Governor: Indiana website not meant to be news source
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Gov. Mike Pence told a talk show host Wednesday that he didn't learn about his communication staff's plan to start a state-run news service until he saw it in The Indianapolis Star.
Meanwhile, Pence's communications staff, which authored the plan for the "Just IN" website, scrambled to tamp down concerns over the news service Wednesday in a strange, sometimes emotional exchange with Indiana Statehouse reporters.
Pence chose to take to WIBC-FM on Wednesday morning to address ongoing controversy over the plan first reported Monday on IndyStar.com.
He repeated his explanation that the site was intended to be a resource, not a news source. But conservative talk show host Greg Garrison pressed him for an answer on who drafted the written plan.
"How does an idea that's antithetical to what you were setting out to do go that far, when nobody caught it? Who wrote that thing?" Garrison asked.
Pence replied: "I'm asking all those questions, Greg. I frankly learned about the memo from press reports late Monday. Using terms like news service, like news outlet, it's just not appropriate."
Critics of the plan for Just IN quickly drew comparisons to other state-run media outlets, such as the Russian Communist party's Pravda, with one dubbing it "Pravda on the Plains." The national Society of Professional Journalists issued a statement late Tuesday saying it was putting the Pence team on watch.
Pence addressed some of those criticisms during his radio interview. "As governor I can assure you that (the plan) did not meet my expectations, and if this website doesn't meet my expectations of respecting the role of a free and independent press, I will reject it."
s Pence went on the radio, Pence Communications Director Christy Denault sought to allay concerns from Indiana media Wednesday in a news briefing that ended up being one-part gripe session and one-part news briefing.
Denault, who insisted that the plan for Just IN started as an idea to update the state's online press release calendar system, said she was always planning to ask Indiana media for their input on what would be useful.
She opened the news briefing by asking for an off-the-record "give and take" session on how to improve Just IN, but Statehouse reporters aired many concerns about the Pence staff's inaccessibility over the past two years.
After about 20 minutes of off-the-record conversation, she agreed to publicly take questions on the news service for the first time since news of it broke late Monday. She said the staff would no longer use the word "story" to describe press releases they planned to distribute through the website and would probably back away from terms like "managing editor" and "editorial board."