To sustain themselves, innovative rural newspapers develop alternative revenue sources, including a nonprofit element

Jack Rooney, left, and David Woronoff spoke to the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America.

Two of America's most innovative rural newspapers, a weekly and a daily, are following very different strategies to sustain their journalism in the digital age. They were the focus of a session July 7 at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, sponsored by the Institute for Rural Jouranalism and Community Issues (publisher of The Rural Blog).

Alternative revenue sources are the reason The Pilot, a twice-weekly in Southern Pines, N.C., has 11 newsroom employees, Publisher David Woronoff said. At The Keene Sentinel in southwest New Hampshire, reader donations are supporting journalism, especially a nonprofit subsidiary focused on health, said Jack Rooney, the daily's managing editor for audience development.

Woronoff led off the session by saying, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If the only tool you have is a newspaper, then the solution to all of your community's information and marketing needs is going to be – surprise, surprise – more newspaper.  . . . Sometimes you need a glossy magazine to to solve that information need. And sometimes you need a daily email newsletter, or sometimes you need a annual phone book, or sometimes you need a independent bookstore. And that and that's what we do. . . . We're in the community-building business, and news just happens to be the service we render."

Woronoff said The Pilot is 30% larger than it was when he and his partners bought it 27 years ago, "but it only represents 25% of our total enterprise. So we have stretched that overhead across a lot of revenue, which gives us the ability to finance our journalism. So that's why, in a relatively rural community, we have an 11-person newsroom. . . . We're able to produce that sort of journalistic heft because we have expanded beyond just being a newspaper."

More than half of The Pilot's revenue comes from magazines and similar products: PineStraw, a free-circulation monthly; The Sway, an email newsletter aimed at millennials; Business North Carolina, which has several products including a daily newsletter and events; South Park, a monthly delivered to some Charlotte Observer subscirbers; the North Carolina Tribune, a daily politics and public-policy newsletter; and Walter and O. Henry, magazines for Raleigh and Greensboro, respectively.

Eleven percent of revenue comes from a local bookstore that "was getting ready to fail," Woronoff said. "Not the wisest investment I ever made, but I just couldn't imagine our little town without an independent bookstore in it. And I think it says something about our community that we can afford one and it's become part of the cultural tapestry of our community. Last year we had a hundred authors come to the town, most of them for free. . . . I would argue that that's part of serving your community is not just putting news in the newspaper. It's creating this cultural appreciation. And by being a convener of our of the people in our community, we are making ourselves more relevant."

"Relevance is the coin of the realm," Woronoff said at another point. "If you are it not relevant to your community, if all you are as a newspaper, then your relevance is going to diminish." An example is The Sway, produced by "a bunch of 20 somethings," which has 20,000 free subscribers. "It's written in the voice of a 20-something female, a very sassy, irreverent tone. . . . It makes us relevant to an important segment of our community that we don't, we wouldn't, reach with just the newspaper."

Woronoff acknowledged that he's in a catbird seat, in a golf-centric area with above-average income that is comfortably close to, but not overwhelmed by, three metropolitan areas. For his formula to work, he said, "You have to have a vibrant commercial business community. You've got to have a vibrant retail community. . . . but we think there are a lot of communities out there who can do this . . . If you want to try it in your market. The first thing you have to accept is that you have to be more than just a newspaper."

The Keene Sentinel is doing that, in another way. Its Monadnock Region Health Reporting Lab, which "operates as a nonprofit, essentially," is "a testing ground to develop new ideas and find ways to reach new audiences and grow revenue," Rooney said. "The lab is completely donor-funded through a combination of grants, some individual kind of high-dollar donors in our community who we've identified and who really see the value in what we're providing," plus "constant crowd-funding."

"Journalists, historically, are not very good at telling their own stories of their organizations to garner that support," Rooney said, so the paper does annual community-impact reports, and does a seperate one for the health-reporting lab, which says, in effect, "Here's the the return on your investment." And it has things to crow about; the lab won the first-place investigative-reporting award from the New Hampshire Press Association, for its report on 21 gallons of Fentanyl solution that went missing from the local hospital. 

