North Country Public Radio wins 3 Sigma Delta Chi awards; coverage of wildfires, prisons, Uvalde shooting also win

A disabled mother and daughter in northern New York lived
in this tent and in their car. (North Country Public Radio)

Several of the Sigma Delta Chi Awards for excellence in journalism, announced Saturday night by the Society of Professional Journalists, had rural resonance.

The rural media standout was North Country Public Radio, based in Canton, the seat of St. Lawrence County, New York. Its report on affordable housing, or the lack of it, won the award for public service in radio, and its report on uninspected housing for dairy workers won the award for small-market radio feature reporting. NCPR also won the contest's new award for regional political reporting with its profile of U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, whose district coves most of NCPR's coverage area, where it has 33 transmitters.

A prison in rural Illinois was the topic of "How the newest federal prison became one of the deadliest," a two-part story by NPR and The Marshall Project, which advocates criminal-justice reform. The package won the award for radio investigative reporting. The Intercept's five-part report on the effect of global warming and climate change on prisons and inmates won the award for science, environment or climate reporting.

Coverage of two major wildfires won awards. CBS's "60 Minutes" won the award for television investgative reporting for “What Happened at Grizzly Flats,” a California town destroyed by a mismanaged forest ifre; and KUSA-TV of Denver won the award for TV documentaries in large markets for “The story behind the Marshall Fire” near Boulder. 

Also in broadcasting, Virginia Public Media won the award for small-market television feature reporting for its story on black descendants of Thomas Jefferson; Scripps News and the Center for Investigative Reporting won the award for narrative podcast or radio documentary for their six-part "Inside the global fight for white power;" and NPR won the radio feature reporting award for interviews with the mother of one of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook, Conn., school shooting.

Journalism about the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last spring, received two SDX awards. KPRC-TV in Houston won for deadline reporting, and the San Antonio Express-News won the large-market editorial award for its "Standing with Uvalde" series. David Plazas of The Tennessean won the smaller-market award for a collection of editorials. Jake May of the Flint Journal was a double winner for feature photo and small-circulation breaking-news photo.

Other awards of general interest included:

Fact checking: Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post for "The truth about Hunter Biden."

Washington correspondence: Nick Grube of Honolulu Civil Beat, for coverage of Hawaii's congressional delegation.

Editorial cartooning: Michael Ramirez, Las Vegas Review-Journal (small markets), and Gary Markstein, Creators Syndicate.

Magazine writing: Lizzie Presser of ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine for "I was never ready for this," a profile of a teenager from Copperas Cove, Texas, who became the mother of twins after a judge refused to let her get an abortion.

General column writing: Melinda Henneberger of The Sacramento Bee, for five columns.

To regular listeners of NPR, Wade Goodwyn needed no introduction, with his rich, deep Texas bass; he's dead at 63

Wade Goodwyn (NPR photo)

Wade Goodwyn, whose deep, rich Texas bass made him one of the most distinctive voices on the national radio landscape, died Thursday of cancer. He was 63.

"For more than 25 years, Wade reported on his home state of Texas and the southwest United States," Debbie Elliott reports for NPR, which counted Goodwyn as part of its National Desk. "A profile once described his voice like "warm butter melting over barbecued sweet corn." But Goodwyn argued that his writing is what really mattered. And he was right. If his voice pulled you in, his way with words kept you listening."

NPR CEO John Lansing said, "From the first words of one of his stories, you always knew you were being taken on a journey by a master of our craft. You were in for a true treat, whatever the subject matter." Elliott cites this line from his coverage of Hurricane Rita in 2005: "In Louisiana, you hug your NASCAR teddy bear when the big blow comes, even if you're a barrel-chested National Guardsman."

"Goodwyn was a history major at the University of Texas, a natural field of study for the son of noted historian Lawrence Goodwyn, who had been active in the civil rights movement and wrote books on grassroots populism," Elliott recounts. While working as a political organizer in New York City, Wade was "so absorbed by the voices and stories he heard" on WNYC that "decided to pursue a freelance public radio career back home in Texas (where the rents were more affordable). He started freelancing for NPR, and was assigned in 1993 to cover a high-profile story — the standoff between the federal government and cult leader David Koresh in Waco."

Elliott adds, "Wade had a bit of a cult following among listeners who loved the way only he could spin a tale, ever eager to share Texas cultural gems and bits of forgotten history and folklore like a remembrance of sharpshooter Joe Bowman, who Wade said 'was so good with a single-action revolver, he could turn an aspirin into powder at 20 yards ... could take a playing card, set it on edge, and peel it in two with a single bullet.'"

ABC News spent a year in Uvalde, Texas, after the school shooting; its report is on the air tonight and Hulu tomorrow

Nicco Quiñones of ABC News films inside the home of Jerry and Veronica Mata. Their daughter Tess, pictured on the wall, was one of 19 students shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas, last May. (Photo by Jenny Wagnon Courts/ABC News via AP)

By David Bauder
Associated Press

After most mass shootings that capture the public’s attention, national news organizations will send reporters for a few days, a week maybe, before moving on. There’s always another community, another tragedy.

ABC News tried something different after 19 elementary school students and two teachers were shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas, last May. The journalists stayed.

