TV version of Brokaw's story on historic newspaper misrepresents the state of rural journalism

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Tom Brokaw recently stopped in Emporia, Kan., as part of his NBC and USA Network documentary American Character: Along Highway 50, to profile the Emporia Gazette, founded by famed editor-publisher William Allen White in 1896. The three-minute segment is being shown on several NBC shows today before the full documentary airs on USA in January. In the piece, Brokaw arrives just in time to see the Gazette's printing press shut down for good after 114 years so the daily paper, circulation 7,100, can outsource the printing and dismiss its four-man press crew. Many small dailies have done likewise.

Brokaw asserts that because the "newspaper business is in free-fall," White's grandson, Chris White Walker, is doing something previous generations of family owners couldn't have imagined. That paints the community newspaper business as on the brink of annihilation, which just isn't true. As we recently noted, community newspapers' advertising revenue has dropped during the recession, but only half as much as metropolitan papers' has. While the Gazette has been forced to make cuts like other papers, Brokaw's characterization that the newspaper is surviving "for now" may incorrectly suggest that doom is just over the horizon.

The text version of the story on USANetwork.com includes a key point not in Brokaw's video report. Chris Walker says, "Whether people read their news on newsprint or blackberries, telling the stories of the community is what its about. Newspapers will survive." In recent years the Gazette has begun publishing online and started a monthly Spanish-language edition for the growing Hispanic population in the region, the text story notes. The story finishes with this line of hope: "With that positive spirit and a willingness to embrace change, there is every possibility that Chris is right – and that one day a fifth generation of American Characters will be at the helm of the historic Emporia Gazette." (Read more)

Contract workers, 'veterans in all but name,' suffer same injuries and come mainly from rural areas

Injuries from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are altering the lives of contract workers as well as soldiers, and the contract workers seem to come disproprtionately from rural areas, as soldiers do. "Contract workers from the U.S. have been mostly men, primarily middle-aged, many of them military veterans drawn by money, patriotism or both, according to interviews and public records," T. Christian Miller of ProPublica writes for The Los Angeles Times. "They are police officers, truck drivers, firefighters, mechanics and craftsmen, mostly from rural corners of America, especially the South."

But contract workers don't qualify for the same medical care as injured military personnel. Troops are guaranteed treatment at Veterans Administration facilities, but contract workers only qualify for worker's compensation insurance paid by the federal government under the Defense Base Act, Miller reports. "These guys are like the Vietnam vets of this generation," Lee Frederiksen, a psychologist who worked for Mission Critical Psychological Services, a Chicago-based firm that provides counseling for war zone workers, tells Miller. "The normal support that you would get if you were injured in the line of duty as a police officer or if you were injured in the military . . . just doesn't exist." That puts more pressure on health services in rural areas.

Nearly 1,600 civilian workers, whom Miller calls "military veterans in all but name," have died in Iraq and Afghanistan with thousands more injured. Reggie Lane, a contract worker from Central Point, Ore., was injured in Iraq when insurgents attacked his fuel truck with rocket-propelled grenades. His mental state has gradually deteriorated since he returned home, leaving him unable to speak, and American International Group Inc. estimates his care will cost as much as $8.9 million for the rest of his life, for which the federal government will reimburse his employer.

Herbert J. Lanese, former chief executive of DynCorp International, one of the largest employers of civilian workers in Iraq and Afghanistan, tells Miller: "These are people who have given their lives in the service of our country. They are the unappreciated patriots of our country at this point in time." (Read more)

Rural roads account for most U.S. traffic deaths

The National Highway Safety and Traffic Administration has released its latest data on traffic fatalities, and the verdict remains the same: More Americans die on rural roads. About 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural areas, but 56 percent of the 37,261 U.S. traffic deaths occurred on rural roads in 2008, Larry Copeland of USA Today reports. Overall U.S. traffic deaths, likely influenced by record gas prices and the recession, dropped in 2008, but rural traffic deaths improved less.

Every state reported more rural deaths per 100 million miles traveled than urban fatalities, Copeland reports. Lee Munich, director of the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety at the University of Minnesota, tells Copeland faster speeds, more drunken driving, less use of seat belts and slower delivery of acute medical care can all factor in the increased rural fatality rates.

USA Today has also included an interactive map, above (see article for Flash graphic), that shows the rural percentage of traffic fatalities in each state. Our home state, Kentucky, saw 77 percent of traffic fatalities occur on rural roads. South Carolina led the country at 95 percent and Massachusetts had the lowest rate at 10 percent. (Read more)

You can also see the University of Minnesota's map of the top 100 rural traffic fatality hot zones.