The Sentinel launched the lab in February 2022 after monthgs of "listening sessions with all sorts of folks in our community: health care providers, patients, nonprofit leaders, social service agencies, and some initial rounds of of fundraising," Rooney said. "We picked health care for this initiative largely because it's one of the issues [for which] rural communities are so well known."

The lab has a free email newsletter on Mondays with more than 1,000 subscribers and an open rate of 45%. Its content is published in the Sentinel's health section on Wednesdays as well. And it has a podcast, "Invisible Illness," with interveiws of "folks who have a diagnosis that's not outwardly visible and kind of shines the light on on their experiences," Rooney said. And the lab goes beyond journalism, to community service; it held a health fair that attracted 300 people.

The National Summit on Journalism in Rural America was a hybrid event, with in-person and online audiences. A Zoom recording of the morning session, at which Rooney and Woronoff spoke, is here. 

Barry Blitt, reclusive rural cartoonist, starts a show Saturday

Barry Blitt (New York Times photo by James Estrin)

Barry Blitt, perhaps the most frequent cover artist for The New Yorker magazine, is a reclusive type, but on Saturday he will help open an exhibit of some of his more recent illustrations, plus "never-before-seen drafts and unpublished work," at the Minor Memorial Library in Roxbury, Connecticut, where he lives, reports Jamie Larson for Rural Intelligence, a mostly online publication for rural areas north of the city. The show, “Pen & Angst & Watercolor,” will run through Aug. 5.

His rendition of King Charles III is featured
in the story about Blitt in Rural Intelligence.

"Blitt’s mind has wrought some of the New Yorker’s most recognizable covers, but the man himself usually shies away from any and all public attention. The exhibition is the third Blitt has done at the library and though he admits he gets agoraphobic at events, he’s grateful for the support and encouragement," RI reports. “I’m treating it as an obligation,” Blitt said.

Blitt, who was born and raised in Quebec, attended the Ontario College of Art and Design, worked in advertising in London, “came home defeated,” and moved to New York in 1989, RI reports: "In 1993, tired of the noise, he moved to Connecticut – first Riverside, then Washington Depot, and finally Roxbury, where he has found a nearly tolerable level of seclusion."

Larson adds, "Though his lumpy portraits of presidents and political creatures are his most recognizable works, Blitt says he’s getting tired of drawing the same old disgusting politicians every week for The New Yorker's pages, online his weekly Blitt’s Kvetchbook and for Airmail magazine. He's glad to be showing a collection of his own selection at the library."

News-media roundup: A Gannett ghost; a corrections dilemma; explaining reporting in stories; a GoFundMe to save a great rural paper in a town devastated by tornado

Publishing corrections increases accuracy but reduces audience trust, a study has found. "I fear that some journalists will read this as an invitation to forego corrections," Dan Gillmor writes for NiemanLab. "Not only is that ethically suspect, it’s counterproductive, since someone else is bound to notice the error and tell the world, usually with the help of other media critics. . . . Journalists should want, more than anything, for their audiences to be correctly informed. If posting corrections means a hit to their credibility in the short term, that is a risk they should be willing to take."

Trusting News suggests that in-depth stories include "explanations and insight into the reporting process," which "can help people better understand your goals and motivations while also improving perceptions of your news organization. We also know this type of transparency helps prevent people from making negative assumptions about your work, which can lead to distrust," Lynn Walsh writes. Using an investigative report by Phil Williams of Nashville's WTVF as an example, Walsh cites key points to make: the story's purpose; where the idea came from; how sources were contacted; and how information was verified.