For a year, ABC kept a team in Uvalde. The result is a nuanced portrait of what happens over time to a suffering community, as seen in the two-hour documentary, “It Happened Here — A Year in Uvalde,” that airs Friday on ABC and Saturday on Hulu.

“What we discovered has been profoundly moving and inspiring and, we hope, useful,” said ABC News President Kim Godwin.

The story’s richness is in the details: There are the children’s rooms left undisturbed since May 24, 2022, the brush a parent can’t give up because it contains a dead girl’s hair, the survivor made upset by the sound of a block of ice being cracked, and the once-carefree boy who worries a lot. And we see a father who sits at his daughter’s grave each night to talk to her.

There are those who lived but deal every day with survivor’s guilt, and there’s the mother who torments herself for not letting her daughter come home with her after a morning awards assembly.

Uvalde County (Wikipedia map)

ABC’s idea was born out of a desire to bring something new to stories that have taken on a numbing familiarity. “I don’t think that any community should be defined by a tragedy that befalls it,” said Cindy Galli, executive producer of ABC’s investigative unit.

A core team of about a dozen people were assigned to the project, a significant commitment at a time when ABC News, like many other news organizations, is cutting staff. The team, with reporters John Quiñones, Maria Elena Salinas and Mireya Villarreal, rotated in and out depending on other assignments.

The project enabled the journalists to get to know community members and build trust by talking to them without cameras running all the time, she said.

“One of the aspects of being in a small community is that we would run into people at Starbucks or the grocery store,” Galli said. “They knew that we were there and knew that we were there for the long haul.”

That was important to families dealing with their grief, said Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter Lexi was killed in the attack. Rubio was featured in a segment early in the film, talking about how she uses time spent jogging to reflect upon what happened to her daughter.

“It also helped that it wasn’t different reporters all the time,” Rubio said. “I had two that I worked with. It made it much easier for me to be vulnerable.”

The ABC team filed more than 200 stories during its time in Uvalde, Galli said. Their presence enabled them to break news, such as when Quinones got the first interview with a woman falsely accused of leaving a door open at the school that the killer used for access.

Questions about why it took police more than an hour to enter the affected classrooms kept Uvalde in headlines longer than most mass shootings. ABC’s access deepened the documentary’s narrative retelling of the story, with recordings of a chilling 911 call from a trapped girl pleading for a police response to the gunman.

“I had a pencil,” said Arnie Reyes, a teacher injured that day whose recovery is followed by ABC. “It’s not the same battle.”

The documentary talks about tensions in Uvalde between affected parents and people who supported school administrators and police. That aspect of the story points out a hole in the ABC team’s reporting, although it’s not necessarily their fault: The network had trouble getting people in law enforcement and their supporters to talk.

Lexi’s dad, Felix Rubio, eventually resigned his job as a deputy police officer, explaining that he couldn’t go back to work with people who didn’t rush into the school to try and save the children.

The film also traces the growing activism of Kimberly Rubio and 10-year-old Caitlyne Gonzales in seeking legislation to prevent future school shootings.

John Quiñones (ABC News photo)

“There are vital details, nuances that are missed, when we as reporters parachute in and out” of a story, Quinones said.

The extended assignment meshed with how Quiñones likes to report such stories. He doesn’t see the point of reporters trying to force themselves on people when they don’t want to talk. There were times when he had to step away, like when a family he’d been talking to learned that their child might have survived if police had moved more quickly.

The entire experience was eye-opening for the network, Galli said. Following the Uvalde team’s lead, an ABC digital team is spending time in Buffalo, where 10 people were killed in a mass shooting, also in May 2022.

Quiñones, a Mexican American who grew up in nearby San Antonio, said the extended Uvalde assignment has been the most powerful story he’s ever been involved in.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the kind of story that will live with me forever,” he said.

News-media roundup: Washington state helps local media; States Newsroom opens its 33rd outlet there . . .

Rob Manch of WFMZ-TV in Allentown, Pa., investigated a coal-mine fire. See below. (WFMZ image via Poynter)

Washington’s legislature has approved $2.4 million over two years to support eight journalists a year, paid $55,000 each, through a fellowship program to be run by Washington State University," Rebuild Local News reports. "Half of the fellows will be graduates of the university. Crucial program details on how the fellowships and participating newsrooms will be chosen, and by whom, are still being drafted. Gov. Jay Inslee also signed a provision eliminating the “the business and operations” tax for newspapers for 10 years. The bill did not benefit digital-only news sites unless they once printed a newspaper."

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States Newsroom, the largest network of state-based nonprofit news outlets, has launched the Washington State Standard as its 33rd outlet. It has content-sharing agreements with independent newsrooms in 10 additional states. The editor in chief will be Bill Lucia, former executive editor of Route Fifty, an online news journal that covers trends, challenges and emerging issues in states and localities.

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America's Newspapers, a trade association, has released what it calls "the first national research project dedicated to how readers consume local news and advertising in nearly a decade." Among the findings: Only 22% of readers are 65 or older, and 71% have lived in the community for more than five years. Length of residency has long been a predictor of newspaper readership.

