5 questions for pioneering Indy journalist Eunice Trotter
IndyStar's first black editor reflects on four decades of journalism before Hall of Fame induction
Will Higgins
Eunice Trotter went into journalism early. As a teenager in the late 1960s, she wrote obituaries and later the column "Teen Talk" for the Indianapolis Recorder, then the largest of the city's several African-American weekly newspapers.
On Saturday, she'll be honored for her dedication to her craft by being inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame, along with three other journalists with Hoosier roots.
Trotter was born, raised and has lived nearly her entire life in Indianapolis. She joined the staff of The Indianapolis Star in 1976 and advanced in the traditional way, from writing obituaries to the police beat and into various editing jobs.
She once batted away a police detective's come-on with humor and turned the man into "one of my best sources," she said.
Several years later, Trotter was promoted to assistant city editor, which made her the newspaper's first African-American editor. There, her deep understanding of the city was useful in tracking down news stories.
She left The Star in 1986 and formed her own public relations company, arranging publicity for groups such as Indiana Black Expo, the Urban League and NAACP. But a year later, she was back in journalism as editor of the Recorder, and later as the Recorder's majority owner and publisher.
When she sold her interest in 1991, she signed a five-year, noncompete agreement that meant if she wanted to stay in journalism, she'd have to move. Over the next decade, she worked at newspapers in California, Florida and New York.
Trotter returned to The Star in 2002, and over the next nine years worked in various reporting and editing roles. She left the paper in 2011 and since then has worked in marketing for American Senior Communities, which manages a chain of nursing homes.
She answered questions via email.
Question: What was it like for an African-American woman to step into the world of the mostly male, mostly white Indianapolis Star newsroom of 1976?
Answer: Bo Connor, a classy lifelong Hoosier (then The Star's editor), hired me. My upbringing helped me cope, though it was pretty intimidating at first. White men with the air of authority and power; profanity use by editors and other reporters was common; so was alcohol use; smoking (this is when I started smoking) and, of course, intellect. I didn’t have the confidence I needed in this setting, but I had the courage. I was pretty isolated in the beginning, but there were some who I could go to. Reginald Bishop, who was an African-American columnist at The News. Helen Conner was another person who helped me. Formerly a nun, she was the only female editor on the city desk at that time. There were others, like Joe Gelarden, who also gave me good advice, and Dick Cady, who gave me chances to try different reporting beats.
Q: Which seemed like it was more of an issue: your race or your gender?
A: Race was definitely an issue for me, more so than gender. Like reporters in newsrooms today, I felt like I had to voice the African-American perspective because I believed if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be included. I always despised blacks in power positions who did nothing to help other blacks. What this meant was always being the voice to champion diversity, to suggest reporter candidates of color or stories of interest to the African-American community. Because I was always that “voice,” I’d see white editors’ eyes glaze over because too often they were not interested in hearing this. This still goes on in newsrooms today, especially where there is only token representation of diversity.
Q: Black weekly newspapers have a long history, but do you see much of a future for them?
A: I think they’re even more important today than they were in the (19)80s and '90s. Newsroom resources have been whittled down to incredibly low staffing levels compared to what they were, which means more hard choices have to be made about hiring decisions and stories that will be covered. Traditional beats in newsrooms are no longer being covered. Less effort is being given to making sure diverse groups’ issues are covered. We need press that tells the stories and dissects the issues of minority groups — which by the way are becoming the majority. I attend meetings of the Indianapolis Black Journalists Association, and the concerns young black and Latino journalists voice today in Indianapolis and across the country are the same concerns being voiced when I was president of the black journalists group in the 1980s.
Q: This current problem of "fake news" — actual news being debunked as untrue, and outright lies being passed off as news — can you recall anything like this happening during your career in journalism?
A: During my early career, “fake news” was news published in tabloids. It included false content, doctored photos and sensationalized headlines. One of the papers I worked for, The New York Post, was sometimes accused of faking news, though that was never my experience when I was a reporter there. Sensationalized, yes. Fake, no. In my early career days, editors helped screen out that type of news. So much news today is often going unfiltered/unedited from reporter to publication/broadcast via online and social media, where online editors write sensational headlines as click-bait to secure internet revenue. And reporters today are not necessarily trained journalists.
Q: If you were 18 today, would you pursue journalism?
A: Without a doubt, I would be a journalist today. Would I write for mainstream press? Yes. But I’d also write independently using the many vehicles available to reporters today — video, blogging, going live on Facebook, tweets and more. Maintaining a free press is in all of our interests. While the vehicle for sharing news and information has evolved, the mission remains the same and is central to democracy.
Others to be inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame include: the late Ann Allen, who wrote a column for the Rochester Sentinel and who captured the essence of the Akron, Ohio, community for the Rochester Sentinel through her column, Fleeting Moments; Dale Moss of the Louisville Courier-Journal; and Tim Nickens, editor of editorials at the Tampa Bay Times. Attorney Dan Byron will receive the John P. McMeel Distinguished Service Award.
Call IndyStar reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter: @WillRHiggins.
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