As the leader of a news organization and a student of politics for nearly four decades, I have been thinking a lot about democracy being on the ballot and how to cover 2024 up and down the ticket.
We are about to be awash in a tsunami of false equivalence, truth distortion and partisan spin, and it is our job at The Indy to help you pierce all of this to understand the stakes and the reality. Nevada is not just a critical state in the presidential race, one of a half-dozen or so that will determine the next president, but we could decide control of the Senate and House and we will determine if Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo is rendered irrelevant by a Democratic supermajority in Carson City.
I have covered every election since 1986, but this one is different, and I could not be happier to have this team of smart, aggressive reporters and experienced, savvy editors to oversee them. Before I go any further, I want to address the elephant in the room named Donald Trump. Democracy is on the ballot because of Trump — but not just because of him. Yes, he made a raft of claims and filed a gaggle of lawsuits, none of which went anywhere, and he fomented a coup on Jan. 6, 2021. These are facts.
But the most distressing phenomenon, in my view, is how many elected officials and candidates have given sustenance to Trump’s false claims of fraud by either echoing them or ignoring them, a form of cancerous neglect that must be illuminated by journalists.
This is the epitome of cowardice, where fear trumps integrity, ambition trumps honesty. Spines disappear as character is revealed.
If Adam Laxalt had not sullied his family name by crying fraud in 2020 and then the state GOP, led by the ethically bereft Michael McDonald, amplified these phony claims (and still do), the crisis would not be as acute. That is, if Trump had been denounced and elected “leaders” had informed the public of the truth — otherwise known as honoring their oath — democracy might not be on the ballot, the threat would have been suffocated long ago.
It is our duty and it is imperative for us to fact-check these sub-Trumpian lackeys and try to revivify trust in the electorate that they have helped erode. Nothing could be more important for us and all journalists, everywhere.
There are plenty of conservatives — real ones, not the MAGA poseurs who don’t know William Buckley from William Shatner — who know all of this to be true and are inconsolable about the degradation of their ideology, maybe even usurpation of it by Trump and his fawning acolytes.
Once too many people have lost faith in the system, it collapses — and despite some optimism from very smart people that we will endure no matter who wins, I am not so sure.
Some will say this is partisan, but it is instead patriotism. It is not patriotic to try to undermine democracy with manufactured claims of fraud; it is, in fact, the opposite of patriotism. What is patriotic is to reinvigorate faith in a system whose foundations are crumbling because of Trump and his enablers and to call out the mendacity wherever and whenever it surfaces. Many national and local outlets, including The Indy and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, debunked Trump’s claims and those of his state minions in 2020. We must do the same in 2024, and we must do it before the election, not afterwards.
I ignore — or mute — the nattering nabobs with the fake Twitter handles and hyperpartisans who can’t see or refuse to tell the truth by blinding voters with a blizzard of lies. Because journalists call out election deniers does not mean we support President Joe Biden or Democrats; it’s our job to do so, and never has it been more important.
You can call out Biden’s rhetoric and his misrepresentations and report the truth that Americans are understandably worried about his age without putting any of that on par with Trump’s pathological lying and delusional effusions. That doesn’t mean we are rooting for Biden to win and we will point out Democratic depredations when they occur. But we will also be sensitive to proportionality and, yes, fairness.
We will not be deterred by the reflexive and calculated cries of liberal media bias. I don’t worry about The Indy’s record.
Just as we reported on the fake electors and GOP Senate candidate Sam Brown’s multiple abortion positions, we also helped expose Ruben Kihuen, who might still be in Congress if not for us, highlighted Mark Manendo’s harassment in Carson City and we have covered Democrats funneling money to nonprofits linked to them and Democrats traveling all over the world on special interest dimes.
We follow the news where it takes us. We are guided by accountability journalism, not political party.
I should also note that the state’s highest Republican elected official, Gov. Joe Lombardo, whom I predicted would win, has sat for not one, not two but three lengthy interviews with me since he was elected. Q.E.D.
Partisans gonna partisan, hacks gonna hack. We are undeterred, and the proof will be in our work, as it always is.
If you think we have gone too far, call us out. But my lodestar — and the team’s — is to give voters a chance to evaluate candidates from president to local office for where they stand on issues, including the most important one facing the country, which is whether democracy endures.
I would be remiss not to mention that this is difficult for me, as I have written before, being a pundit and nonprofit leader. I have a long paper and digital trail, and I don’t try to hide that. I have been lambasted by both sides, the price of doing what I do. I try to balance both roles, and sometimes my staff winces. But they also will tell you I have never told them not to pursue a story, never had a heavy editing hand to slant a piece.
I’m a registered nonpartisan, but my opinions on certain issues and people are well-known — I don’t, I can’t run away from that. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be fair. Let me know if you think we are not.
We will cover the presidential race — and every other race — fairly. We will make mistakes, but we know our role as the go-to outlet for politics and government in Nevada is critical and we take that responsibility seriously.
This impressive team will use all of the resources at our disposal to show where candidates stand, where they are getting their funding and where their facts need to be checked. We will do it without fear or favor, as we always have.
I hope you will let me know how we are doing — the good, bad and ugly. Unless you trust us to be trying our best, even our best will go for naught.
Jon Ralston is the CEO and editor of The Indy.