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Amaris Castillo of The Poynter Institute reports how Rob Manch and Kaylee Lindenmuth of WFMZ-TV in Allentown, Pennsylvania, investigated and reported on one of the state's many underground coal-mine fires. “Towns like Shenandoah and Centralia tend to get forgotten in the state, and in the national discourse,” Manch told Castillo. “And someone’s gotta be their voice, right? Someone’s got to talk about things that affect them.”

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A recent survey from More in Common and the American Press Institute 

Accentuate the positive: "U.K.-based newsletter The Know has 50,000 subscribers, mainly women, with a 46% open rate and an audience that is growing 10% each month," the American Press Institute reports. "Chief executive Lynn Anderson Clark says her goal with the daily newsletter is to combat news avoidance. Each email starts with a positive news story, followed by coverage of top stories written in a way that won’t leave readers despondent. For example, when covering the February earthquake in Syria and Turkey, the newsletter focused on how the world rallied around to help instead of death tolls. The Know also has a referral rewards program that awards increasingly generous gifts the more a reader invites friends."

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' "push to rewrite defamation law and challenge press rights failed to advance beyond a committee vote" in the Florida Legislature, The Washington Post reports. "Opposition came from an unexpected sector: conservative media and lawmakers. When it came to backing what First Amendment experts and journalists called a radical rewriting of press freedom laws, DeSantis-friendly outlets responded with a rare show of resistance from media companies that by and large support the governor’s agenda."

Award-winning NPR affiliate struggles with state university overseers about investigative reporting on public figures

Rural West Kentucky has "an award-winning public radio news department struggling with administrators, particularly Murray State University President Robert 'Bob' Jackson, about investigative reporting involving state lawmakers and other public figures and institutions," reports WPSD-TV in Paducah. Examples:

When WKMS asked the local health department for Covid-19 case numbers, "including case counts from the university," Jackson somehow learned about it and called a Zoom meeting with the provost and station manager Stan Lampe, who resigned last June.

That was soon after reporter Liam Niemeyer, now at the Kentucky Lantern, sought security video showing  District Judge Jamie Jameson "walking around the courthouse in his underwear early in the morning," WPSD reports. Lampe testified before the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission, which removed the judge from office: "I felt as though . . . someone was attempting to influence me or exercise some leverage over me because of the power they hold." WPSD reports, "Lampe said he was subsequently ordered by administrators he believed were acting on Jackson's orders to provide a written explanation."

Lampe, the station's former news director, testified that he was not punished "but the public radio station had received ... changes in their budgetary allocation as you would see lawmakers contact university officials in the event that their — if, if the university official, I can't speak for that person, but I can say the station — not necessarily me, but the station — could receive some negative blowback from the administration."

In November, after Jackson spoke to the Paducah Rotary Club, "WPSD tried to speak with him about the incident involving his and Jameson's conversation and the possible WKMS story. Jackson refused to answer multiple questions before getting into the back seat of a car and being driven away. At the time of this interview, the university had not provided a statement to WPSD. Emails we obtained after the Kentucky attorney general said Murray State violated the law by withholding them reveal that Jackson's opinion about WKMS’s reporting was well known to administrators."

Business Dean David Eaton wrote, "Dr. Jackson gets complaints in regards to the 'investigative' nature of some of the news . . . along the lines of ‘We're not The New York Times.’ And this seems to be the nature of the complaints that are coming to him. … I think this may be tied to a perception of FOIA requests that ‘reporters stir up trouble.’ Or inconvenience. Or maybe shed light in places people don't want it ... which is a legit function of journalism. . . . Clearly, WKMS is not simply a publicity arm of Murray State." Eaton mentioned reporting of a lawsuit against a nonprofit headed by state Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah.

Niemeyer reported, but the station never aired, a story about another legislator's Twitter feed, "which Niemeyer characterized as 'about tweets showing nudity, sex acts and other sexual content that were "liked" by state Sen. Jason Howell's Twitter account'." Howell's district includes Murray. The Lantern ran the story. In pursuing it, Niemeyer told a MSU public-relations excutive that Lampe had "called me at my desk right before we had planned to publish the story and told me to kill it. He told me he couldn't guarantee that my job would be protected if the story ran."

Niemeyer said in the email that News Director Rachel Keller "says the Twitter account story being killed was a part of multiple incidents during her tenure as news director where [she] and/or Lampe faced pressure from university administration or public figures in the community regarding stories that the station published or reporting the station pursued."

Fox News hosts seem to make the case that they acted with malice, Mississippi Press Association executive opines

By Layne Bruce

The first time I recall hearing the phrase “absence of malice” was from a film of that title released in 1981 starring Paul Newman and Sally Field.

Newman plays a liquor wholesaler falsely accused in the disappearance of a local union leader and whose life is wrecked when the news hits the papers. Field is the reporter who’s manipulated by a corrupt district attorney who wants to squeeze Newman for information about another case.

It’s a convoluted work of fiction, but it’s one of my favorite movies about journalism and what can go wrong when people motivated by careerism forget that their actions can have very real and dramatic consequences for many people around them.