Historic mine reopens to tourists after a long wait

It took 32 years to turn the idea into reality, but an old, historic coal mine has reopened to visitors in Lynch, Ky., near the Virginia border. Portal 31 was opened by the old U.S. Coal & Coke Co. in 1917, produced a world record 12,820 tons of coal in a nine-hour shift in 1923 and was mined until 1963, Dori Hjalmarson of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. "It's the best exhibition mine in the country, maybe the world," Bruce Ayers, president of Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, whose Southeast Education Foundation will oversee the operation of the tourism attraction, said. (Herald-Leader photo by David Perry)

The Disney World-like attraction will follow an animatronic Italian immigrant miner and three generations of his family on a 30-minute rail car ride through the mine. The tour starts with 1910-era hand mining and continues through 1960s mechanization. The attraction is the latest example of Harlan County's increased emphasis on tourism, Hjalmarson reports. The county opened ATV trails in nearby Evarts and is home to the Kentucky Coal Museum. Ayers hopes Lynch's remote location won't deter visitors from coming to see the mine: "We're trying to use the remoteness as part of the attraction."

The Portal 31 exhibit used about $2.3 million in grants from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Economic Development Administration, the Appalachian Regional Commission, state coal severance taxes and state park funds, Hjalmarson reports. "I thought I would have gone to glory before I saw this finished," Bobbie Gothard, director of a local Main Street program, told Hjalmarson. (Read more)

Nearly $750,000 was spent to reinforce the mine's roof and walls, Jason Edwards of the Harlan Daily Enterprise reports, and the tour isn't just a mining how-to. “We talked about the issues facing the miners, not just mining itself," Ayers told Edwards. He said the exhibit already has attracted inquiries from hundreds of interested tourists, and it might take as long as a month to accommodate the pent-up demand. (Read more)

Old formula makes poverty line too low, many say

The U.S. Census Bureau recently announced that the poverty level for a family of three is $17,330, and for a family of four $21,834. But can a family of four really live on $22,000? That's the question Al Tompkins of The Poynter Institute and others are asking. The Economic Policy Institute developed the Basic Family Budget Calculator to determine exactly how much money a family needs to survive; its findings were clear: "Besides offering detailed data on how much costs vary across rural and urban areas and different geographic regions, the calculator shows that poverty thresholds are too low just about everywhere."

EPI's calculations revealed that a rural Arkansas family needs $37,388 a year and a rural Texas family needs $38,862. "These regions are comparatively inexpensive," EPI writes. "But still have costs for essentials that easily exceed incomes at the official poverty threshold." (Read more)


The National Academy of Sciences has developed an increasingly popular formula that finds 18.6 percent of Americans 65 and older are living in poverty, compared to the current measure of 9.7 percent, Hope Yen of The Associated Press reports. The original government formula doesn't account for rising cost of medical care, among other things. "It's a hidden problem," said Robin Talbert, president of the AARP Foundation. "There are still many millions of older people on the edge, who don't have what they need to get by."

"The changes have been discussed quietly for years in academic circles, and both Democrats and Republicans agree that the decades-old White House formula, which is based on a 1955 cost of an emergency food diet, is outdated," Yen writes. If the federal government adopted NAC's standards the overall poverty rate would increase from 12.5 to 15.3 percent and child poverty rates would actually decrease slightly to 17.9 percent. (Read more)

Sunflower scheme drops biodiesel for edible oil

When an renewable-energy activist turned entrepreneur approached farmers in rural Dolores County, Colo., about growing sunflowers to fuel a bioenergy revolution, they saw it as a chance to reverse the county's 14 percent unemployment rate, highest in the state. Five years and one serious downturn in the biodiesel market later, the jury is still out on the success of the project i Dove Creek, Adam Burke of National Public Radio reports.

As federal subsidies for biodiesel dried up, plant developer Jeff Berman had to change his philosophy. Instead of creating commercial-grade biofuel, the plant would use the flowers to make food-grade sunflower oil. "To survive, we had to make some changes," Berman told NPR. "If we had insisted on building our biodiesel plant, then we would not be here." The shift wasn't easy for Berman, who was looking to start a green revolution, NPR reports, but the company has been able to hold onto its renewable dream by using seed stocks to create almost a third of the electricity and heat needed to run the plant.

Berman hopes the plant will eventually become the first always-on hybrid renewable plant in the country. To finish it and pay farmers for last year's crop, he has been shipping sunflower seeds to the Midwest at a loss, Burke reports, and San Juan Bioenergy has produced just 15 tankers of oil since January. Dove Creek is certainly no worse off that it was five years ago, Burke writes, but the future of sunflower energy could go in two vastly different directions. Local farmer Grant Allen tells Burke: "Sunflowers could bring us farmers down, just as much as it could bring us up right now." (Read more)

When The Durango Herald reported on San Juan Bioenergy's plan to use sunflowers to create biodiesel in July, the outlook was rosier. "This isn't cow country. This is sunflower country now," a local cafe owner told Shane Benjamin. The bioenergy plant had brought 15 new jobs, and farmers were generally reporting larger yields from sunflowers than from traditional crops. U.S. Rep. John Salazar even stopped by to hail the plant as "the correct way to bring economic development throughout rural America." (Read more)

Feds' embrace of 'net neutrality' keeps some firms from seeking stimulus; broadband wireless is hot

Americans have long been used to a tiered system of cable television that charges users for more content. But what if the Internet worked the same way, and you needed a premium package for full access to Amazon.com? Or what if service providers such as Comcast made Web sites pay more for bandwidth? Start-ups like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube might never become fixtures in our daily Internet lives because they lacked the initial funding to pay for bandwidth required to operate their sites.

