraid of being shut down. Whereas in a white community or a more white community like Montgomery County, Maryland, across the way, not too far away, community activism is sort of par for the course.
Speaker: And people are accustomed to it and they believe they have a voice. And, you know, i this is total theory and I haven't documented it. It's just a gut feeling based on what I saw. Yeah.
Speaker: Let's get to your book. Let's get to, let's, we've been talking about your book. Let's but let's get more in depth about your book. You've said it that the people in your book had no credentials. They weren't lawyers. They didn't have any press pass before they went out to start to get proof.
Speaker: what did that act What did that feeling actually feel like for them while they were in that process? Yeah, it's a tough process. it's First of all, i mean and you mentioned some of the issues. It was you know ah poison drinking water, of dangerous roads. These are everyday issues that I think every community might encounter.
Speaker: Toxins in firefighter turnout gear, hidden algorithms in the criminal justice system, which are being widely used and abused. And as I said, the sewer system in Uniontown, Alabama. And what happens is that people in the community, either it happens to something has happened to them, which is the case of the poison drinking water. Michael Hickey's father died of a weird disease. form of cancer. And he just began researching this. He was so bereft. This is in Hoosick Falls, New York, a small community outside of Albany. And he discovers, he's able to discover that there are forever chemicals in the drinking water and he's able to trace it back. It takes a long time.
Speaker: And what happened to Michael was initially, you know, he was very cautious and he wanted documentation and proof. And when he went to the mayor, the mayor said, oh, don't tell anybody because it's going to give our community bad reputation. Of course, if you allow people to move into the community and they discover there's poison drinking water, that would be a lot more serious, it seems to me, than a bad reputation. But so he got pushed back that way when he eventually was able to prove his point, which he did by getting the water tested himself.
Speaker: And then also learning to use public records and getting documents and data that showed that the state of New York was aware of this problem long before they went public with it. But, you know, it was unpleasant. I mean, on the one hand, people was the mayor was saying, don't tell anybody. And on the other hand, when the neighbors found out what he knew, they said, why didn't you tell us sooner?
Speaker: Which is understandable, but, you know, it just it's very tough. Or Diane Cotter, who's another forever chemical person, her from Worcester, Mass., her husband got prostate cancer. He was a firefighter. She began to through a very long process of research and she's a high school graduate, no experience at all doing this. began to recognize that there was were forever chemicals in firefighter protective gear. And then it was conceivable, still not proven, that the gear that was supposed to protect them was actually also one of the many sources of poisons that firefighters encounter. I mean, going into a burning building, you're going to inhale a lot of junk and it's a dangerous job. And the rate of cancer in the fire service is higher than...
Speaker: the general population But she took enormous amounts of grief from the industry, from the union until the union finally came around to her side and public officials wouldn't give her the time of day. And, you know, really...
Speaker: labored alone for a long time. there were also There was also competition with other people who were discovering similar problems and then who was going to get the credit and just kind of ugly stuff. And and I think that, you know, you have to be a certain personality, which is you have to be angry because you're getting rebuffed. You have to be really tenacious. You have to really understand, as all these people did, how to do research.
Speaker: Huge, huge. I mean, Diane was reading and Michael were both reading ah chemical studies, you know, in in very complicated language that they learn to decipher. And then you have to learn to organize your community, which ultimately they have done, and learn to lobby and learn, you know, the value of public shaming, which is where local news comes in. If you can't get somebody to cover this...
Speaker: and embarrass the public officials who've been ignoring this problem. What do you have? But, you know, Diane used Facebook not so much to get the word out about what her findings were, but as a communication tool. I mean, she sent 22,000 emails over time to various public officials and firefighters and, you know, began to build a movement. And actually, that one's been relatively successful. a lot of cities and communities are now trying to buy gear that does not have forever chemicals in it. but is still going to protect firefighters.
Speaker: You said a lot of the people, or or at least two of them that you mentioned, got access to public records. Does the public technically have access to the records that that they can hold the government accountable?
