TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Francois Rabelais said it best

“Nature abhors a vacuum.”

John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

So, apparently, do the political and news cultures of the Western world. Even when pundits and politicians don’t know what’s going on – even when they acknowledge that they don’t know – that doesn’t stop them from speculating and talking, talking, talking even when they have nothing to say.

Consider the strange case of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished an hour after it took off for a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were roughly 240 people on board and not a peep has been heard from any of them since the plane disappeared.

The only things that are “known” about the disappearance – and those things aren’t known with sufficient firmness to call them facts – include some inconclusive and not well confirmed pieces of evidence that the plane altered course and that its automated communications and tracking systems either were turned off or seriously malfunctioned.

In fact, the things we don’t know far outweigh the things we do know.

We don’t have a plane, a crew, a passenger, a black box or any other person or piece of that flight, so we don’t really know what we’re looking for or even where we should be looking for it.

We don’t have a crash site because we don’t even know for sure that there was a crash.

We don’t have a landing site because we don’t even know for sure where or if the plane landed somewhere.

We don’t have a crime scene because we don’t know for sure that there was a crime.

The paucity of concrete evidence, though, hasn’t stopped the major news networks from exploring at endless length the possible outcomes or storylines. Nor has it stopped a steady stream of public officials and other “experts” who spin speculative tales about possible scenarios, as if they were pitching ideas for made-for-television movies.

I understand and to some degree accept that these forays into fantasy inadequately disguised as analysis are products of two ravenous appetites.

The first of those appetites is the hunger many political figures, consultants and hangers-on in the political world have for exposure. In a culture in which both clout and cash often are measured by face time on camera, many people are eager to speak at length when the red light goes on, even when doing so requires them to blather like the village idiot.

The other hunger is more basic – and more understandable. We try out answers even when we don’t have enough information to supply proper questions much less answers because not knowing scares us. If we don’t know enough to know how something happened, then we also don’t know enough to stop it – whether it is an accident or an attack – the next time it might occur.

No one likes to feel that vulnerable.

And in this era in which information that in years past would have taken months, years or even decades to compile now can be assembled with a few key strokes and about as many seconds, we tend to think that all matters of interest should yield themselves to our curiosity.

But they don’t.

There are some things we don’t get to understand, some mysteries we never unravel. We still don’t know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried or where Amelia Earhart died.

Speculating about what happened to them and why can be satisfying parlor games but that speculation shouldn’t be confused with newsgathering, scholarship or honest-to-goodness analysis.

It’s guessing and nothing more, but we try to use those guesses to fill the vacuum because the vacuum frightens us.

The famed journalist H.L. Mencken tried to rebut Rabelais. Mencken said, “Nature abhors a moron.”

That statement is demonstrably not true, because nature has created so many morons.

And, right now, a lot of them are fighting for air time.

John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

By John Sittler
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana’s unemployment rate is now the lowest it’s been since September 2008, but House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, said officials need to “take a longer look before gushing praise.”

According to the Department of Workforce Development, Indiana’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped 0.4 percentage points to 6.4 percent in January. That is lower than all neighboring states and 0.2 percentage points below the national average.

“Every Hoosier should be encouraged by today’s unemployment numbers, which show the largest one-month drop in unemployment in 20 years,” Gov. Mike Pence said in a statement Monday. “Indiana’s rate is now lower than the national average, and our labor force and population continue to grow.”

The Hoosier state added 4,600 jobs in the manufacturing sector in January, the most in the country. But Indiana also lost 7,100 private sector jobs, leaving the state at a net loss of 2,500 jobs for the month.

“While others may gush about ‘the largest one-month drop in unemployment in 20 years,’ I look at the report and find myself wondering many things,” Pelath said.

He noted all but one of the state’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas – and 82 of the 92 counties – actually saw unemployment rise in January.

“These disparities only serve to heighten the concern that many of us have about the so-called ‘job creation’ engine that the governor, his administration, and his super-majorities like to tout so often,” Pelath said.

But Jerry Conover, director of the Indiana Business Research Center, said it is still too early to gauge the effectiveness of the recent administration’s job creation strategies.

He said the Hoosier economy is closely tied to the national economy so these numbers may be result of the general economic upswing throughout the country.

But Conover also said Indiana has a “well-deserved” reputation as a business-friendly state. The legislature recently passed a bill that will give Indiana the lowest corporate tax rate in the country.

That lowering of the business personal property tax was one of the landmark items of the Pence agenda.

“With this legislative session’s accomplishments in cutting the corporate income tax rate, giving counties new tools for reforming the business personal property tax, and offering new opportunities for career education and retraining, we continue to work hard to ensure the future economic prosperity of our state,” Pence said.

The DWD – along with the U.S. Federal Reserve – cited January’s severe winter weather as one of the main reasons for the loss of jobs around the country.

Conover agreed with the assessment and noted that more than 9,000 jobs were lost in the areas of trade, transportation and utilities and construction alone.

But that explanation was not enough for Pelath.

“People can talk about seasonal adjustments all they want, but I continue to be concerned about the raw employment and unemployment numbers,” he said. “Those tell me who has a job and who is able to take care of their family.”

Pence agreed that there is still more work to be done.

“Amidst this good news, we know that unemployment numbers are not a complete measure of the health of the economy,” he said. “Too many Hoosiers are still struggling, which is why we need to continue pushing to improve Indiana’s economic climate, to attract more jobs, and to make sure Hoosier workers have the skills they need for the jobs of the future

John Sittler is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.