That's the picture painted by advocates of "net neutrality," which the Obama administration supports. They point to Comcast's first attempt to throttle Internet speed to heavy users in 2008, which the Federal Communications Commission ruled invalid. "At its core, the net-neutrality debate pits those who believe the Internet is a channel for open communications against those whose best financial interests lie in a controlled Internet," industry analyst Craig Settles writes for the Daily Yonder.

When Congress required recipients of stimulus funding for rural broadband initiatives to adhere to net-neutral policies, many large providers declined to apply. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski recently outlined six principles aimed at ensuring that "Consumers can get whatever legal content they wish, using whatever computing devices they want, without fear of service providers’ favoring, or discriminating against, content that flows over the networks that link to the Internet," as Settles summarizes it.

Opponents of net neutrality argue that companies like Yahoo and WebMD are taking free rides on their infrastructure, and argue they should be able to charge heavy users for access to their networks. Settles says that is a myth, since companies already foot large bills for the private infrastructure to maintain and guarantee access to their sites. He argues that if one company is moving 500 gigabits of data and another is moving only 100, it's fine for the first company to pay more for its access, but under net neutrality the operator of the system can't arbitrarily slow down the second company's traffic becausr it's a smaller customer.

Most of the proposals for broadband stimulus money are for wireless networks. Many local governments are already supplying such networks, and provide more bandwidth than traditional networks. "These communities don’t worry about throttling content because their networks’ wireless technology enables capacity that exceeds subscribers’ need for speed," Settles writes. He finishes with this piece of advice for rural readers: "Don’t let the incumbent PR blitz fool you. Net neutrality, applied fairly to big and small Internet service providers, is good for consumers, businesses and providers." (Read more)

Native Americans defend their coal-fired power plant against environmentalists

The president of the Navajo Nation joined other Native American leaders this week in criticizing environmentalists for trying to shut down coal-fired power plants in northern Arizona. "These are individuals and groups who claim to have put the welfare of fish and insects above the survival of the Navajo people when in fact their only goal is to stop the use of coal in the U.S. and the Navajo Nation," Joe Shirley Jr. said, adding that the Navajo depend on the jobs and revenue brought in by the plants, Dennis Wagner of USA Today reports. (Arizona Republic photo by John Stanley)

Shirley's comments came Wednesday, after the Hopi Nation's Tribal Council sent a letter to the environmental groups telling them to stay off the reservation. An inquiry by environmental groups and some tribes into smog over the Grand Canyon pointed to the Navajo Generating Station, which with a reservation coal mine supplies more than 70 percent of the Hopis' government revenue, as a possible culprit.

Tina May, a spokeswoman for the Hopi Nation, told USA Today that a successful effort by environmentalists to shut down the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., cost the tribe $6.5 million a year. She said closure of the Navajo Generating Station could cost another $11 million. "We need to make public that we don't want the environmental groups coming in and causing trouble for the Hopi tribe," Nada Talayumptewa, chairwoman of the council's energy team, said. "It's time we take a stand."

Andy Bessler, the Sierra Club's representative in the Southwest, told The Associated Press, "We need to do something about global warming, and coal is the greatest threat. ... We work with anybody who wants to help protect the environment, stop global warming and transition our economy to a clean economy. We don't discriminate, and we'll continue to honor the invitations we get from Hopi and Navajo communities to work with them." (Read more)

Governor, senators join Ind. newspaper promotion

The Hoosier State Press Association is launching a new marketing campaign to emphasize the importance of newspapers, The Associated Press reports. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, left, will join other prominent Hoosiers in the new campaign to voice their support for newspapers. The campaign, "Newspapers Still Deliver," features an advertisement quoting Daniels, a second-term Republican who was budget director in the second Bush administration, saying "Newspapers are best equipped to be a government watchdog and are the most factually reliable news medium."

The campaign also features U.S. Sens. Richard Lugar (R) Evan Bayh (D), Indiana University President Michael McRobbie, Hoosiers screenwriter Angelo Pizzo and others. The campaign began Sunday in time for National Newspaper Week. It hopes to "Reassure current readers and advertisers of newspapers’ importance and viability" and attract new readers and advertisers, the press association writes in a memo. (Read more)

Pennsylvania trying to deal with 'fracking' water

Two separate contaminations of the Monongahela River from natural-gas drilling have further illuminated problems surrounding the discharge of wastewater from fracturing gas-bearing rock strata. Industry officials estimate that oil and gas wells discharge about 9 million gallons of waste water a day in Pennsylvania, Joaquin Sapien of ProPublica reports, and by 2011 that figure is expected to top 19 million gallons, enough to fill 29 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection officials say the most troubling substance in drilling waste water is total dissolved solids, which can make the water five times as salty as sea water. "Large quantities of TDS can clog machinery and change the color, taste and odor of drinking water," Sapien reports, adding that while TDS is not usually harmful to humans it can damage freshwater streams. Pennsylvania drilling companies currently dispose of their waste water at municipal sewage plants, despite warnings from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the facilities aren't equipped to remove TDS, and that TDS can kill organisms needed to treat human waste in the water.