Speaker: Yes. And this is actually a big part of the last chapter of the book, which is sort of a how-to chapter called The Playbook for Accidental Activists. And I talk a lot about public records. I think what happens, what I've discovered, as a journalist, I know how to do this. And that certainly was part of my work over time. But most people don't. And they don't realize that if you go to the city council meeting and they hold up a document and they say, we have this study That becomes public immediately. You can get that. You should get that. You don't have to rely on whatever they're telling you. it says you can go get it. Contracts, you know, police reports. I mean, all of this stuff is should be available to the public.
Speaker: Citations by environmental agencies against. you know, various polluters. Those things are public. You have to know where to get them and you have to figure out how to ask for them. But in general, every so every state, territory, you name it, and the federal government have public records laws.
Speaker: And they the advice to governments ah by the law to err on the side of transparency. I want to talk about the people in your book and accessing of these records.
Speaker: Because I talk to a lot of people just in my personal life, and they're always coming to me, hey, Bruce, did you hear about this story? Did you hear about this? Did you hear about that?
Speaker: and And me being the natural the naturally wanting question everything person that I am would say, well, that doesn't sound right. What did the article say? What this news report say? oh I don't know. I just read the headline. What type of a person...
Speaker: is a person that will go and search out these records, that will go and read these complex documents when they only have a high school education. Go through it, figure out what it's trying to say, learn from it, and keep on digging. Because it seems like As technology grows, we are becoming more and more dependent on technology and becoming lazier and lazier doing the things that we actually do. People all the time say, I read a book. No, you listened to a book. You didn't actually read the book. So what type of person is it that will go get these documents and keep on fighting?
Speaker: You know, I don't think these people knew that they were any particular type of person at the outset of their discovery of problems in their community. but But as i watched their stories unfold, and a lot of this i cover I watched as it was occurring and, you know, sort of wondering how these problems were going to be resolved. And that's pretty much what the book is about. And in the case Uniontown, Alabama, the problems still are not resolved. And I had to sort of leave that chapter hanging because, you know, I think...
Speaker: Anger is a big driver here. And I think the minute you get pushback from either a local company or, you know, you're on hold for three hours trying to solve a problem or whatever, you begin to think the system is completely messed up. And when I went to the city clerk's office and I said, I want to see the contract that you have with so-and-so who's picking up my trash, except they're not picking it up.
Speaker: ah And you you're told, oh, it's going to take months to dig out that contract, which, of course, is illegal because the maximum state response is 30 days. The federal response is 20. And a lot of communities and cities and states have to respond in 10 days. Doesn't mean they have to give you what you're asking for, but at least they have to acknowledge that you have made a request and that they're trying to fulfill it. But I think i think anger and frustration really drive them. And and they're also, you know, there's a cliche, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. And it's not turning out to be the case. And I think people are a little surprised by that. and and
Speaker: turn out to be crusaders in a way that they never even knew they had it in them. and And I think i think it's ah an evolutionary process for people. I hope the last chapter of my, mean, the stories of my book, I think, explain this all. But the last chapter in particular, if you were to scroll to that, you would say, OK, do this, this, this, and this. And this is how you can do it. Mm hmm.
Speaker: What is the toll it takes? yeah i this This fight that they that they go through, what is the toll it takes on them personally? yeah it's It's a lot. I would be ah lying if I didn't say these people suffered. i think they did suffer, and they are suffering. And...
Speaker: That's a choice you've got to make. I mean, what what is it worth to you to solve this problem? Can you get help from your neighbors and shoulder some of the responsibility, which Richard Baltuck in Maryland did when he was looking, trying to sort of deconstruct this situation where the state of Maryland's transportation department was refusing to give him information that your tax dollars had paid for. It's just, anyway, it just, you know, it's hard work. He was able to get his neighbors together and do a lot of the research. And ah Diane somewhat has been able to do that. Michael Hickey pretty much operated alone for a long time. His marriage broke up. I don't know if it was related or not, but You know, these are tough, tough circumstances. And when you have the weight of the government and private corporations arrayed against you that, you know, you really have to think hard. Is this worth my time? Is it, am I really, where am I going to come out on this? Am I just going to be defeated by by the end
Speaker: Financially, it costs as well, right? Because you said the gentleman in New York had to personally pay for the water to get tested. you did Is there any type of, when he proves it, a reimbursement by the government?
