By Chris Powell
Government in Connecticut now may have more publicists than there are independent journalists keeping watch over it. Indeed, it’s starting to seem as if government in Connecticut has a more or less official news media organization on top of all those publicists.
For the Hartford Business Journal reported last week that Connecticut Public, the left-wing nonprofit organization that operates radio and television networks in the state and is affiliated with the left-leaning Public Broadcasting System, is getting a grant of $3.1 million from state government.
The grant is to pay for extensive renovation and expansion of the organization’s building in Hartford, including a community meeting space for as many as 125 people, a 200-seat theater, a kitchen, and 20,000 feet of office space for renting — that is, a government-financed income stream.
Connecticut Public already has gotten other state grants as well as money from the tax-funded national Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Connecticut Public has an annual budget of $22 million and a hundred or so employees. With its federal broadcast licenses and meeting space in the state’s capital city, it has the broadest reach of any news organization in Connecticut even as it competes with every news organization that gets no financial support from government.
But with its $3.1 million state government grant in hand, Connecticut Public can’t be expected to focus its journalism on any failings of the Lamont administration and the Democratic majority in the General Assembly, nor on the scores of other recipients of state government funding approved by the administration and legislature — the journalism Connecticut may need most.
It might be a bit different if Connecticut had enough right-leaning or moderate news organizations to balance the reach of Connecticut Public and if state government supported them financially as well.
The Yankee Institute, a free-market advocacy and research nonprofit based in Hartford, does much critical journalism through its Connecticut Inside Investigator news service and might do more with the sort of money state government is bestowing on Connecticut Public.
While the Connecticut Mirror, a nonprofit state news bureau, mainly bleats for the same causes pushed by Connecticut Public, it provides excellent state Capitol and budget coverage and, if it wanted to and had more money, could do much more auditing of government operations.
All newspapers in the state are struggling financially but some still do occasional reporting critical of government and might do more with more money.
But all of Connecticut Public’s competitors might be reluctant to risk being compromised by taking government money, even if it was awarded in the name of fairness and balance.
So that leaves Connecticut with a preliminary form of what is called “state media” — the form perfected in totalitarian countries.
OBSESSED WITH TRIVIA: Connecticut news organizations lately are obsessed with vandalism, with some TV and radio stations even leading their newscasts with reports about swastikas spray-painted on buildings and stolen gay-pride flags. Is this really, as such reporting suggests, an epidemic of “hate”?
Swastikas were being painted on buildings and flags were being stolen long before the latest war against Israel and before same-sex marriage was legalized. Such vandalism may have a political tinge today, but some also may be “false flag” trickery. The perpetrators are seldom discovered.
It won’t be worth worrying about until the perpetrators dare to do it openly. But covering it requires far less effort for diminished news organizations than covering anything serious.
NO JOKE: Speaking to the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce last week, Governor Lamont made a joke about the fake ticket scandal in the state police. So many drivers are speeding in Connecticut these days, the governor said, because “that’s what happens when you get the police to stop issuing those fake tickets.”
But nobody can be sure what the fake ticket scandal is, since there has been no definitive report on it even though the audit that identified thousands of potentially fraudulent tickets was published six months ago. The inability of government to provide any accountability after all this time isn’t so funny.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 
Mention here of two news outlets that both are all-Connecticut and only online, namely CT Mirror and CT Inside Investigator, leaves me wondering about the third one with both attributes that is not mentioned here, CT Examiner.
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“At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows.
“Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady notes were heard.
Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green.
So to the Jews old Canaan stood
While Jordan rolled between.
“Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.
Merry Christmas, Ishmael!
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PBS has 350 affiliate stations nationally. How many are in Connecticut I do not know, but two of their radio stations are within 5 miles of me. It was fine when Robert J. Lurtzema broadcast “Morning Pro Musica” but now it is all chatty Kathys talking about food, suffering terrorists, and data gaps.
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