Reporting on a rural county's political transformation, driven in part by outside forces, leads to threats of violence

Doni Chamberlain worked as a reporter for 10 years before starting
her own online publication. (Photo by Marlena Sloss, The Guardian)

When local politics become driven by outside forces, community reporting can become dangerous, especially if it focuses on the transformation of a rural county by those forces. Ask Doni Chamberlain of A News Cafe in Northern California.

"In a seemingly long-gone era – before the Trump presidency, and Covid, and the 2020 election – Doni Chamberlain would get the occasional call from a displeased reader who had taken issue with one of her columns. They would sometimes call her stupid and use profanities. . . . Today when people don't like her pieces, Chamberlain said, they tell her she's a communist who doesn't deserve to live. One local conservative radio host said she should be hanged," reports Dani Anguiano of The Guardian. "Chamberlain, 66, has worked as a journalist in Shasta County for nearly 30 years. Never before in this far-northern California outpost has she witnessed such open hostility towards the press. She has learned to take precautions. No meeting sources in public. She livestreams rowdy events where the crowd is less than friendly and doesn’t walk to her car without scanning the street. Sometimes, restraining orders can be necessary tools."

Chamberlain has published stories "revealing that police were investigating the county’s top candidate for said CEO job, a leader of a California secessionist group, for an incident with a teenage girl at a local business . . . an analysis from the county clerk about the risks of introducing an untested manual tally voting system in response to disproven theories about Dominion voting machines . . . a large gathering held in defiance of Covid restrictions; a pandemic shortage of nurses temporarily closing a local neonatal intensive care unit; and a sheriff’s deputy promoting far-right extremist content on social media."

Chamberlain started A News Cafe after being laid off from her job as a columnist for the local weekly newspaper, the Shasta Scout. It reported on a "hanging threat" seemingly directed at her: "Vaguely threatening statements towards the media were made as a part of a recent podcast produced by 'Red, White and Blueprint,' an effort to document attempts to recall Shasta County Supervisor Leonard Moty," who lost his seat over anti-pandemic mandates, the Scout's Annelise Pierce wrote. "As the show was coming to a close, Clendenen spoke about the Nuremberg Trials, tribunals held by the Allies after World War II that ultimately prosecuted many of Nazi Germany's leaders. He said, 'I think in our own country there's a day coming that the media will have to pay, in one way or another. . . . I'm not saying that we're going to hang them.'"

Shasta County (Wikipedia map)

Chamberlain told Anguiano that Shasta County has a "perfect storm" of hard-right groups that have coalesced "to form a powerful political force with outside funding and publicity from fringe figures," Angiano wriites. "Anger coalesced into an anti-establishment movement backed financially by the Connecticut millionaire Reverge Anselmo. . . . Chamberlain's writing has made her a public enemy of the conservative crowd intent on remaking the county. Far-right leaders have confronted her at rallies and public meetings, mocking and berating her." Chamberlain told Anguiano, "This isn't how it's supposed to be to be a journalist. I shouldn't go to my car, afraid one of these guys is gonna bash me in the head with a baseball bat."

Chamberlain says the atmosphere makes finding sources difficult, and many people are afraid of speaking out, "even anonymously, "Anguiano reports. "Her family worries for her. Her son has put cameras all around the house. For Mother's Day, he gifted her gel pepper spray. . . . Chamberlain's twin sister has warned her not to poke the bear." She told Anguino, "I say, 'I'm not poking a bear, I'm just holding a flashlight. . . . I'm reporting things other people can't report. . . . I feel a moral responsibility to let people know what's happening.'"