Salinas, Calif. Los Angeles Times photo by Wally Skalij

As Gannett Co. says it expects to sell more daily newspapers, its Salinas Californian is a ghost paper, with no reporters. Over the headline "A city yearns to know its stories," James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times reports, "When brown water overflowed the banks of the Salinas River in January, flooding thousands of acres and throwing an untold number of farmworkers out of jobs, the leading newspaper in this agricultural mecca did not cover the story. Candidates in the November race for mayor also went absent from the pages of the 152-year-old news outlet. Ditto non-coverage of a police staffing shortage so serious that the police chief said the department might not have enough cops to respond to all complaints of theft, fraud, vandalism, prowling and prostitution. . . . The only original content from Salinas comes in the form of paid obituaries, making death virtually the only sign of life at an institution once considered a must-read by many Salinans." 

Ogden Newspapers is selling The Park Record, Utah’s oldest, continuously published, non-daily newspaper, to Tatiana and Matthew Prince, a prominent Park City couple who "plan to convert the paper to a non-profit or public benefit corporation to best align its mission with the community. They hope to make print copies freely available, refocus on the paper's digital experience, and bring back locals' “2-for-1” restaurant specials, the Record announced.

Natalie Perkins edits the Deer Creek Pilot at home.
(Photo by Barbara Gauntt, Clarion-Ledger)

A GoFundMe campaign is on to help the award-winning Deer Creek Pilot in Rolling Fork, Miss., a town of 1,883 devastated by a tornado Friday. "The commercial base of the town was destroyed by the massive twister," says the Mississippi Press Association, which is putting the money in its 501(c)(3) foundation. "All proceeds from the fund will be used to cover critical operating costs of the small local newspaper, the only local media located in Sharkey and Issaquena counties." Ross Reily of the Clarion-Ledger profiles Editor-Publisher Natalie Perkins, who is also a local diaster coordinator.

UPDATE, April 3: MPA's Layne Bruce writes, "The Deer Creek Pilot has survived for years in a town sorely lacking much retail base — and now nearly devoid of it — on the reputation of its spunky and unflinching editorial product. And on the pure force of will of Natalie and Ray" Mosby, the longtime editor who died in 2021.

When the Texas Observer said was going to close, the 68-year-old liberal magazine's staff started a GoFundMe campaign and nearly reached its $200,000 goal by 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, when the total was $186,846, reports Ariana Garcia of the Houston Chronicle. The next day, the owner, the Texas Democracy Foundation, said "We have secured near-term pledges to bridge our immediate budget shortfall and feel confident that there is time for the Texas Observer to determine its future, thanks to the extraordinary success of the staff’s fundraising this week. We apologize to the staff for the abruptness of the layoff vote and deeply regret that they found out via another media outlet and the uncertainty and stress of this week."

Google is adding ‘Perspectives’ and ‘About this author’ to its search function to help verify information, "while also expanding some of its current tools, including 'About this result'," TechCrunch reports.

Nov. 19 webinar to discuss new Postal Service program to give some newspaper mail discounts

In a Nov. 19 webinar, U.S. Postal Service representatives will discuss a new policy that will give discounts to some publications that send out their periodical mail in flat tubs instead of sacks. The policy will take effect in January. 

The National Newspaper Association will host the webinar on Zoom beginning at 3 p.m. ET, and invites all newspapers to watch. Nonmembers can watch for $30, and will only have access to the live program, not the recording. Click here for more information.

'Athens journalism institution' wins University of Georgia's new award for community journalism, named for him

Rollin M. “Pete” McCommons, editor and publisher of Flagpole magazine in Athens, Ga., is the namesake and first recipient of an award for distinguished community journalism from the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The school plans to present the award annually, thanks to an endowment funded by friends of McCommons.

The award will recognize "the best in community journalism, as represented by small- to medium-sized daily and weekly news organizations who provide exemplary service to their communities," the school said in announcing the award.

Charles Davis, dean of the college, said, “Pete McCommons is an Athens journalism institution, the man who gave the Athens Observer its verve [after co-founding it in 1974] and who created Flagpole as an important countercultural voice of progressivism in the city. His unflagging spirit, his devotion to Athens and to journalism make him the ideal namesake for this new award.”

