Governor's JustIN News Site Brings Criticism, Clarification

Wednesday, January 28, 2015 at 6:28 AM

By Mike Perleberg

Indiana Governor Mike Pence. (Indianapolis, Ind.) - Plans for a state-run news service sparked controversy across Indiana earlier this week. On Monday, the Indianapolis Star published a story detailing plans from Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s office to launch JustIN, a new state website for distributing state press releases and featuring some lighter stories. The story was centered around a Pence administration memo that had been leaked to the newspaper. Facing widespread criticism and jokes from journalists and opponents on social media, Indiana Governor Mike Pence said Tuesday that the reports on JustIN was a misunderstanding. "Reports that this was intended to be a news agency, I think just represent an understandable misunderstanding based on some internal communications that I read about in the press,” the governor said Tuesday afternoon. Pence said the goal of the website is to make sure that all activities of the state government are readily accessible and transparent to the public and the press. “The website that has become a source of controversy was simply an effort to have a one-stop shopping website for press releases and information coming from various state agencies,” said Pence. But plans for introducing the site in February are moving forward. Pence's staff plans to further address the JustIN website Wednesday. Indiana state government’s press releases are currently fed onto www.in.gov/calendar. A clarification statement from Pence’s office Tuesday said the JustIN website will offer the same service to the public and to the media, with a new, streamlined look. The website will also have a managing editor, an assistant editor, and an editorial board that includes members of the governor’s communications team. “Each weekday, up to six press releases will be featured in the ‘Top Stories’section of the website. All other press releases for the day will appear further down on the Just IN homepage, separated by category,” the statement said. Members of the media will continue to receive their press releases by email. Popular tweets regarding the JustIN controversy are below:

This is State of IN's calendar for press releases: http://t.co/OuLPEOkXqQ. The #JustIN website will offer the same service with a new look.

— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) January 27, 2015

The new face of Indiana news. pic.twitter.com/4fjWu7Huaf

— Chris Spangle (@chrisspangle) January 27, 2015

Imagine how the Mike Pence News Service would have covered some recent news stories. http://t.co/6mAr3hXald pic.twitter.com/c9sncGSRr5

— IndyStar (@indystar) January 27, 2015

SPJ is aware of Ind Gov's state-run news outlet announcement; is following closely. Stay tuned... | http://t.co/ymE4hdLYJ4

— Society of Pro Journ (@spj_tweets) January 27, 2015

Cartoonist @Varvel imagines Gov. Mike Pence’s state-run news agency. http://t.co/ocP6A2EJFG pic.twitter.com/mm6zAUOjTx

— IndyStar (@indystar) January 27, 2015

To those asking for a comment, you're too late. We already interviewed ourselves and wrote a story.

— JustIN News (@Just_IN_News) January 27, 2015