By Phil Riske | Senior Reporter/Writer
(First in a series called The Journalists Who Bring Us the News)
Jim Small is the executive director and editor of the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting (AZCIR). His journalism work has largely focused on state government and politics, first as a reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times, then as editor of the paper and its =sister publications, the Yellow Sheet Report and Arizona Legislative Report.
He covered the Arizona House of Representatives, the state budget process, immigration issues, state prisons, education, the Arizona Corporation Commission, political campaigns and campaign finance matters.
Under his guidance, the Capitol Times won dozens of state, regional and national awards for its work, and he expanded the paper’s role as a watchdog of government, with a focus in accountability journalism.
He began his journalism career covering city government, public safety and business for a pair of community newspapers in the West Valley.
Rose Law Group Reporter: What stories you’ve covered in the past several years are most memorable or significant?
Jim Small: Arizona Capitol Times was at the forefront of two stories that directly affect every voter in the state: redistricting and dark money.
We were the only traditional publication that covered the redistricting process from beginning to end, and along the way, we detailed how the Democrats out-maneuvered the Republicans, analyzed the possible outcomes and generally predicted how the legislative and congressional maps would be drawn. We also uncovered evidence of bid-rigging by the commission members, which was a factor in the governor ‘s attempt to remove the commission’s chairwoman.
Capitol Times also led the way on covering the flood of dark money that dominated the 2014 elections, particularly in the secretary of state and corporation commission races. We wrote many stories about the likely provenance of that money (largely believed to be APS) and outlined how the spending by some of the groups attempting to influence the election likely violated state election law and federal tax laws.
How has the Arizona Legislature and government changed during your time at Cap Times?
It has become less congenial and less collaborative. Far more people arrive at the Capitol with their minds already made up and battle lines already drawn now than they did even a decade ago, making it much more difficult to make meaningful progress on complex policy matters.
Differences of opinion on policy and political philosophy are to be expected and, frankly, are a vital part of the legislative process. But more and more often, legislators arrive with ironclad views and an unwillingness to even consider that there is another perspective, much less make an attempt to find common ground and try to find a solution that is amenable to all sides of a dispute. Politics has long been described as “the art of compromise,” but “compromise” has been turned into a four-letter word for many elected officials and loud (though ultimately small) blocs of voters.
What hasn’t changed that you think should change?
Term limits in the Legislature. They have had a perverse effect on the legislative process and made it easier for special interests to advance policies that benefit themselves, not the citizens of Arizona. The concept is great in theory, but in practice, it serves mainly to shift the power from elected officials (and the voters they represent) to legislative staffers and lobbyists.
When I began covering the Capitol, the first wave of term-limited lawmakers was leaving office, but there were still many legislators who had a decade (or two or three) of experience writing laws and crafting policy. Now, you can count those people on one hand. Many of the inexperienced legislators in the past would be mentored by veterans, but with so few of those at the Capitol now, newbies are often left to fend for themselves or be guided by other novices. The result is that they rely heavily on the input and advice from staff and lobbyists rather than drawing on the institutional knowledge of tenured legislators.
Why was there a lack of investigative reporting in Arizona before the founding of AZCIR?
Changes in the corporate media landscape have led to significantly fewer journalists in Arizona, be they in print, television or radio. The metro Phoenix area has gone from two major daily newspapers to one in the past decade, as has the metro Tucson area – and the newsrooms of both of those large daily papers are a fraction of what they were. Combine that with an increase in responsibilities due to the rise of the Internet and social media, and you effectively have fewer people being asked to do more work. In that sort of environment, it’s understandable (though unfortunate) that management would decide that it’s not a good use of resources to have several people who dedicate themselves only to long-term projects and publish just a handful of stories a year. Those stories may be great, but they don’t feed the beast at a time when that is the top priority.
We [AZCIR] hope to fill that gap, both by doing original reporting that is free for Arizona media outlets to republish and by working collaboratively with those outlets on joint projects. Since we don’t have hourly, daily or even weekly deadlines to meet, we are able to dive into complex projects and spend the time needed to investigate and report on them as thoroughly as possible. We also bring a wealth of tech skills to the table, which allows us to parse large volumes of data to back up the reporting with hard numbers.
Is criticism of the news media warranted?
Absolutely. The media are far from perfect, and their readers or viewers should hold it to account. That said, there’s a difference between constructive criticism and criticism designed only to deflect from one’s own shortcomings or advance a selfish interest, be it political or profit.