DEP chief John Hanger has promised to implement more aggressive plans by 2011, including a requirement that drilling wastewater be treated in special plants capable of removing TDS. Until then, DEP has promised to add more TDS monitors along the Monogahela, Sapien reports, and monitor the level of TDS in streams where water would be discharged before it is treated at a specific sewage plant. Dana Aunkst, who heads the DEP's water program, told Sapien: "We were trying to scramble, to put it bluntly, to get our act together to figure out how we were going to address these withdrawals as well as the disposal issues." (Read more)

Senate climate bill disappoints farm interests

After reviewing the climate bill proposed by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., farm interests have voiced their concern about provisions from the House bill that were left out of the Senate proposal. "Those provisions are intended to ensure that growers can earn credits for carbon-storing practices, including reduced tillage," Phillip Brasher of The Des Moines Register reports, adding that House-passed provisions protecting ethanol and biodiesel industries from carbon-reduction standards are also missing.

Rick Krause, who follows climate policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation, calls the Senate bill a "step-back," and the National Farmers Union says it fails to address its core principles on the issue of carbon credits. Farm-state Democrats have shown support for farm provisions, including Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow's and Montana Sen. Max Baucus' draft that would allow farmers to get credits for plowing land less. Energy analyst Kevin Book said the Senate bill is meant to be "an initial negotiating position well to the left" of where Congress will eventually wind up. (Read more)

Iowa Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin, who has stepped down as the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman to head the Health Committee, told Dan Looker of Agriculture Online: "We've got a bunch of votes on the Ag Committee and they need our votes to get this passed." Most Washington insiders agree the bill is a starting point, Looker reports, and some of their concerns may be fixed as it moves through the Senate. (Read more)

The farm industry's disdain comes as President Obama's top climate and energy official has conceded that there is virtually no chance Congress will have a bill ready before global climate treaty negotiations begin in December, Andrew C. Revkin of The New York Times reports. “Obviously we’d like to be through the process — that’s not going to happen,” Carol M. Browner said at a conference on politics and history organized by The Atlantic. “I think we would all agree the likelihood you would have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we would go in early December is not likely.” (Read more)

Decrease in death rates has been less in rural U.S.

Death rates across the country have been decreasing since 1990, but urban rates are improving twice as fast as rural ones. "As a consequence of the changing rates of mortality, hundreds of thousands of rural residents have died since 1990 who would have been expected to live had the gap not appeared," Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder reports. If the rate of decrease in urban and rural communities had remained the same after 1990, 389,000 fewer rural Americans would have been expected to die between 1990 and 2004, a phenomenon researchers have coined the “nonmetropolitan mortality penalty.”

This news comes on the heels of reports from Harvard University that life expectancy of women in 1,000 mostly rural counties had declined from 1983 to 1999, and a report that found California rural residents were more likely to commit suicide. “These excess deaths are equivalent to approximately 9 percent of the total mortality in the nonmetropolitan United States,” Arthur Cosby, a sociologist at Mississippi State University, and other researchers write in the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. (USDA Economic Research Service graphic)
“A possible explanation for the emergence of the nonmetropolitan mortality penalty is based on the observation that access to health care is the most pervasive health disparity in the nonmetropolitan United States,” Cosby wrote in 2008. “If healthcare is becoming significantly more effective in prolonging life, then limited access to healthcare is becoming profoundly harmful to the nonmetropolitan U.S. population; hence, the nonmetropolitan mortality penalty.” The gap between rural and metro death rates in the South is the greatest, Bishop reports, while almost no gap is observed in the Midwest, and rural death rates in the West remain relatively low. (Read more)

Pro-coal organizing moves into Kentucky

We reported last month about the coal industry's increased emphasis on grassroots organizing in the face of increasing concern about mountaintop-removal mining in Central Appalachia and climate-change legislation that the industry opposes. Now the pro-coal campaigns are moving from West Virginia to Kentucky.

The Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security, which calls itself "FACES of Coal," launched its Kentucky campaign last week. Dori Hjalmarson of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports that the group, funded by coal interests, seeks to "educate people outside the mining regions about the benefits organizers say coal brings to the state." (Associated Press photo by Bob Bird)

A new "Friends of Coal" license plate is the fastest selling special interest plate in the state's history, Hjalmarson reports, and a Coal for Kids group helps provide clothing and food to children through family-resource centers at schools in some counties. Perry County Clerk Haven King, director of Coal Mining Our Future, an industry-sponsored non-profit, credits his group's letter-writing campaign with stopping the state "stream saver" bill that would have halted valley fills needed for mountaintop-removal mines.

