Kevin Riley, editor of the AJC, testified before a U.S. House Judiciary subcommitee on June 11, 2019 about the challenges facing local news because of competition from large tech companies. He was testifying in support of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2019.
This is a transcript of Riley’s 5-minute presentation to the subcommittee.
> READ MORE: News outlets seek Congress' aid in talks with tech firms
Chairman Cicilline and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today.
I’m Kevin Riley, the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A few years ago journalists at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution established that 80 doctors in Georgia had sexually abused patients, including patients under anesthesia, and those doctors were still licensed. The newspaper investigated and found a nationwide problem. Hundreds of doctors were abusing patients and getting away with it. The investigation prompted reforms. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. And of equal importance, readers of that investigation told us that’s what they want from their newspaper, that kind of coverage. The victims of those doctors called our reporters and thanked them for telling their stories .
About a year before that story, dozens of educators in the Atlanta public schools had been found guilty of altering students standardized test scores in the largest cheating scandal in the nation's history. The convictions culminated a years-long journalistic effort by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. AJC reporters had noticed that student scores on Georgia's standardized tests showed extraordinary improvement. They analyzed the scores. The improvements in some schools defied statistical possibility. The reporting triggered a state investigation that found system-wide cheating in 44 Atlanta public schools. 178 teachers and administrators participated. The test cheating inflated the scores of thousands of students, giving the false impression of progress that cheated those students.
The story would never have been uncovered without the AJC. Educators would never have faced justice. The system would not have been fixed. And most important of all, students wouldn't have been offered the chance to gain the knowledge that they had been denied.
No other news organization in Atlanta has the capacity for such deep reporting. No other organization could have withstood the relentless pressure to back off unleashed by the school district and the business community. No other news organization would have stuck with the story for 5 years. This kind of investigative reporting is hard. It's upsetting. It's important. It has real impact. And we are proud of it.
But newspapers do other important stories too. I was reminded of one last week as I prepared for this testimony. Let me tell you about the woman Congressman Collins mentioned. Her name is Shirley Sessions.
She's the widow of a World War II veteran. They lived in Carrollton Georgia. She’d spent decades trying to unearth the story behind her reticent husband's service. I'd been able myself to discover many details about her husband's time in combat, and I'd written about it. After her husband died, Mrs. Sessions still hungered to know more about his service. She was so enthralled that she journeyed to France for a reunion of her husband's military unit.
I joined her, bearing witness while a widow paid an inspiring tribute to her husband, and the story I wrote about it brought AJC readers along on her emotional journey. She literally retraced his steps of that young private, the man who would later be her husband, through combat in tiny French towns during World War II. It was the unknown story of a local hero and one that only the Atlanta Journal-Constitution could tell. It would be lost to history without us.
Mrs Sessions sent me a text as I prepared for this testimony. She said in part, “Your stories have become a touchstone in my life. I watched the coverage of D-Day, cried a lot, but am more grateful than ever.”
We invested a lot of time, money and effort in these stories I mentioned. That's what newspapers do. We use our resources to tell our community stories -- the good ones and the hard ones. Telling them makes our community better.
I share these examples because they illustrate the everyday challenge faced by local journalists. We must be vigilant to tell important, well reported and thoughtful stories. We must care that they get wide distribution. That's our job and crucial to our communities. We are accountable to people like Miss Shirley and her neighbors in Carrollton Georgia .
Almost always the debate about Media and Tech is framed within a discussion of international news brands. But the greatest peril for our nation lurks at the local level, where a regional or community newspapers must cope with a fast-changing technological and financial matters. We are the ones who are concerned with our communities, their government and their well-being. Our staff live in our community. They have a big stake in informing the public.
Social media and Technology companies have enormous influence on the distribution and availability of news. But we should be worried about losing newspapers, the fountainheads within the local news ecosystem. It is worth considering stories that would go untold.
Thank you.
RELATED: Watch a video from Kevin Riley’s testimony before a Congressional committee
> RELATED: Kevin Riley's prepared testimony for the U.S. House subcommittee
> Free press matters close to home
> Find more about Kevin Riley on his AJC staff page and AJCEditor on Facebook.
AJC stories mentioned in Kevin Riley’s testimony
> Atlanta Public School test cheating investigation
> AJC Doctors & Sex Abuse investigation
> The liberator’s widow: Shirley Sessions retraces husband soldier’s WWII journey
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