Speaker: That's a good question. ah They have gotten – there have been some settlements in that case with the big polluters. And so individuals, including Michael, got some money from those settlements. I don't think it ever will compensate him for his time. It's probably like a penny an hour or something like that. I mean, it just – but But that settlement wasn't because he unearthed the problem. The settlement was because these companies were accepting some form of responsibility for the pollution and therefore paying damages, essentially. But, you know, Ben Eaton in Uniontown, Alabama, I mean, he has just taken all kinds of grief. And yet ah he persists and has really worked hard and has built something of a coalition. So that helps. But You know, the only way you're going to get money back, and it would usually be your lawyers, is if you filed a lawsuit for a public records case and they turned you down, but in the end they had to give it to you because you went to court. And it, again, depends on the state.
Speaker: It's not true in every state. You can get some compensation. Usually goes to the lawyers' lawyers' fees, but they always win. Yeah. You've been doing this for 40 years. And I know there's a little part that we're journalists, which were taught. I think it was one of the first lessons that I learned. You got to remove your emotion.
Speaker: Yeah. And you got to just be objective, get the facts. But hearing these stories, even for 40 years, has to affect you emotionally. Yeah.
Speaker: What does that look like for you on a day-to-day basis when you're getting new information and you're hearing these stories and these struggles these people are are going through, but you have a job to do? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. How do you deal with that? Yeah. It's an interesting question because some of what people in the book told me wasn't accurate and I had to vet it and I did vet it and I was able to correct it.
Speaker: you know, and didn't write it. And it wasn't because they did that out of malice. I think they did it either. They were trying to please me in a way, you know, they wanted the story to go a certain way or or they just made a mistake. And, you know, but it was innocent, I think. So, you know, i'm always on the alert, I guess, which I suppose means a high state of ah whatever. i don't know.
Speaker: Tension, whatever. You know, i I certainly can empathize with these folks, but still try to tell their story straight. And, you know, you're raising an interesting issue because I am temporarily right now visiting my daughter and her family in Berkeley, California, where there is an enormous unhoused problem.
Speaker: And this is an affluent community. And I'm sitting here. I mean, I'm going go or got to a city council meeting, I think, trying to figure out. Why aren't they solving it? You know, why are people living on the street and in doorways in certain parts of the city? Not all, you know, not in a more affluent part of the city. But and and I'm thinking this is just insane. And, you know, I guess what my work has done is and I hope enabled me to be a good citizen, too.
Speaker: What what goes through your mind? When, the for instance, the people that are telling you this story, it doesn't quite check out. It's not exactly what they said.
Speaker: you vetted it. And and and for very whatever reason, they mess up the story. And you're like, oh. yeah this isn't true what you told me and here's yeah the yeah facts. Like, what is that like when when these people are opening up to you right to come back and say, you this this wasn't completely true for what you told me. Right.
Speaker: Well, I mean, I have to be very straightforward about that. and And also because I want to re-verify, you know, let them have a chance to say, okay, oh, you know, maybe I did mess that up and here's how I got that information, but you know And then I'm saying, well, here's how I got that information. So let's try to match this up. I just think you have to be careful. And you know i don't i I would ascribe malicious intentions to somebody who's more expert at this. you know A member of Congress, for example. a president of the United States, for example. People lie regularly. But you know when you're dealing with people who are not experienced, and they're not experienced talking to a journalist either, right um
Speaker: You know, you just try to do your best and and help them do their best. I think it's it it is a relationship. It's not hostile in this case. And, you know, I'm just trying to help them tell their story. Not the best version of their story, but their story. story yeah You said you just want to be a good citizen. and that's kind of the reason why you're probably going to go to that city council meeting in Berkeley.
Speaker: It's probably also the reason why you wrote this book and the reason why you became a journalist at large. What is it that you want people to get from your book? Well, I think that people generally don't have a sense of how much power they actually hold. yeah And that public officials will listen. there's They will especially listen if there are 50 of you, not two of you.
Speaker: And so you need to learn to organize. You need to understand what you're entitled to, what your tax dollars have paid for that you are entitled to learn about, and that you can make a difference. And I and i think that that's what the book shows, is that even in very difficult times, which we are in,
Speaker: You can make a difference, especially at the state and local level. And then when you do it there, whether it's an environmental issue or a safety issue or an education issue, it can ripple nationally. And so it's okay to start local. And that's where I think you can have the biggest impact.
