Political Journalism

Since 1804, when Elihu Stout’s (Vincennes) Indiana Gazette, Indiana Territory’s first paper, announced a popular referendum for representative territorial government, Hoosiers have practiced intensely competitive politics, and newspaper coverage has followed.

In January 1822, George Smith and Nathaniel Bolton began the Indianapolis Gazette, the newly designated capital’s first paper. It covered the Indiana General Assembly meeting in Corydon and printed laws adopted by that body. Although the Gazette initially took a nonpartisan stance, it later put legislators on notice that the press would be watching their activities. Beginning with the General Assembly’s first session in Indianapolis in 1825, Indianapolis newspapers possessed a particular responsibility to cover legislative activities for the state. Likewise, the legislature, acknowledging the importance of the press to the public and to its own political well-being, began providing accommodations for journalists representing state and local newspapers.

As political factionalism increased, newspapers joined the fray by attacking opposing party leaders and editorializing when necessary, thus giving each paper a distinct political overtone and readership. The Indianapolis State Sentinel (formerly Gazette) became the leading Democratic organ under the editorship of George and Jacob Chapman. Subsequent publisher Austin H. Brown used the paper to attack and expose the secrecy of the Know-Nothings. The Indiana Journal, originally a Whig paper, joined the Republican ranks in 1856 and retained that affiliation until the 20th century. The Family Visitor promoted the temperance cause for two years, and the Indianapolis Freeman and the Free Soil Banner both battled the slavery issue. During campaigns, candidates relied heavily on the newspapers as vehicles of party propaganda and as a means of disseminating their messages to the voters.

The printing of the state’s official documents also took on a political flavor locally. In 1825 John Douglass, publisher of the Indiana Journal, was named state printer. Beginning in 1851, however, the contract became a lucrative prize every session, alternating between the Indianapolis State Sentinel (Democrat) and the Indianapolis Journal (Whig/Republican) depending upon which party held the legislative majority. Facing a divided legislature in 1883, the state awarded the contract to the nonpartisan William B. Burford Printing Company.

Journalists played significant roles in monitoring politicians and espousing party positions in their writings. Lew Wallace, the Brookville native and later author of Ben-Hur, covered the legislature for the Indianapolis Journal at age 18 and co-edited the Free Soil Banner (c. 1848). Schuyler Colfax, later vice-president under Ulysses S. Grant, worked as a legislative reporter for the Indiana Journal (1842-1843, 1847). Neither Wallace nor Colfax was unusual for their time, since partisanship of the press was the norm well into the 20th century.

Three newspapers clearly represented the political spectrum of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Indianapolis News began as an independent newspaper in December 1869 and became a Republican organ when William Henry Smith and Charles W. Fairbanks acquired it in the 1890s. By the 1920s, the News was among the state’s most influential papers. The Indianapolis Star, begun in June 1903 as a Republican daily, later absorbed the Journal (1904) and the Sentinel (1906). The Indianapolis Sun began as a Populist newspaper in 1888, but in 1914 became the Indianapolis Times, supporting the Democrats who controlled the State House and the White House. When the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain acquired the paper in 1923 it espoused Republican sentiments on national issues, voiced a Democratic perspective on state and local issues, and was, in subsequent years, the closest thing in the capital to a liberal newspaper. Journalist Louis Ludlow characterized the press during this period, however, as a classic example of “partisan journalism of the slapstick variety.”

Political journalism heated up in Indianapolis when Eugene C. Pulliam bought the Star (1944) and later the News (1946). Pulliam unabashedly used both papers, clearly perceived as Republican mouthpieces, to promote his strident conservatism. For managing editor of the News, Pulliam retained C. Walter McCarty (1944-1965), who was less Republican and conservative than the state GOP and who advocated objective coverage of politics. Beginning in 1948, however, Pulliam assigned Lester M. Hunt, described by Times political reporter Charles M. Maddox as “a hatchet man,” to cover the State House and to do his political bidding. Responding to Pulliam’s desire to expose county welfare fraud and secrecy, Hunt prepared a story with false charges and highly slanted reporting, which was refuted and condemned by the journalistic community.

Several journalists played key roles in covering the local political scene. Hunt’s primary nemesis was Irving Leibowitz, a New Yorker whom the Times hired in the late 1940s and who launched a journalistic war on Pulliam and the Star. While Leibowitz had his share of enemies, he generally was respected for his political coverage. His departure for Ohio following the Times demise in 1965 was mourned by many especially Democrats who lost an important sympathetic voice. Maurice Early joined the Star in 1916 and covered the police beat and City Hall before moving to cover the General Assembly in 1921 (which he did until 1953). Known for his column “The Day in the Legislature” (called “The Day in Indiana” following the legislatures recess) which ran 1939-1954, Early developed a reputation for his fairness and for writing with more authority than his colleague Hunt.

In the late 1920s, former Times reporter Eugene Jepson “Jep” Cadou, Sr., who had covered the David (D. C.) Stephenson trial, joined the Indianapolis bureau of International News Service, which later merged with United Press to form UPI. Cadou, who covered every biennial legislative session from 1925 to 1967, began a tradition of addressing the General Assembly at the end of each session. He was named an honorary member of the State Senate in 1963.

Edward Ziegner, hired by the News as State House reporter in 1946, became director of the paper’s legislative bureau in 1953 and its political editor in the 1960s. Taking the legislative beat when Cadou died in 1968, Ziegner continued until retiring in 1985. Dubbed the “dean of the State House press corps,” he held court in his news shack with lawmakers and other state officials who sought his counsel. Although respected by both parties, Ziegner represented the end of the line for such advocacy journalism. His peers, notably Gordon Englehart of the Louisville Courier Journal, Patrick J. Traub of the Star, Jack Colwell of the South Bend Tribune, and Bob Ashley of the Gary Post-Tribune, clearly rejected reporting that was not an arm’s length away from the decision makers. After Pulliam’s son Eugene S. became publisher of the News and the Star in 1975, both papers dropped partisan biases from their news pages.

By the 1990s, partisan editorial associations, while still functioning, wielded considerably less clout than they previously did, particularly among newspapers that regularly covered the State House. Some may argue that political journalism’s heyday had passed. Others, however, argued that objectivity is more desirable, more ethical, and certainly more appropriate.

*Note: This entry is from the original print edition of the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (1994). We are currently seeking an individual with knowledge of this topic to update this entry.