King, who is up for re-election next year, told Hjalmarson that coal companies have always given back to the community, but "The reason they are tooting their horn is because of me." At a recent pro-coal concert in Breathitt County, King told the crowd that environmentalists in Lexington and Louisville "want to take your jobs," and led chants of "Our coal! Our children! Our mountains!"

Lauren McGrath, the Sierra Club's "Beyond Coal" campaign representative in Lexington, notes that surface mines employ far fewer workers than underground mines, and while coal output is up in the last 20 years, some of the country's poorest counties remain in coal country. "The higher-ups in the industries are benefiting," not the local residents, she tells Hjalmarson. (Read more)

"Coal, known as king and curse in Kentucky, is the subject of two very different kinds of events coming early in October," The Beattyville Enterprise reports. The first official FACES of Coal Kentucky event, a Hazard rally that has since been postponed, and the Oct. 7 Kentucky debut of Coal Country, the Movie, a controversial anti-coal documentary highlight both sides of the debate. (Read more, subscription required)

Rural background made Va. governor candidate a compromiser by nature, too flexible for some

Does a rural background encourage compromise and flexibility in politics? That's an argument in favor of Creigh ("kree") Deeds, the Democratic nomine for Virginia governor in the Nov. 3 election, who has been criticized for changes in position and "saying yes and no to the same question," as Michael Leahy writes in The Washington Post. The Daily Yonder had this to say about Deeds and Leahy's profile of him:

The thrust of the story is that Deeds is tentative about certain issues — the headline describes him as a fence straddler — and that this uncertainty is a product of his rural upbringing. Deeds describes himself as a "work in progress," according to writer Michael Leahy, "the product of growing up on a farm, on the hard side of a mountain where the unexpected was the norm and where anyone who couldn't compromise was inviting failure." Lehy describes a childhood of farm work and uncertainty and says this upbringing helped create a politician who is uneasy making final "yes" or "no" decisions about issues.
Declining to give specifics about a complicated tax plan, Deeds said, "I could be specifically wrong." It's interesting that uncertainty is considered political immaturity these days, and we think that being absolutely certain is a sign of being a good leader.

We like Leahy's closing lines:

Raised to believe in the power of compromise, he tends to see pledges and specifics as just so many holes in a frayed fence that will require patching anyway. Long ago, he learned the lessons of wily Bath County politicians, and it has shaped his style since, its strengths and vulnerabilities. He doesn't see the point in pontificating from the mountaintop. His career reflects the belief that it works best simply to drive around the mountain and hammer something out with somebody -- that results count more than white papers. But at some point, even people on the mountain want to know where you are taking them, want to see your map. For Deeds, the task is to convince voters during the campaign's final 30 days that he has one.

Deeds' latest TV ad for Southwest Virginia implies that his opponent, Republican Bob McDonnell, "has contempt for rural people, thinking of them in terms of hillbilly stereotypes," Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo reports. The ad says, "McDonnell opposed eliminating the sales tax on groceries because he heard people around here shoot our food." (Read more)

Wall Street Journal goofs on requirements for reclaiming mountaintop-removal coal mines

The Wall Street Journal's news columns are usually authoritative, but reporter Kris Maher owes the paper's readers a correction for an off-base assertion in her Friday story about the Environmental Protection Agency's decision that all 79 permit applications for mountaintop-removal and similar coal mining in Central Appalachia should be rewritten to reduce environmental impact.

Maher did make a useful distinction, noting that "Each mining project requires a dozen or so permits," not just one per mine, as some national reporters have assumed. But then she wrote, "Mining companies, which are required to rebuild mountains when work is finished, say their projects follow the permit process."

Mining companies are not required to rebuild mountains. The term "mountaintop removal" was coined to describe mines operating under the "steep-slope exception" to the 1977 federal strip-mine law's requirement that mined land be restored to its "approximate original contour." Most of the mines that remove all of the soil and rock above coal seams being extracted are generally called "mountaintop removal" but are officially classified as "area mines" and thus don't operate under the exception.

Also, state regulators have used such a broad definition of "approximate original contour" that the reclaimed landscape can have a very different elevation and slope. Tom FitzGerald of the Kentucky Resources Council says that results in "much more material being off-loaded into valley fills than Congress intended. A study by the Office of Surface Mining of sites in Kentucky where the variance had been approved and those that claimed to have achieved a return to 'approximate original contour' could not distinguish between the two."

Finally, exceptions to the original-contour rule require a higher post-mining land use, or public use, and state regulators' definition of "higher use" has usually been generous.

Pop Stoneman's contributions to country music brought to light by record, Ala. writer's essay

The 1927 recording sessions of Ralph Peer in Bristol, Va., have been called "the big bang of country music," because they were the first sessions of the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and other early country stars. But the big bang might not have happened without Peer's adviser at the sessions, a southwest Virginian who had set a big match to the fuse three years earlier: Ernest Stoneman, right, later known as "Pop," the patriarch of a family that, like the Carters, still has playing members. (Wikipedia photo)

Stoneman, who has been called "the unsung father of country music," is the main focus of an essay in today's Tuscaloosa News by Ben Windham, who also notes recent releases of collections by Stoneman, Rodgers and iconic folk singer Woody Guthrie. ("His music usually isn’t billed as country," Windham reports, "but the new collection shows Guthrie’s deep rural roots.")