Layne Bruce

After studying journalism in college, I came to understand “absence of malice” as a legal term that also represents an incredibly high burden of proof that must be met by litigants who claim they’ve been defamed by the press.

When a plaintiff sues a media outlet for defamation, they must prove that whatever inaccuracies the outlet reported were borne of actual malicious intent. In other words, the defendants in such cases must act intentionally and spread false information knowingly.

That must be provable. It’s difficult to do, and it’s one of the cornerstone protections of freedom of the press in this country.

But if we were going to write a screenplay based on the defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems for the reporting of false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, it wouldn’t be a drama; it would have to be a farce. It seems like a black comedy of lies, hubris, and gaslighting.

A cursory review of text messages entered into the record and recently made public between Fox News personnel leaves little doubt the producers and hosts knew claims against Dominion that aired repeatedly on the network and sister channel Fox Business were bogus.

Marquee hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and others engaged in numerous conversations about the veracity of the claims against Dominion and even the sanity of the lawyers pressing the conspiracy theories on air and in daily press conferences.

“No serious lawyer could believe what they were saying,” Ingraham says in the text messages. “Sidney Powell is a bit nuts,” she wrote in another. That did not keep the network from repeatedly putting Powell, a key lawyer at the center of the scandal, on air to regurgitate nonsense about alleged fraud, krakens, and other incoherent conspiracy theories.

That Fox News allowed this, and in so doing spread the toxicity to millions of viewers daily, goes a long way to addressing a heretofore almost unattainable bar of proving malice.

And by putting their private thoughts into texts while engaging in the apparent fiction of “just asking questions” on air, the hosts have exposed the network to a potentially landmark—and hugely expensive—judgment against it.

They’ve single-handedly lowered the bar for proving malice.

Wall Street Journal columnist Bill Galston on The Bulwark’s “Beg to Differ” podcast laid out four points necessary to prove malicious intent and reckless disregard to a jury:

• A false statement purported to be fact. The text messages prove network personnel knew the claims of voter fraud by Dominion were bogus.
• Publication or communication of the false statement to a third party. Fox hosts did this nightly for weeks to viewers numbering in the millions.
• Fault amounting to “at least negligence.” Galston contends the repetition of falsehoods over network air was not just reckless disregard, but a “deliberate lie” motivated by fear the network would alienate its audience if it debunked the conspiracies.
• Damages must be sustained to the reputation of the plaintiff. This may the easiest claim to prove. How many of us had heard of Dominion as a company before it was dragged into the contrived effort to throw the 2020 election results into doubt?

“If this isn’t a slam dunk case after the revelations that came out because of the (disclosure of the text messages), I don’t know what is,” Galston concluded.

This is by no means the first time Fox News’ dirty laundry has been aired in public. But it is for sure the first time the network has been so nakedly exposed to potential damages that might have a lasting effect on its business practices.

If malice has not been proven in this case, I’m with Galston—I’m not sure it could ever be proved. Whatever the ultimate decision, the case will be taught in future media law classes.

And I can’t wait to see the movie.

Layne Bruce, a former journalist, is executive director of the Mississippi Press Association. His email address is lbruce@mspress.org.

Iowa GOP bars Cedar Rapids station from election-night event; news director suspects it's payback for fact-checks

This ad, designed to look like "Iowa News" coverage, also accused Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek of failing to prevent vandalism during a campus disturbance. The area wasn't in his primary jurisdiction, KCRG noted, giving it an F.

By Dave Busiek
Iowa Freedom of Information Council, via Substack

In what’s become a trend of Republicans stiff-arming mainstream media outlets, the Iowa Republican Party denied a Cedar Rapids TV station entrance into its election night party in Des Moines.

KCRG-TV is the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids. It’s a fine news operation that provides quality coverage in eastern Iowa. On Monday, the day before the election, the station learned it had been denied credentials to the party’s election night event, where all major GOP candidates would appear.

According to KCRG story, an party spokesman claimed the room was at capacity and priority was given to Des Moines outlets. News director Adam Carros said outlets from outside Des Moines got in, and he cried foul. “This is an unprecedented action in my 20+ years in TV news, 17 of it in Iowa,” Carros said. “I cannot recall a single instance a political party has blocked a local TV or newspaper outlet from its election night event in Iowa.”

That makes two of us. In 40 years of TV news experience in Iowa, I’ve never heard of this happening, either. I imagine it won’t be the last time.

Carros suspects it’s payback for fact-check coverage the station did on political ads run by several Republican candidates. One of the stories criticized an ad from state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, son of state GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann. Carros says the party repeatedly criticized KCRG’s coverage and refused to take part in the station’s previews of legislative races. “I have every reason to believe this is political retribution for our fact checks and other reporting the party deemed unfavorable.”

What possible gains can be made by denying a station the right to cover what turned into a huge victory party for the Iowa GOP? Republicans now hold all Iowa seats in Congress, both houses of the Iowa legislature, and they swept to victory in every statewide office including governor, attorney general, treasurer, secretary of state and ag secretary. From Republicans’ perspective, what a great story to tell! Why not shout it as loud as possible through every media outlet imaginable?