Speaker: Miranda, I think that's a perfect way to end this conversation. i love everything that you said. i i just like speaking to journalists. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for talking to us about your book. And thank you so much for talking to how we can be good neighbors to each other by just going and fighting the power, as a Public Enemy would say. But thank you so much for coming on the show. was really my pleasure.
Speaker: oh It was great. Thanks a lot, Bruce. I really enjoyed it. Absolutely. Before we end, I know, I know, I know, I'm going to harp on something that I said at the top that I reiterated in the interview, but I still feel like I need to continuously stress it, especially where we are in today's society.
Speaker: Real journalism is not about winning an argument. It's not about collecting only the details that confirm what you already believe. It's not a panel of people shouting over one another or personality turning every story into a performance.
Speaker: Journalism, at its best, is the patient and sometimes uncomfortable pursuit of what is true. It is asking another question when the first answer does not make sense.
Speaker: It is checking the document instead of trusting the headline. It's following the evidence even when that evidence leads somewhere you didn't expect or forces you to admit that your original assumption was wrong.
Speaker: At work matters because the truth does not always announce itself loudly. Sometimes the truth is sitting inside a contract that most people do not know exists.
Speaker: Sometimes it is buried in technical reports, government records, legal agreements, environmental testing, or a decision made in a meeting that almost nobody attended.
Speaker: And when local journalism disappears, so does one of the strongest lines of defense ordinary people have against being ignored. We lose the reporters who know the history of the neighborhood.
Speaker: We lose the people who recognize when officials' explanation doesn't match what happened last year. We lose the person sitting through the boring meeting long enough to hear the one sentence that changes everything.
Speaker: That is the reason why Miranda Spivak's work is so important. And backroom deals in our backyards. She doesn't only examine what institutions were able to conceal. She centers the people who refuse to accept that concealment.
Speaker: These were ordinary people whose lives were interrupted by something that felt wrong. They didn't begin influence, advanced training, or powerful organization behind them.
Speaker: They began with questions. Then came the research. Then came the resistance. Then came the moment when they had to decide whether being dismissed, criticized, isolated, or exhausted was enough to make them stop.
Speaker: And instead, they kept going. That doesn't mean that the fight was easy or that every problem was neatly solved. Some of these people paid a serious personal price for demanding answers.
Speaker: They sacrificed time, money, relationships, comfort, and pieces of their own peace. But their stories remind us that expertise can be learned.
Speaker: Public records belong to the public, and one determined person can force a community to confront something it would rather avoid. Miranda Book also reminds us that being heard is rarely just about having the truth.
Speaker: Sometimes you can have the evidence and still struggle to get anyone to listen. That's where journalism becomes more than an industry. It becomes a public service.
Speaker: It gives people language for what they are experiencing. It connects one person's struggle to a larger pattern. It places information in front of a community that powerful people may have preferred to keep scattered, confusing, or invisible.
Speaker: So I encourage you to support Miranda's work and pick up Backroom Deals in Our Backyards, How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and Local Heroes Fighting Back. Read it for the investigations, but also read it for the people.
Speaker: Read it for the person who noticed something was wrong. Read it for the person who was told to let it go. Read it for the person who kept searching after the institutions around them made truth difficult to reach.
Speaker: But here's the uncomfortable part people don't want to talk about. The people in power are not the only reason important truths remain hidden. Sometimes the truth stays hidden because the rest of us are too busy, too distracted, too discouraged, or too willing to believe that someone else will do the digging.
Speaker: So the question is not only whether journalists will continue to search for the truth, they will. That's an easy question to answer. The real question is whether we will support them when they search for the truth.
Speaker: Whether we will listen to the people fighting to be heard and have the courage to act once the truth finally reaches us. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for listening.
Speaker: I want to thank you for watching. And until next time, as always, I'll holla.
Speaker: That was a hell of a show. Thank you for rocking with us here on Unsolicited Perspectives with Bruce Anthony. Now, before you go, don't forget to follow, subscribe, like, comment, and share our podcast wherever you're listening or watching it to it. Pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock will will enjoy it also. So share the wealth, share the knowledge, share the noise.
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Speaker: Thank you. Thank you for listening and watching and supporting us. And I'll catch you next time. Audi 5000. Peace.