Stoneman's "music was more purely Appalachian country than Rodgers," Windham writes, and he was "one of the first Appalachian musicians to record." In 1924, he recorded “The Titanic” about the passenger ship. The next year, "It sold thousands and thousands of copies, stunning record company executives," Windham reports, and it "sounds fabulous today." One reviewer compared "the chugging rhythm of his autoharp ... to the engines of the massive vessel."

Stoneman fell on hard times during the Depression, but mounted a comeback after World War II and laid the groundwork for other family members. Ronnie (or Roni) Stoneman, 71, left, still sings. (Roanoke Times photo by Kyle Green) Thanks to the late Elmer Goodman, my old colleague at WANY Radio in Albany, Ky., for educating me about Pop Stoneman 40 years ago.

National Newspaper Week runs through Saturday

National Newspaper Week, an annual celebration and recognition of the important role of newspapers, runs through Saturday, Oct. 10. This year’s theme is “Newspapers: Carrying the Torch of Freedom.” Logos, cartoons, editorials, articles and newspaper promotion ads will be available on http://www.kypress.com/.

Lack of broadband an obstacle to democracy, especially in rural areas, Knight Commission finds

The lack of broadband adoption and access among rural and older Americans is a major problem for our republic, the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy says in a report today.

With one-third of the nation lacking broadband, "That's a hell of a lot of Americans who don't have access to the way we're communicating," Alberto Ibargüen, right, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, told news-media reporter Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post. The foundation, created by brothers who owned newspapers, commissioned the study with the Aspen Institute. For Kurtz's story, click here. (Post photo by Linda Davidson)

In addition to a "broadband gap," the study also identifies a "literacy gap" and a "participation gap" among younger, poorer and more rural Americans. "These threaten to create a two-tiered society with limited democratic possibilities for too many individuals and communities," it says. For the commission's press release, click here. Here is a PDF of the 148-page study. Here is a one-page summary.

The report offers 15 policies to help Americans meet their needs for information about their communities, but those do not include a formula to help newspapers. "The challenge is not to preserve any particular medium or any individual business," it says, calling for emphasis on preserving "the traditional public-service functions of journalism."

Moonshine growing in national popularity as one Appalachian community cuts its 'revenuers'

Moonshining is experiencing a resurgence, but not where you might expect. A new generation of moonshiners, some who prefer to be called craft distillers, are popping up from California to New York, Catherine Price of Salon.com reports, and the next-generation stills are in suburban backyards instead of secluded mountains. Make no mistake, distilling homemade spirits without a license is a felony, but that hasn't stopped the new next-gen moonshiners.

Moonshing is often associated with prohibition and Appalachia, but today that definition is becoming less accurate, Price writes: "Since states' own priorities rarely involve busting people for 3-gallon stills of whiskey, most small-time moonshiners don't get caught." Distillers aren't likely to be poisoned or go blind either, since the make-it-quick haste of the prohibition era is gone. "It's more about culinary experimentation than it is about cheap hooch," Camper English, author of the cocktail and spirit blog Alcademics, tells Price. "They're trying to make something you can't find on store shelves." Laws against moonshining are unlikely to change anytime soon, Price writes, "If they want legalization, they have to show their faces." (Read more)

The emergence of national moonshining comes as one Appalachian community has cut the once vibrant Illegal Whiskey Unit of its police force. The unit, based in Franklin County, Va., has seen its staff of five full-time agents to one part-timer, Rex Bowman of The Roanoke Times reports. The cuts leave "southwest Virginia's elusive moonshiners without a full-time, dedicated foe for the first time in decades." Retirements and budget cuts have left the unit with no rebound in sight, the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control feels it can control moonshining by charging all agents to pursue their own cases.

"I think the whiskey business is something in the past," former Franklin County Sheriff W.Q. "Quint" Overton told Bowman. "The drugs pretty much took over." Chris Goodman, the ABC agent in charge of the Roanoke office, says that may not be the case: "We're starting to see and get more information about some stills. It appears there's an uptick, and we're trying to address it." (Read more)

Drilling companies might disclose fracking chemicals, perhaps to avoid mandatory disclosure

Following recent chemical spills in Pennsylvania and New York, several natural-gas drilling companies have indicated a willingness to reveal the chemicals they use in their underground fracturing process, a move that current federal legislation would make mandatory, Katie Howell of Environment and Energy Daily reports. Industry executives have previously resisted detailing the mixtures contents because they considered them a trade secret. 'Fracking' uses a pressurized mixture of sand, water and chemicals to break up rock formations and release gas.