With the race for Arizona governor too close to call, Iowa native Kari Lake – a former TV news anchor, for Pete’s sake – told reporters Wednesday she plans to win, and not only serve four years, but eight. With reporters standing around her, Lake said “I’m gonna be your worst freaking nightmare for eight years, and we will reform the media as well. We’re gonna make you guys into journalists again. So get ready. It’s going to be a fun eight years. I can’t wait.”

Let’s get something straight. Reporters are supposed to do tough stories on people in power. Threats from Kari Lake, or stiff-arming from Iowa Republicans, is not going to change that fact. After Tuesday night, everyone in power in Iowa is a Republican. It’s clear they want to intimidate and bully media outlets into becoming lap dogs. To write glowing stories only. But it is not going to happen, and they know that. Their main goal is to score political points with their base. The news media are easy targets.

Local TV news cannot turn into partisan outlets like Fox or MSNBC. It must continue to hit the ball down the middle of the fairway and do tough stories on those in power, regardless of party, regardless of complaints, and regardless of blacklisting.

In the end, KCRG grabbed a Des Moines station’s satellite feed of the Republican victory celebration, so viewers did not miss out. And in the next election cycle, Adam Carros and his team will continue to do fact checks on both Republican and Democratic candidates – with or without their cooperation.

Central Illinois radio station adds misinformation to the mix

A radio station in Normal, Ill., has merged activism and coverage, organizing protests and pushing back against criticism of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. "Since President Biden’s election, the talk radio station has upended the traditional media ecosystem in this part of central Illinois with an unusual mix of hyperlocal news coverage — crime, weather and the like — and election misinformation," Annie Gowen of the Washington Post reports.

McLean County, Illinois (Wikipedia, adapted)

Cities 92.9 (WRPW) Station Manager Catrina Peterson said "that they are simply providing coverage that serves as a necessary counter to the liberal bias they see in the established local media outlets, which include a newspaper and two other news radio stations," Gowen writes, adding that Peterson is also a self-professed QAnon supporter. 

Gowen summarizes some of Cities 92.9's activism, such as organizing a Jan. 6 bus trip dubbed “Stop the Steal,” defending a Nazi salute at a school board meeting, and involvement in a festival where a Marine attendee called for revolution, saying, “Violence is always the answer.”

Steve Suess, the director of convergent radio broadcasting at Illinois State University, the faculty adviser to its student-run radio station, and a Cities weekend host, told Gowen, “They certainly have carved out somewhat of a niche in the market. They’re not winning the day, but they’re not going bankrupt, either.”

"Suess has been one of the chief defenders of the station locally, saying that it broadcasts a wide range of views," Gowen reports. "He said that the station had not covered the Jan. 6 bus trip as a news event and that he was unaware it had organized protests, then covered them."

Conservative radio net reaches 'deep into parts of America that don't engage with most mainstream media outlets'

Salem Media Group, a publicly traded company based in Texas, has turned into a "conservative media juggernaut" as its big-name radio hosts reach "deep into parts of America that don’t engage with most mainstream media outlets," Cecilia Kang and Tiffany Hsu report for The New York Times. Salem isn't a household name but personalities backed by the company, such as Eric Metaxas, Sebastian Gorka and Charlie Kirk, are well-known in conservative circles.

Leading up to the midterm elections, that trio and other Salem hosts have "amplified the messages of conspiracy theorists, including misinformation about the voting process," Kang and Hsu write. Meanwhile, the company has said that the "war for America's soul is on the line" in the midterms and has put many of its hosts on tour. With a network of 100 radio stations and more than 3,000 affiliates, Salem says it reaches 11 million listeners. It also operates religious and conservative websites while expanding into podcasts, news shows, book publishing and social-media influencers. This year the company financed a film that claimed voter fraud in the 2020 election and was directed by Dinesh D'Souza, another conservative commentator.

Salem CEO David Santrella (Business Wire)

The company started in 1974 as two tiny radio stations in North Carolina. Salem added more stations and eventually went public in 1999. Over the past two decades, it expanded into conservative websites and book publishing. Multiple former employees told Kang and Hsu that the company executives largely stayed out of editorial decisions until Trump's presidency. Bloggers and Craig Silverman, a former radio host, said they were fired from the company after being publicly critical of Trump. 

In an August earnings call, David Santrella, Salem's chief executive, said political advertisers had spent nearly twice as much so far this year compared to the same period in 2020. "The political environment has never been as interesting and as heated and intense as it is right now," he said.

TV stations awash in money from ads; will they do anything to mitigate the campaigns' misleading of viewers/voters?

Graph by Bloomberg News shows revenue projections for major local-TV companies.

"Political ads are rolling in at a record pace at TV stations across the U.S., especially in states with tight races that may decide which party controls the Senate," Todd Shields and Bill Allison report for Bloomberg News.

At Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns many stations with large rural audiences, "Election-year spending countered weakness in core ads," Bloomberg reports. "First-half political revenue was double the 2018 level, and up over 20% from 2020, Chief Financial Officer Lucy Rutishauser said on Aug. 3. Political revenue for Sinclair in the third quarter came to $89 million, putting the year on par with the record 2020 presidential year, she said."

Overall, political ad revenue “will probably rival if not exceed the last presidential election -- which is highly unusual,” Steve Lanzano, president of the Television Bureau of Advertising, a TV trade association, told Bloomberg.

