We had to expect some pushback when we broke the story last week of the companies and personalities behind the purchase of the shuttered former campus of Judson College.
As we understand the process, local leaders and public officials who have been meaningfully involved had to sign non-disclosure agreements early on to protect the interests of corporate investors. As an investor or economic developer, I understand why you might want to keep the details of a big deal under wraps until it fits your timeline.
If you are still lining up financing, trying to outmaneuver competitors, or waiting on a stack of legal documents, secrecy can be prudent, from a certain perspective. Furthermore, as a citizen of Marion, I also understand how precarious our local economy is, and I have no interest in jeopardizing a project that could genuinely help this community.
But as a journalist, my obligations are different from those of candidates, consultants, or developers. Our job is not to manage anyone’s public-relations strategy. Our job is to tell the public what we can document about matters of clear public importance. If newspapers only reported news when it was convenient for the people in charge, very little would ever see daylight.
It is also worth noting that this project has not exactly progressed in perfect silence. Details about the Judson deal have been shared for months in certain circles and with many people who do not live here at all.
Information about the project has reached us from numerous and various sources over a long period of time, as we, too, have connections that extend beyond the limits of Perry County. This indicates to us that multiple people with a great deal more knowledge of the project than us have been talking about it extensively for quite some time, just not to those of us here in Perry County. That is a very different thing from “respecting the process.”
We have been careful in our coverage of the Judson situation. We have reported what we could verify, corrected and expanded as new facts emerged, and made clear where information was still incomplete.
It is not “premature” to tell local residents that their hometown campus is under contract, or to identify the companies and people involved, when multiple sources and public records point to the same place. The information we used to put together our story could have been found by anyone with an Internet connection and some free time just as easily as it was by us, beginning the moment one key player’s name was spoken in an open meeting.
When Marion’s City Council voted to extend a 20-year tax abatement to the campus’ new owners, while citizens (and, evidently, councilmembers as well) remained in the dark as to who would ultimately be the beneficiary, speculation ran wild, as it has for months. As it always does when people have only scraps to go on.
What could have been a public conversation about economic development quickly devolved into social media speculation that the campus was going to become some sort of correctional facility, or worse.
When you are the only one in possession of information, but offer none, you leave people to draw their own conclusions. Which they will, happily. And the lack of information, and resultant lack of trust, will color the conclusions they draw.
If there is concern on the part of our leaders about the public receiving incomplete information, the remedy is not for the press to go quiet. The remedy is for those pursuing and negotiating this project to be open and honest with the people whose community, history, and tax base are on the line.