"If you buy a can of Coke, you don't know the secret formula -- that's locked away in a vault somewhere -- but you know the ingredients on the can," Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Howell. "That's how we look at this issue. The ingredients are not proprietary. How much of what's used is proprietary." Aubrey McClendon, CEO and chairman of gas-production giant Chesapeake Energy Corp., told an energy conference last week: "We as an industry need to demystify. We need to disclose the chemicals that we are using and search for alternatives to the chemicals we are using." Executives from Range Resources Corp. and Schlumberger Ltd. have also voiced the need for more disclosure.

Steve Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association, says drillers in his state have begun testing for contaminants in the mixtures that flow back out of a well after fracking, Howell reports. About 30 Pennsylvania drilling companies are disclosing such flowback water data to the state Department of Environmental Protection to determine what, if any, dangerous chemicals are in it. (Read more, subscription required)

For more information about fracking you can read our post about a National Public Radio series on the process and report about the spills mentioned above.

Local officials may ask state, coal firm for aid to replace school that is a flash point in mine debate

UPDATE 10/8: West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd has responded the the Register-Herald's report of Massey's refusal to help fund a new Marsh Fork Elementary, and he's not very happy with the coal giant. "Such arrogance suggests a blatant disregard for the impact of their mining practices on our communities, residents and particularly our children. These are children’s lives we are talking about,” Byrd said in a statement released to Ken Ward Jr., of The Charleston Gazette. “Let me be clear about one thing – this is not about the coal industry or their hard-working coal miners. This is about companies that blatantly disregard human life and safety because of greed. That is never acceptable.” (Read more)

UPDATE 10/6: Massey Energy spokesman Jeff Gillenwater told the Associated Press Tuesday that the company had no interest in donating money for a new Marsh Fork Elementary, adding the company already pays millions of dollars in taxes that go toward education. No official request for funding has been made by the Raleigh County School Board to Massey.(Read more)

School officials in Raleigh County, West Virginia, said this week they are considering asking the state and maybe Massey Energy Co. for money to build a new elementary school in Marsh Fork, to replace the one that "sits in the shadows of Massey’s Goals Coal Co. operations," Jackie Ayres of the Beckley Register-Herald reports.

The school has long been one of the flash points in the debate over mountaintop-removal strip mining. Environmental groups have argued the coal silo and huge slurry impoundment pose health risks to students. (Photo by Vivan Stockman, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition)

School board president Rick Snuffer told Ayres building a new, $5 million school “would correct a lot of political problems in the county." Local officials may approach Massey for financial assistance, Ayers reports. “I think we could meet with them [Massey] and get something,” board member Gordie Roop said. “Say, ‘Why don’t you build a new school here?’ See if they’d help. They might build the whole school.” (Read more)

Actually, “They” would likely be one person, Massey Chairman Don Blankenship. "Everyone would like to know if Don Blankenship is willing to spend at least as much to help the Marsh Fork kids as he was to put on his big, self-proclaimed Friends of America, pro-coal rally on Labor Day," writes Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. "Maybe other coal companies would join in, and donate just a percentage of the money they’re spending fighting tougher strip-mining regulations and opposing action on global warming to this project." (Read more)

German firm's Texas wind farm now world's largest

A small Texas town of just over 1,000 is now the center of U.S. wind energy after the latest phase of the Roscoe Wind Complex went online Thursday, making it the world's largest operating wind farm. The complex features 627 turbines that can generate more than 780 megawatts of power, enough to power 230,000 homes, Brian McCormick reports for the Abeline News-Reporter. The plant, owned by German-owned E.ON, replaces the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, just over 30 miles south of Roscoe, as the largest wind farm. (Encarta map)

“It has a big impact locally,” Patrick Woodson, E.ON's chief development officer for the project, told McCormick. “We have enjoyed working with the different counties in the area, and we feel that this project is the first of many for our company. We look forward to being a part of the growth of this community and others throughout Texas.” E.ON says the wind farm created 70 full-time positions, and many Roscoe residents are now moving to the industry. Judy Suggs, a Roscoe resident now working for E.ON, told McCormick: "It’s given the community more life. In the area, we have always relied on farming and ranching, and the oil business. Now landowners can make a profit by having turbines on their land." (Read more)

Texas became the country's leading state in wind production in 2006 with about 2,400 megawatts, Eileen O'Grady reports for Reuters, and now the state grid operators says its capacity has expanded to 8,335 megawatts. The Roscoe wind farm spans through parts of four counties and over 100,000 acres, several times the size of Manhattan. (Read more)

Obama administration objects to shield-law bill

The Obama administration has told senators that it opposes the current version of the proposed news-media shield law, and does not want to require prosecutors to exhaust all available methods before subpoenaing reporters in instances the president says could cause significant harm to national security, Charlie Savage of The New York Times reports. The White House also wants judges to "be deferential to executive branch assertions about whether a leak caused or was likely to cause such harm."

“The White House’s opposition to the fundamental essence of this bill is an unexpected and significant setback. It will make it hard to pass this legislation,” said a sponsor of the bill, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.

