Weeklies and nonprofits produce series on impact of opioid abuse in four counties across Northern Virginia's Piedmont

A 15-minute video by lead reporter Randy Reiland explains the package.

Rural newspapers are beginning to tackle the epidemic of opioid painkillers and other substance abuse in their communities. The latest example is a four-part series by two nonprofit civic news organizations and two weeklies, serving four counties in Northern Virginia. It started this week and is a good example of how to cover the issue and how journalistic and financial partners can help do it.

The four counties, west to east: Rappahannock, Culpeper, Fauquier
and Prince William (Wikipedia map, adapted; click on it to enlarge)

The package was produced by Rappahannock Media (the Rappahannock News and the Culpeper Times) and the Fauquier Times, which also publishes the Prince William Times. In an unusual sharing of material, Potomac Local News in Prince William County and the online-only Fauquier Now are also publishing the project.

The papers gave the project slightly different labels—“Opioid Ripples” and “The Ripple Effect”—that make the same point, that the story of opioid abuse is not just overdoses and deaths, but how it has affected health, public safety, business, education, social services and other community functions, as well as neighborhoods, families and the whole community. A quote makes a main headline: "This has touched everyone."

Randy Reiland's lead story in the News begins, "Mothers sometimes ask Culpeper Police Chief Chris Jenkins to arrest their children. It’s the only way to save them, they tell him, because in jail, their sons or daughters can get the treatment they need. But, as Jenkins points out, the notion that inmates have access to life-changing drug rehab programs is 'nowhere near the truth'." For the Fauquier papers, he also makes that point but leads with the problem of addicted babies at the local hospital.

The work was supported by the Foothills Forum, which has sponsored polling and reporting for several years in Rappahannock County, and the Piedmont Journalism Foundation, which says its serves Fauquier County and "the surrounding Piedmont region," between the Blue Ridge and the Tidewater, and is headed by Boisfeuillet "Bo" Jones, former publisher of The Washington Post and former president and CEO of the company that had originated the PBS NewsHour.