Unfortunately, most TV stations appear to devote little if any time to examining the claims in the ads, which are often run not by the candidates' campaigns but by party committees and groups that don't reveal the sources of their money. Most broadcasters have never shown much willingness to bite the hands that feed them, but at a time where misinformation is poisoning the political process and accountability is all the more important, they should step up and give their viewers the truth. --Al Cross, director and professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (publisher of The Rural Blog)

Gray TV sets new $18 minimum wage for non-contract staff

Gray Television announced this week a new company-wide minimum wage of $18 an hour for "essentially all full-time, non-commissioned and non-contracted employees of Gray and its wholly owned subsidiaries," according to a press release. That works out to an annual salary of $37,440.

About 2,000 of the company's more than 8,000 employees will get a raise as a result of the new policy, which takes effect Oct. 1, according to the release. Since most reporters and anchors are contracted employees, and advertising reps usually get a commission on ad sales, the policy may apply mostly to support staff.

Gray says its 180 stations serve 113 markets that reach about 36 percent of U.S. households.

W.Va. radio show is often Manchin's first stop because of host's integrity, canny questioning, and broad rural reach

Hoppy Kercheval

In an evenly divided Senate, moderate Democrat Joe Manchin plays the key role in passing top-priority Democratic legislation—including the bill Democrats named the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden plans to sign this week. That means pundits, legislators, and other stakeholders spend a fair amount of time trying to divine the West Virginia senator's mindset. One of the best ways to do that is by tuning in to "Talkline," a MetroNews radio show from Morgantown. Its host, Hoppy Kercheval, "has the keys to the political castle" this year because Manchin is his frequent guest, Scott McFarlane reports for CBS News.

Manchin often reveals many of his big decisions to Kercheval. "When I'm on Hoppy, everyone's listening to Hoppy . . . because they know he can get me to say exactly the purpose of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it," Manchin told CBS. In the nearly 40 years he's been hosting the show, "Kercheval has learned the art of trying to pin down Manchin," McFarlane reports.

But it's more than respect for Kercheval's integrity and canny questioning that keep Manchin coming back; it's the fact that "Talkline" reaches almost every nook and cranny of the Mountain State. "In an era of 24-hour cable news and social media, radio remains king in West Virginia, the most effective way to reach voters in a state which still has areas lacking broadband, in which 60 percent of the population lives outside metro areas," McFarlane reports. Manchin told him: "I talk to Hoppy first because I know I'm talking to West Virginia when I talk to Hoppy."

Iowa weekly reports on local native who was journalist but runs on Trump's vote-fraud lie for Ariz. governor, and leads

Kari Lake (Screenshot of part of North Scott Press website)

UPDATE, Aug. 4: The Associated Press called the race for Lake, who faces Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the general election.

When she was growing up in eastern Iowa, Kari Lake was on the student newspaper staff at North Scott High School in Eldridge, starting a career in journalism. Today, she is the leading Republican candidate for governor of Arizona in Tuesday's primary, waving Donald Trump's flag and "focusing heavily on border security, Christianity in public schools, and perpetuating Trump’s lie about fraud in the 2020 presidential election," reports Mark Ridolfi of The North Scott Press, in a "Local girl makes splash" story that is more incisive than most. 

Ridolfi reports on locals who have made financial contributions to Lake's campaign: "Most, but not all, support her politics." Susan Castro, a Republican and retired teacher, told him, "She doesn’t follow everything I believe in. But No. 1, she’s local. No. 2, she’s a woman." Still, "Lake’s hard right turn into politics surprised some of her Scott County friends and acquaintances."

Lake was a broadcast journalist for most of her adult life, starting out in the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois, which includes Scott County. From 1994 until last year, she was at KSAZ-TV in Phoenix. "Arizona voting records show she registered as an independent, and later as a Democrat in 2008," Ridolfi reports. "She supported Obama in his first run against Arizona Sen. John McCain. In June 2021, she said America’s long war in Afghanistan motivated her move to the GOP."

Ridolfi quotes at length from C-SPAN's recording of Lake at July 22 rally, including: “This generation had so many things taken from them. They didn’t get prom. They didn’t get to ask the girl to prom. Didn’t get first kiss. It didn’t have to happen this way. They know who’s with them and who’s against them. Fake news won’t even cover it. They just want to attack us. How many of you don’t watch the corrupt corporate news anymore?” Speaking of President Biden, she said, “Fake news wants us to believe that guy got 81 million votes.” The Washington Post looks at Lake's ideas for elections.

UPDATE, Aug. 2: Jon Allsop of Columbia Journalism Review does a deep dive into the Lake story: When she retired, she said, “I found myself reading news copy that I didn’t believe was fully truthful, or only told part of the story, and I began to fear that I was contributing to the fear and division in this country by continuing on in this profession. . . . Not everyone is dedicated to telling the truth, but thankfully many of you have figured that out. I promise you: if you hear it from my lips, it will be truthful.”

Rural radio talk-show hosts emphasize info, not ideology

Don Neagle at WRUS-AM/FM in Russellville, Ky.

