An illegal irony in Indiana

By Michael Koretzky

Last week, Indiana’s lieutenant governor-elect threatened the student newspaper at Indiana University – because its front page called Donald Trump a “fascist” who “has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions.”

Micah Beckwith hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and he posted…

Interestingly, it wasn’t the Indiana Daily Student who called Trump a moron and a fascist. His Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called him the former. Kamala Harris called him the latter. So the student newspaper was simply quoting others.

This is, of course, just an appetizer of what’s to come.

Journalists are accustomed to being insulted and undercut by both political parties. (SPJ wrote Barack Obama letters expressing both concern and outrage.) But if Indiana is any indication, the next four years will be worse.

No sense getting outraged until we get to the main course.

So we’re not going to wear our heart on our sleeve. We’re going to wear this shirt instead…

You can order them below. But some special features of this shirt…

• The front features the offending cover art from IU student journalist Alayna Wilkening. The back has a quote from Micah Beckwith’s X post.
• SPJ is charging only what the T-shirt company is charging us to print and ship them. We’d feel guilty profiting off of Indiana’s illegal irony.
• SPJ leaders will buy a shirt for the first 10 Indianans who promise to wear it to Beckwith’s inauguration ceremony on Jan. 13, 2025. Contact us here.

If the next four years are gonna be like this, we expect to print a lot of different T-shirts. So start your collection now.

Michael Koretzky is SPJ Ethics chair and SPJ Florida president.