> SOUTHERN INDIANA — When I see politicians taking an adversarial stance toward the media, or simply ignoring the media, I can’t help but think, “how dumb.”

It doesn’t make any sense to me. If you’re a politician, even if you hate the media in private, you should make reporters, newscasters, bloggers and photographers love you. As we approach the November election, we will no doubt see candidates doing the exact opposite.

I’ve already seen some local politicians get off to a bad start. Every election, the News and Tribune sends out a candidate questionnaire and every election there are at least a few candidates who don’t respond.

First off, those people aren’t getting my vote. For local candidates in local elections, the candidate questionnaire is often the only chance voters get to know the person they’re voting for. I’m not going to vote for someone I don’t know anything about.

Second, if you can’t find the time to tell your constituents about yourself and what you want to do if you’re elected, then why should I have any confidence you will be able to find the time to meet the needs of the public office you’re running for?

Finally, I’m going to take the fact that you didn’t respond to the candidate questionnaire as a sign that you’re going to be difficult to work with if you are elected. I don’t report on local politics, but if I did, I would be hoping these candidates lose because I don’t want to deal with someone who is going to be hard to get a hold of for the next few years.

While I’m on the subject of people who are hard to get a hold of, nothing drives me crazier than when people don’t call back. It makes me mad when I hear about a reporter not getting called back for a story even though I’m not the one writing it.

Now, it’s one thing if you’re a private business or something like that and you don’t call back. It’s still annoying and you’re missing out on an opportunity to get the name of your business in front of people’s face for free, but that’s your choice. But if you’re a public officeholder, you should make it a priority to call back before press time.

Why? Because as a public officeholder you have an obligation to communicate what you’re doing and the decisions you’re making and what you think about issues to the people you represent. Now, obviously, allowances have to be made the higher up the political food chain you are. The president isn’t going to take calls from reporters. The governor likely isn’t either. But a councilperson or a commissioner should.

Local public officeholders need to be accessible to local news outlets. If you can’t make time for that, then don’t run for public office.

In addition, if there’s some kind of controversy or something a politician doesn’t want to talk about, ignoring phone calls is, more often than not, seen as an admission of guilt. Sometimes it’s probably best to just not say anything (it’s obviously better than lying) but just because you’re not commenting doesn’t mean everyone else who is paying attention can’t put the pieces together.

If you’re running for public office, great. If we want a government run by the people, the people need to participate in government, but understand that you’re going to have to deal with the media.

You don’t have a choice. You do have a choice in how you deal with the media.

— Reach News and Tribune Copy Editor Michael Reschke at michael.reschke@newsandtribune.com.