McCommons has been publisher of Flagpole since 1994. He recently published his first book, Pub Notes, a collection of his Flagpole columns of the same name. In his latest, he thanked the college and those who endowed the award and said, "After almost 50 years making up community journalism as we go along, getting this award from the Grady College is like being certified. It is huge."

Columbia Journalism Review publishes brief profiles of 5 independently owned rural papers

Five rural newspapers, from North Carolina to Alaska, get brief profiles in the latest print edition of Columbia Journalism Review, which focuses on local news. The series of profiles begins with some facts that urban readers may need: "Local news outlets across the country play an essential role in creating civically engaged and informed communities. Often, these outlets do their work with minimal resources. Sometimes, they do it with hardly anything, with one or two journalists taking on the specialized tasks of an entire news staff."

All five papers are independently owned, like about 40 percent of U.S. weeklies. Those facts are not noted by writers Shelley Hepworth, Carlett Spike and Pete Vernon, who are Delacorte Fellows at the magazine. Two of the papers recently lost their leaders to death: the Nome Nugget, oldest paper in Alaska, and The Budget, an Ohio-based paper for Amish and Mennonite communities.

Haecker and Hahn (Nome Nugget photo)

In Nome, "Diana Haecker and her husband, Nils Hahn, took over the weekly after its previous owner, Nancy McGuire, died last year," CJR reports. "The Nugget regularly covers winter harvesting, Iditarod season, and climate change. Says Haecker: 'We’re pretty much on ground zero of climate change, of new realities in regards to ship traffic and ice melting.'"

The three-paragraph profile of The Budget doesn't mention the January 2016 death of publisher Keith Rathbun, who made several national media appearances and was active in the National Newspaper Association. The profile quotes Associate Publisher Milo Miller as saying that the paper's model remains the same: a vehicle for reports from Amish and Mennonites around the country.

North Carolina's monthly Ocracoke Observer, which serves an island on the Outer Banks, "is run from Peter Vankevich’s porch, and the office uniform consists of shorts and flip-flops. Vankevich owns the monthly with Connie Leinbach," and both are 63, CJR reports. "Leinbach says the Observer had become more of a monthly newsletter by the time they took it over, but 'We transformed it into a true newspaper. We found people really do want to read about all the news going on here.'"

The Hooker County Tribune in Mullen, Neb., "is a one-woman show" in a county of only 736 people, CJR reports. Gerri Peterson, 31, started writing for the weekly "in the eighth grade, and continued throughout college. When the owners asked her about her plans after graduation, she responded, half-joking, 'Well, my dream job is to own a small-town newspaper, so let me know when you guys are ready to sell.'" She became owner at 22.

The Ferndale Enterprise on the coast of Northern California has won awards for its hard-nosed coverage of the county fair association. Caroline Titus, 55, a former TV and radio reporter, bought the paper in 1998 and runs it from her home. CJR reports, "Since the November election, Titus says, not only has she gained subscribers, 'I’m getting postcards with people saying, ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done to protect the press’s rights in our little town.’"

An earlier, longer story in CJR profiled the Inquirer and Mirror, on Nantucket Island.

Modern Farmer paid staff walks out, leaving future of quarterly magazine up in the air

The future of Modern Farmer—a magazine that has never been geared toward your everyday farmer—could be in doubt, after its remaining paid editors walked out on Friday, Kim Severson reports for The New York Times. Despite more than 1 million unique page views per month and support from big-name advertisers, the fate of the quarterly with a circulation of 100,000 had been in question for months.

