News-media roundup: Miss. Basin Ag & Water Desk to add 10 more reporters; Calif. paper was 'tortured plaything' . . .

The Walton Family Foundation is giving the Missouri School of Journalism $2.47 million over the next three years to expand the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, a network of journalists that covers agriculture, water and environmental issues in the basin and makes articles free to publish. The foundation's additional support will fund a second cohort of 10 journalists starting next summer, through a partnership with Report for America. They will get training from the J-school and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Associate Professor Sara Shipley Hiles, the desk's executive director, said it wants a wider range of newsrooms. Applications from newsrooms are due Sept. 18.

James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times tells how billionaire Wendy McCaw made a "tortured plaything" of the Santa Barbara News-Press, which closed July 21. The closure "leaves Santa Barbara with a few online news sources and a solid alternative weekly, the Independent," the Times reports. "But those outlets collectively do not employ the number of journalists who once powered the News-Press."

Ken Tingley, retired editor of The Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., has published The Last American Editor, Vol. 2, a collection of 90 stories and columns that "explore particular themes or periods of a person’s life that best represent Small-Town America," says his come-on.