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Local news site B Square Bulletin shutting down

By Ethan Sandweiss

Posted December 20, 2024

Since 2019, Dave Askins’s (above) one-man digital publication has covered local government in meticulous detail. (WTIU file photo)

Subscribers of local government news site The B Square Bulletin woke Friday morning to a surprising headline. Journalist Dave Askins announced that he had just published his final report.

He thanked his readers for their support.

“The choice of now as the ending time has no particular symbolic value,” he wrote. “I’m just old and tired.”

Askins continued, “Specifically, I am tired of writing about the dysfunctional local government in Bloomington and Monroe County, Indiana. I don’t think continuing that journalistic work will help improve things.”

WFIU/WTIU News asked Askins what changes would be needed to overcome that dysfunction.

“I think one key is we need better candidates for office,” he said. “I’m not sure how we develop a better pool of candidates, but that would be one approach even though that’s not a solution.”

Since 2019, Askins’s one-man digital publication has covered local government in meticulous detail. The bearded reporter has been a fixture at public meetings, boards and commissions. Despite staffing limitations, The B Square Bulletin put out thoroughly researched articles on a near-daily basis.

Askins had plans to expand that coverage. He wanted more reporters, new beats and envisioned himself eventually creating an eight-person newsroom. After the election in May 2023, he resolved to make progress toward that goal by the end of the year.

“It was really the main motivation that kept me going was the idea that the B Square Bulletin would be staffed with a full newsroom,” Askins said. His ideal website would have also included a comprehensive community calendar fed by others online and a document center for important public records and other information.

Askins approached people for funding but by the end of December could see no clear path forward. Several months ago, he said, he concluded that B Square was in its final year.

“I pretty much reached the conclusion that executing the actual vision – the fundraising, the development work – all of that would simply take longer than what I personally have the physical and mental stamina to do,” he said. “I’m cynical enough now that even with a full newsroom operating on this model I’ve described, I don’t think there’s going to be an adequate fear of the press to cause our local elected officials to behave any differently than they would otherwise.”

Earlier this month, Bloom Magazine told Askins it would present him an award at its annual holiday party on Dec. 19 for his contributions to local journalism. He decided then to announce the end of B Square the next day. Onstage that night at The Woolery Mill, Askins and founder of The Bloomingtonian, Jeremy Hogan, received awards from Bloom Magazine editor-in-chief Malcolm Abrams.

“This is a significant loss for the community,” Hogan wrote the next day on his website. “We will deeply miss Dave’s comprehensive, detailed, and intelligent coverage of local government.”

What’s next for Askins? On his first day post-Bulletin, he’s reaching out to contacts, alerting them that his publication is ending. After that, he says he’s looking for employment.

If he were reporting today, Askins said he’d check whether the Vote Center Study Committee had ended up scheduling a meeting today as it had discussed. “Even if they didn’t, I think that qualifies as news because they were going to if they could,” he said. (WFIU/WTIU News confirmed the meeting has been rescheduled for January).

Other outlets in Bloomington continue to cover local government, including WFIU/WTIU News (which recently filled a vacancy for a full-time government reporter), The Herald-Times and the Indiana Daily Student.

The B Square Bulletin website is funded through Jan. 31.