In December, founder Ann Marie Gardner left, and the spring issue was canceled, Severson writes. "Gardner remains in a dispute with Frank Giustra, a hard-nosed Canadian financier who owns a majority of the company. But after the remaining editorial staff members departed Friday, Giustra’s public relations firm said in an emailed statement that plans for a summer edition were underway, and any replacement hires 'will continue to reflect the high standards of reporting that Modern Farmer has had in the past.'” Currently the editorial content is in the hands of two interns whose tenure ends Feb. 1. (Read more)

Guns & Ammo fires a top writer after he suggests that some regulations don't violate 2nd Amendment

Dick Metcalf

If you buy Guns & Ammo magazine or one of its competitors, here's fair warning that you may be getting what advertisers want instead of independent reporting and editing, which is supposed to be an essential hallmark of American journalism: The magazine fired one of the nation's top gun writers after he wrote a column questioning whether certain regulations really infringed the right to keep and bear arms and gun makers threatened to pull their ads unless he was canned. It was no surprise to people who know the trade, The New York Times' Ravi Somaiya reports.

UPDATE, Jan. 14: Metcalf writes for Politico Magazine that the magazine's parent company, Intermedia Outdoors, removed its vice president and editorial director from his position as editor of Guns & Ammo. As for the wild replies and threats made by the "social-media piranha swarm" in response to his column, he writes, "The hijacking of our movement by these radical extremists causes me to fear for the future of the right I have spent my adult life fighting to defend. At present, we defenders of the Second Amendment have the American mainstream voters on our side. . . . When we engage in noisy, extremist rhetoric rejecting all firearms regulation whatsoever, or refuse to acknowledge the plain fact that constitutionally validated regulations and statutes already exist, we risk alienating the American mainstream. And if we lose that mainstream, we will lose this war." (Read more)

Modern Farmer aims for newer agriculturalists

A spread from the fall issue (click for larger version)

A new magazine is trying to appeal to new types of farmers. Modern Farmer, which published its first edition in April, "is trying to benefit from the first signs of growth in the total number of farms since World War II and the farm-to-table food trend that has fueled growth for farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture," Christine Haughney reports for The New York Times. For example, the magazine "offers advice on building a corn maze and articles on the effect of climate change on lettuce and oysters . . . It edges into the food-magazine sphere with luminous photography of vegetables, while articles report on straight agricultural topics."

The magazine, which has been sold in countries such as Britain, Germany and Australia, is attracting a wide variety of readers "who include an Amish farmer and vegetable supplier to Whole Foods, Brooklyn rooftop farmers harvesting kale and broccoli and myriad young farmers going back to the land," Haughney writes. Sean O’Brien, global director of footwear for the Original Muck Boot Company, told Haughney, “It’s really targeted almost a new consumer group for us. We sell a lot of boots to farmers and workers and outdoorsmen. You can look at a Modern Farmer as almost a hobby farmer. This a perfect vehicle to target that key consumer group.”

Founder and Editor-in-Chief Ann Marie Gardner, a former writer for the Times and Tatler magazine, "conceived the idea for a magazine in 2011 after she noticed that sources she interviewed for Monocle magazine seemed preoccupied by agricultural issues," Haughney writes. In spring 2012 she pitched the idea to investors, and by November had enough money to start a website and a print product. Traffic on the site "grew to 99,000 unique visitors in the United States in July, according to comScore. The first print issue sold 35,000 copies on newsstands and 13,000 by subscription." (Read more)

Conservatives from California bolster conservative dominance of North Idaho; school elections today

Conservative transplants largely from California have taken over Kootenai County," Idaho, High Country News reports, asking, "Have they gone too far?" (Wikipedia map)

The story by Sierra Crane-Murdoch starts with former County Clerk Dan English, who recounted how Kootenai's voter performance veered rightward from 1996 to 2002, leaving him as the only Democrat left in an elected county office. He finally lost it in 2010, long after USA Today had dubbed Kootenai "the most Republican county in the most Republican state in the nation."