When most Americans hear the phrase "talk radio," they probably think of right-wingers stirring local outrage about national issues, as Stuart Thompson reports for The New York Times.

But many if not most local radio talk-show hosts, especially those in rural communities, emphasize information over ideology. Amy Cobb of Kentucky Living magazine illustrates that with an excellent series of short profiles of broadcast personalities at local radio stations in the state, most of whom reach rural audiences. She shares punchy anecdotes about how the hosts got into broadcasting, what their shows cover, and what they love about broadcasting. Most feature quotes emphasizing how the broadcasters serve the public.

Greg Dunker at WKYX-FM in Paducah shared with Cobb how the station worked to inform locals about rescue and recovery efforts following the deadly tornadoes in December. Tim Smith of WWKY in Winchester told Cobb, “Local radio is extremely important to local communities. We take what we do very seriously.”

Don Neagle, a Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame member whose career at WRUS-AM/FM in Russellville spans nearly 70 years, is semi-retired but still brings big issues home to Logan County through a wide-ranging interview show, "Feedback," with guests from all over. "I’ve tried to cover so much, and hopefully the information is good and useful for people to hear," he told Cobb.

Cale Tharp of Hodgenville has also had long a radio career, but dreamed of owning his own station. In 2018 he bought WLCB-AM's license and a year later "the same building on the downtown square that had once been home to the station where Tharp spent time as a kid," Cobb reports. "His 'program' has no name because Tharp says he’s on the air all day long," playing country music and talking.

Kentucky Living is a publication of the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives.

Pressure mounts for radio station in suburban Kansas City to stop broadcasting Kremlin-funded propaganda

"As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, so do broadcasts of what critics decry as Kremlin-funded propaganda on KCXL, a radio station in Liberty, Mo., a Kansas City suburb of 30,000. Pressure is mounting for KXCL to end broadcasts that have kept the station in business," Kavahn Mansouri reports for Kansas City's KCUR, a PBS affiliate.

KCXL frequently airs content from Radio Sputnik, which is produced in Washington, D.C., and funded by the Kremlin. A handful of other U.S. stations air the programming too, including WXHF-FM in Washington, D.C., KCUR reports. The content includes shows such as "Fault Lines," which features political commentary from Jamarl Thomas. "The week of March 7, Thomas spent a large portion of the three-hour program painting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the instigator of the Russian invasion, pinning responsibility for it on Ukrainians and the United States," Mansouri reports. Thomas said Zelenskyy "isn’t the brimming, shining hero the West has made him out to be. . . . That’s the narrative that’s required in order to solidify this idea this is unprovoked."

National Association of Broadcasters chief Curtis LeGeyt called on U.S. broadcasters to stop airing all Russian state-sponsored content. KCXL owner Pete Schartel "called the NAB’s request a 'knee-jerk reaction' that trampled KCXL’s freedom of speech and led to a maelstrom of angry calls to the station, labeling Schartel and his wife Jonne as 'traitors'," Mansouri reports.

Schartel was once struggling financially, KCUR reports, but nets $5,000 a month to air Radio Sputnik programming since a 2020 deal with Kremlin-run media agency Rossiya Segodnya.

Local meteorologists are trusted sources on climate issue

Many Americans don't believe in anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change, or in climate change, period, but local TV meteorologists ae uniquely placed to help educate them. 

Nearly one-third of American adults say they don't worry much or at all about climate change. Many of them—disproportionately older, white Republican men—are drawn to conservative news media that firms up such opinions, Dan Schwartz reports for The Atlantic.

"These Americans, among others, are stuck in what researchers have called 'reinforcing spirals.' Social scientists have long assumed that most of the Americans misinformed about climate change were protecting a constructed reality, but that view is shifting," Schwartz reports. "A more recent study suggests that many in this cohort, which could include the 'dismissive,' are sincerely interested in the truth. These people aren’t suspicious of the evidence because it contradicts their view of the crisis, but because they don’t trust the available messengers—namely the scientific community and the mainstream media." 

But local news media are more trusted than nationwide news, so in 2010, scientists and journalists formed a nonprofit called Climate Central that aims to better educate meteorologists, and through them Americans, about climate change, Schwartz reports.

"By 2012, Climate Central was working with 10 weathercasters. By the end of 2013, it was working with 100, and it had quadrupled its production of localized reports. The number of participating weathercasters continued to grow, and with more exposure to trusted climate-change information, they began to see climate change for what it was. By 2017, 95 percent of TV weathercasters agreed that the climate was indeed changing," Schwartz reports. "By 2020, 80% acknowledged that human activity was a major reason.

"    The facts here did what facts sometimes do when people are actually searching for the truth: They changed minds. Now weathercasters, with their eyes open to the crisis, are better positioned than anyone else to guide the remaining Americans through the same transition. One 2013 study, frequently cited, found that the more people liked a TV weathercaster, the more likely they were to be positively influenced by that weathercaster’s discussion of climate change."

"We never looked at it like, 'We’re the ones in charge'," Program Director Bernadette Woods Placky told Schwartz. "It was a relationship. It was a partnership."