The Obama administration has taken no official, public stance on the bill, but the White House voiced its opinion to lawmakers after Obama, who co-sponsored a shield bill as a senator, met with several of his top national security advisers, Savage reports. “If the president wants to veto it, let him veto it,” co-sponsor Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., told Savage. “I think it is different for the president to veto a bill than simply to pass the word from his subordinates to my subordinates that he doesn’t like the bill.” (Read more)

UPDATE, Oct. 2: The Society of Professional Journalists voiced "outrage" at the adminstration in a press release, saying the Obama version would "offer little to no protection for reporters who refuse to disclose confidential sources. SPJ strongly encourages the administration to reconsider its position and focus on the importance of a federal shield law and how vital it is to the existence of a free press and an informed citizenry. SPJ also encourages all journalists to support the legislation by continuing to contact lawmakers and voice their support for a strong and meaningful federal shield law."

Biofuel boom reducing wildlife habitat, study finds

Increased investment in crop-based biofuels may be leading to the loss of wildlife habitat, researchers from Michigan Technological University and The Nature Conservancy report. They say one potential solution is using diverse, native, prairie plants to produce bioenergy.

“There are ways to grow biofuel that are more benign,” said David Flaspohler, a Michigan Tech associate professor and author of the study. “Our advice would be to think broadly and holistically about the approach you use to solve a problem and to carefully consider its potential long-term impacts.” A government mandate to produce 136 billion liters of biofuel by 2022 is causing land-use change "on a scale not seen since virgin prairies were plowed and enormous swaths of the country’s forests were first cut down to grow food crops," Michigan Tech reports. the study suggests using biomass like agricultural residues that don't require added crop land or growing native perennials such as switchgrass and big bluestem to create biofuel.

The researchers acknowledge their proposed plans return smaller yields than corn, but Flaspohler says that trade off is necessary: "It was by ignoring unintended consequences that we’ve now found ourselves highly dependent on a non-renewable fuel source that is contributing to climate change. With some foresight and with information on key trade-offs, I think we can make wiser decisions in the future."

While most crop expansion to grow the corn needed for the biofuel revolution is taking place on land that was already farmed, researchers say there is growing evidence that land from Conservation Reserve Program, which pays rent to landowners who convert their agricultural land to natural grasslands or tree cover, is being converted to crop production. (Read more)

EPA says it will regulate greenhouse gases, no matter what Congress does with climate bills

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday it would move forward on its own to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, despite introduction of a Senate version of cap-and-trade legislation. President Obama's authorization for new emissions regulations was seen by some as a move to goad Congress into passing legislation to mitigate climate change, John M. Broder of The New York Times reports. “We are not going to continue with business as usual,” EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson told reporters. “We have the tools and the technology to move forward today, and we are using them.”

The regulations, which could take effect as early as 2011, would require 400 power plants to prove they are using the best available technology to reduce emissions, Broder reports. Jackson says the regulations would apply only to the plants that account for 70 percent of U.S. emissions by releasing over 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, and would not, as critics have suggested, apply to “every cow and Dunkin’ Donuts."

“This proposal incorrectly assumes that one industry’s greenhouse gas emissions are worse than another’s,” Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, told Broder. “E.P.A. lacks the legal authority to categorically exempt sources that exceed the Clean Air Act’s major-source threshold from permitting requirements, and this creates a troubling precedent for any agency actions in the future.” Emily Figdor, federal global warming project director for Environment America, called the decision "a common-sense step toward a cleaner, better world." (Read more)

EPA says all 79 pending applications for strip-mine permits in Central Appalachia violate the law

Environmental Protection Agency officials have issued their latest ruling on the 79 Central Appalachian surface-mining permit applications EPA flagged as potentially dangerous in September, and the new ruling looks a lot like the first one: All violate the Clean Water Act and need to be revised. Peter S. Silva, EPA assistant administrator, writes the permits "have not yet adequately demonstrated that anticipated adverse environmental and water quality impacts have been fully avoided and minimized as required," Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette reports. (UPDATE, Oct. 2: Here is Ward's detailed analysis of the permits.)

All the proposed operations have been characterized as "mountaintop removal," because they would use excavated rock and dirt to create fills that would would bury or otherwise affect 170 miles of streams. The permit applications in question cover more than 60 square miles in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, and would mine more than 300 million tons of coal.

Applications now subject to a 60-day review by EPA after the Army Corps of Engineers informs EPA that a particular permit has been revised. After the 60 days, the Corps can issue the permit without EPA's approval, forcing EPA to remove its objection or officially block the plan. Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, told Ward: "An enhanced review of each of these pending permits will surely prove that this most destructive form of coal mining is incompatible with clean water."

Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, tells Ward: "EPA's answer of more delay and study is at cross-purposes with our nation's need for affordable energy, investments and secure jobs." EPA emphasized in its statement that it hasn't rejected any of the permits, Ward reports, and Silva writes: "EPA is eager to work with the corps and companies to assess modifications to mining plans, include additional water quality and biological monitoring provisions, and take other appropriate steps to address anticipated water quality concerns associated with these projects." (Read more)

You can read our first report on the 79 permits from September for more information on the process, and you can see the list of permits here.