That's all we can share with you, because High Country News is available only by subscription, but the story's headline promises that it reveals "How right-wing emigrants conquered North Idaho." But you might want to check the The Spokesman-Review of nearby Spokane, Wash., where blogger Dave Oliveria took note of the HCN story, saying it "connects the dots." He tied it to today's local elections: "On Tuesday, we’ll learn whether Kootenai County archconservatives who call themselves 'Republicans' for politics’ sake will keep total control of the Coeur d’Alene School Board. And establish beachheads on the Post Falls School Board and Kootenai Hospital Board. The end game for the ideological radicals is the overthrow of the Coeur d’Alene City Council this fall." (Read more)

Grady Clay, a journalist and urbanist who appreciated rural, dies at 96

By Al Cross, director, Institute for Rural Journalism & Community Issues

The Rural Blog might not be expected to note the passing of a "noted urbanist," as one obituary headline put it, but we're also about journalism and the connections between rural and urban areas, and my friend Grady Clay, left, cared a great deal about those things as well as the urban landscape.

Charles Birnbaum of the Cultural Landscape Foundation Friends told The Courier-Journal of Louisville that Clay alerted professionals to such issues as “sprawl, historic preservation, watershed management and ecological design. These are things we deal with as second nature today, but they were pretty revolutionary stuff” when he took over as editor of Landscape Architecture.after serving as C-J real estate editor. (Read more)

"Clay was an authority on urban design," Gabe Bullard writes for Louisville's WFPL.  He was president of the National Association of Real Estate Editors, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University; a research associate to the Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and a Guggenheim Fellow. He was a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta, where he grew up, and lectured extensively was a visiting professor at universities in U.S. and abroad.

He was married to an architect, Judith McCandless, and was chair of the jury that chose Maya Lin's then-controversial design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and "I’m sure at some level, guided" its final design and execution, "which transformed memorial architecture and the way we commemorate events of historical significance," Alan Brake, executive editor of the Architect’s Newspaper, told Bullard. His books included Real Places: An Unconventional Guide to America's Generic Landscape.

Clay at his Louisville springhouse. (Photo by
Spcsnvsnjmc / Wikimedia Commons)

Grady Clay kept track of how journalists described the landscape, urban and rural. In 1990, when I wrote that a Kentucky bond issue would build roads in "the far reaches of the state," he was taken with the phrase. Our correspondence then is lost in the electronic ether, but we kept in touch, last seeing each other in 2008 when he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Urban Communication Foundation.

In the 1990s, he recorded a series of timeless, insightful commentaries for WFPL, titled "Crossing the American Grain" and collected in a book by that title. For rural listeners I recommend No. 5, about a summer night on a Michigan beach; No. 7, about a sawmill, a cotton gin and hard work on his grandparents' farm at Walnut Grove, Ga.; No. 8, about building the Alaska Highway; and No. 10, about moving.

Essay on small-town druggist gets award from national columnist

A long essay in The New Yorker about the life of a small-town druggist in southwestern Colorado is among the latest winners of a Sidney Award, named for philosopher Sidney Hook, which New York Times columnist David Brooks gives to essays that he deems to be the best of a year.

New Yorker illustration by Ben Katchor

The first winner was Peter Hessler’s article, “Dr. Don: The life of a small-town druggist,” Don Colcord of Nucla, Colo., a local native who "serves that community medically, spiritually, financially and beyond," Brooks writes. "The article is a beautiful description of what it’s like to live in a small town, where everybody knows each other’s sins and virtues." He cites one resident's view: “I like to play chess. I moved to a small town and nobody played chess there, but one guy challenged me to checkers. I always thought it was kind of a simple game, but I accepted. And he beat me nine or 10 games in a row. That’s sort of like living in a small town. It’s a simple game, but it’s played at a higher level.” (Read more)

Hessler introduced his subject to readers this way: "Don Colcord has owned Nucla’s Apothecary Shoppe for more than thirty years. In the past, such stores played a key role in American rural health care, and this region had three more pharmacies, but all of them have closed. Some people drive eighty miles just to visit the Apothecary Shoppe. It consists of a few rows of grocery shelves, a gift-card rack, a Pepsi fountain, and a diabetes section, which is decorated with the mounted heads of two mule deer and an antelope. Next to the game heads is the pharmacist’s counter. Customers don’t line up at a discreet distance, the way city folk do; in Nucla they crowd the counter and talk loudly about health problems." (Read more)

Progressive Farmer tries to counter negative farm images with 'The Real American Farmer'

Agribusiness has seen its image take a hit in recent months because of animal-rights abuses, anti-comptetive practices and environmental issues, and many in the industry feel farmers are gaining an unfair reputation as a result. In an effort to combat those negative images, The Progressive Farmer has a special section in this month's issue called "The Real American Farmer," which profiles three farm and ranch families "who care deeply about their land, their livestock and their profession."