Bipartisan Senate bill would protect small rural TV stations from being bumped off air by big stations' interference

A new bipartisan bill in Congress aims to strengthen protections for small, rural television stations. The Low Power Protection Act, introduced by Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), would increase spectrum rights for some low-power television stations.

"LPTV stations usually provide locally oriented or specialized service in their communities, the senators said. However, LPTV is currently considered a secondary broadcast service by the Federal Communications Commission. As such, LPTV licensees are not granted protections from harmful interference or displacement, and must accept harmful interference or displacement from full power television stations," George Winslow reports for TV Tech.

The bill builds on a 1999 law that opened a one-time filing window for LPTV stations to apply for Class A status. Class A stations are protected from being bumped off the air by harmful interference. The bill would require the FCC to open a new filing window for Class A status, Winslow reports.

"That, in turn, will help ensure they are able to continue providing local coverage, and allow them to better protect existing investment and incentivize further investment in their stations and communities, the Senators said," Winslow reports. "The bill has garnered support from numerous broadcast organizations and advocacy groups, including the LPTV Broadcasters Association, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Missouri Association of Broadcasters, the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, and the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Public Knowledge."

Western Kentucky radio station keeps locals informed, helps community heal after last week's deadly tornadoes

WPKY station owner Beth Mann helps keep Princeton locals informed in the aftermath of last week's deadly storms. (Poynter Institute photo by Al Tompkins)

When deadly tornadoes ripped through Western Kentucky last week, local newsrooms were lauded for their coverage. And as nationwide media begins trickling out, local news is still here to keep people informed and help the community heal. 

In Princeton, a community of 6,329 and the seat of Caldwell County, locals rely on WPKY-AM for updates and more, Princeton native Al Tompkins reports for the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. When morning host Tess Cowan emerged from the storm shelter after the tornado had passed, her first thought was to get to the station and begin broadcasting.

Princeton in Caldwell County (Wikipedia)

Station owner Beth Mann said the station plays a vital role in Princeton and nearby towns. "When everyone else is gone, we are still here," she told Tompkins. "We are community stewards. It is our job to connect the dots for people, to help them find the help they will need. And we will be key to building back the economic base of this town. It will be more important than ever for us to stress that we all have to support our local businesses."

And as Cowan noted, their drive to serve their community is about more than professional responsibility. "This is home and these are my neighbors that I am talking to," she told Tompkins. "Two people who work for the station lost their homes."

Founder of Christian television network that discourages coronavirus vaccination dies from Covid-19

Marcus Lamb of Daystar

Marcus Lamb, the founder of Christian TV network Daystar, died of Covid-19 Tuesday. A spokesperson would not say whether the 64-year-old was vaccinated, but Michelle Boorstein reports for The Washington Post that during the pandemic "Lamb and his network went in big with anti-vaccine conspiracies, hosting daily interviews with skeptics who talked about dangerous, hidden forces pushing vaccines and stealing Christians’ freedoms." 

Lamb's wife Joni said he had diabetes and got pneumonia after being diagnosed with Covid-19, which he tried to treat with alternative medicines. Earlier this month, his son Jonathan said on the network that he believed the illness was a "spiritual attack from the enemy" in retaliation for the network's promotion of unfounded alternative treatments, Boorstein reports.

"Lamb was an outspoken skeptic of Covid-19 vaccines and eagerly promoted unproven, alternative treatments, including hydroxychloroquine, which the US Food and Drug Administration says has no effect on Covid-19, but has been linked to heart rhythm problems, kidney trouble, and liver failure," Daniel Silliman reports for Christianity Today. "In Lamb’s last fundraising newsletter, he touted Daystar as 'the only Christian TV Network that has made continuous efforts to warn you about the dangers of the Covid-19 ‘Vaccine’ and to help you with the truth' about alternative treatments."

"Daystar is the second-largest Christian network in the world, according to CBN News, a competitor, reaching 2 billion people worldwide. Its brand is a fluid, modern, charismatic faith, more about general good-vs-evil, miraculous healings and religious freedom than any specific denominational theology," Boorstein reports. The network was founded in 1998, and now owns more than 100 television stations all over the globe. In recent years Daystar has been rocked with scandal: first for an affair Lamb admitted to, and more recently for claims of fraud, Silliman reports. In 2011 an NPR investigation found that Daystar only gave away about 5% of the money it had raised for charity, and in 2020 the network "returned $3.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program money after an Inside Edition investigation found his ministry purchased a jet two weeks after getting a PPP loan meant to help employees struggling during the pandemic," Boorstein reports.

Quick hits: Invading armadillos, in search of Appalachian-friendly therapy; National Grange reelects president

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

"Infra," short for infrastructure, is an ancient prefix and the new shorthand work for supporting structures that undergird American society, not just roads and pipes. Read more here.

Betsy Huber has been reelected for a fourth term as president of the National Grange, the oldest agricultural and rural advocacy organization in the U.S. Read more here.

Armadillos, whose habitat has expanded north because of climate change, have besieged a town in western North Carolina. Read more here.

Are Appalachian foodways at risk of being lost forever? Read more here.

Culturally sensitive therapists could play a key role in easing Appalachia's mental-health crisis, writes one Eastern Kentucky resident. Read more here.