Noon Edition airs on Fridays at noon on WFIU.

With 2018 wrapping up, it's time to look back on the biggest and most impactful stories of the year, both nationally and back home in Indiana.

The country was devastated by more shootings in 2018. The Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida claimed 17 lives. But these tragedies inspired a new generation of young people determined to decrease gun violence, who aren't afraid to make their voices heard.

Americans watched as the "MeToo" movement reached Washington, D.C., as Christine Blasey Ford made public allegations that then Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when they were teenagers.

A United Nations report on climate change indicates that we're running out of time to drastically limit our emissions before the Earth's average temperature reaches a catastrophic tipping point.

Hoosiers were impacted by the shooting at Noblesville West Middle School, but came together to celebrate the toughness of Ella Whistler and the selfless bravery of Jason Seaman, who both survived gunshot wounds.

2018 was a big year for Indiana politics, but not always for the right reasons. Lawmakers made it legal to purchase alcohol on Sundays, but the Department of Child Services and Attorney General Curtis Hill came under fire this year. Hoosiers voted in this year's midterm elections in record numbers as Republican Mike Braun defeated incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly in the Senate race.

On this week's Noon Edition, we talk to newspaper editors from around the state about the year's biggest national and local stories.

Guests:

Jeff Kovaleski: Editor of the Kokomo Tribune

Max Jones: Editor of the Tribune Star

Conversation

Jeff Kovaleski says that 2018 is the year of "Washington instability."

"I think people just feel that the chaos is becoming too much even for Trump supporters," Kovaleski says. "They would much rather see a government that you could count on, that you knew what they were going to say before they said it."

Max Jones takes a more local approach, saying that 2018 was the year of "civic engagement" in Vigo County.

"I think that there's this great anxiety that exists right below the surface and there was a sense of dissatisfaction with many of the public officials in our community," Jones says. "What that did was brought out people we had never seen before who began to show up at meetings, they formed their own group, and they have ended up having great impact in a number of areas."

Noon Edition host and Herald-Times editor Bob Zaltsberg thinks that the national situation affects the way journalists cover local issues.

"We used to be able to just focus inward on what's going on in our local communities, but in the last few years since the election and campaign of Donald Trump it's been very difficult to stay insulated from what's going on nationally," Zaltsberg says.