What Local News’ Decline Means for Austin’s Criminal Justice System

Photo by Getty Images / Maggie Q. Thompson

Across the country, we're seeing a decline in local news reporting, and Austin is not immune to that trend. If you've followed the efforts of unionized journalists at the Austin American-Statesman, you may know that that newsroom has lost 60% of its positions since 2018.

Those losses at the city's only daily newspaper included their dedicated crime reporter and courts reporter. It used to be that dailies in major American cities had whole teams covering "cops" and "courts," as the beats were called. They'd listen to police scanners all day and show up where cops did, report on trials gavel-to-gavel, and flip through every arrest warrant filed every day in their counties.

It's true that criminal justice reporting in America has caused plenty of harm. (For a couple of examples, see: the Central Park Five case, or the early-2000s study that found that the more local television news people consumed, the more dangerous they believed their communities were becoming, even when actual crime rates were trending down.) But local crime and courts reporting, especially in the print news tradition, has also provided critical oversight to some of most powerful actors in local government, including police officers, judges, and prosecutors.

"Our court system is meant to be open to the public," says Amy Kristin Sanders, a journalist, attorney, and UT-Austin professor focused on media law. "Journalists and the public benefit from that, and the reason for that benefit is largely because everyone is held accountable."

Travis County's justice system has a range of frightening quirks that the average resident may not be aware of: If you are accused of a crime, you will not be allowed a defense attorney at the first hearing, which determines how much you'll have to pay to get out of jail, for one. Police can book you in jail without probable cause and you can be held for up to 48 hours, without even an option to bail out, for another.

Reporting about issues like those – and watchdog stories that cover things like judges accepting bribes and police committing sadistic acts – "all take resources. And it's resources that a lot of local newsrooms don't have anymore," Sanders says.

All is not lost. Though she's wearing many hats, the Statesman's skilled Claire Osborn seems to be covering stories that once fell into the purview of courts reporter Katie Hall, who left the paper in February. (It appeared they were hiring for a criminal justice reporter some weeks ago, although the job ad has since disappeared and the roster on the Statesman's website does not include a courts reporter now.) A patchwork of reporters covering criminal justice at local TV stations, KUT, the Texas Observer as it fights to stay afloat, and our small but mighty news team at the Chronicle are still standing.

And in fact, daily attention in courtrooms may not be necessary for accountability, just as food safety inspectors don't visit the same restaurants every day, but the chance of their random appearances should keep kitchens operating cleanly. So long as newsroom resources are not so diminished that only the most sensational court cases will demand journalists' attention, we can get a lot done for this community.

How? Part of it is intentionality, and part of it is cooperation. "We have to really think about how we are going to ensure that the public gets the news it needs," Sanders says. "That is going to require some really creative and independent thinking outside the box on the part of news executives."

Meanwhile, the Chronicle's news team will be making a concerted effort to dig deeper into our community's criminal justice system in the weeks and months to come. Stay tuned.