The Beckers, a Minnesota family that owns and operates LB Pork, have seen a shift in the industry to the point that Lonny Becker is in touch daily with three or more marketing advisers, Tom Dodge reports. "Who'd have ever thought five years ago that we'd have to be concerned with the daily gyrations of the euro?" he asked Dodge. To weather the economic downturn, the family has held weekly meetings for the last two years. Lonny's sister-in-law Julie forsees even more scrutiny from outside the industry. "As producers, farmers have been doing the right things all along," she told Dodge. "But from now on, you'll have to prove it to everyone else."

Clay Rightmer (far right, with family) is the fourth generation of Rightmers to ranch in central Texas, and he claims "you cannot find a better life no matter how hard you look," Jim Patrico reports. Rightmer terms frugality his survival tool, pointing to his choice to use cottonseed rather than corn as cattle feed while corn prices soared over the past few years. One area Rightmer said he doesn't look to cut costs is environmental stewardship. "Water begets wildlife," he told Patrico. "It's about working in harmony with the land and changing when it changes."

Todd Hays is a seventh-generation Missouri farmer who earned a two-year degree in marketing because it appeared his family farm had no room for another farmer. He eventually married into another farm family, giving him his chance to return to the work he loves, Patrico reports. Today Hays and his wife's family have about 600 sows and market 13,000 hogs a year. To counter the vocal critics of agriculture the family goes beyond environmental requirements. "When possible, the family injects manure into the soil rather than spreading it on the surface," reducing runoff and odor, Patrico writes.

Hays said he tries to see things such as skepticism about biotech crops from the non-farming point of view. He said such crops can lower production costs and reduce farming's impact on the environment. "We can use fewer chemicals and herbicides," he told Patrico. "And I don't [often] have to use insecticides for rootworms and curtowrms." Hays said the key to improving the ag industry's image is to show people the way farming actually works, and then they will understand and approve. (You can subscribe to The Progressive Farmer here.)

Ky. district with three schools in poor shape surprised by inquiry from People magazine

School officials in Clark County, Kentucky, had become used to the added attention they had received since a 2009 Lexington Herald-Leader story revealed the county had three schools on the Kentucky Department of Education’s list of worst facilities in the state, but they were surprised by a call from People magazine. The magazine had chosen Fannie Bush Elementary as one of the six worst school facilities in the nation for an upcoming story, Bob Flynn of the The Winchester Sun reports. "I thought the call was a joke at first. Surely People magazine wouldn’t be calling us," Fannie Bush Principal Angie Taylor told Flynn. "But after the interviews, I feel good about the article because they focused on the conditions and difficulties of educating the kids in these conditions."

Taylor said she was completely honest with the reporters in listing challenges of working at the facility, including having only one entrance for traffic, having a gymnasium that also serves as the cafeteria and having only one set of bathrooms to serve more than 300 students, Flynn reports. "The thing that is surprising to me more than anything is for Clark County, in the area that it sits in Kentucky, to have three category 5 schools, is very unusual for this part of Kentucky," Clark County Schools Superintendent Elaine Farris told Flynn. Category 5 is the designation given to the oldest and most decrepit schools by the state.
"I try to use the resources the best I can to the best of my ability for these kids, but you are still limited in what you can do. You can’t magically make a cafeteria appear, but we are still providing a good education," Taylor said. "We are meeting our Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals set by No Child Left Behind. How much better could we do if we were in better conditions?" (Read more)

Institute director and a still-practicing rural journalist enter Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame

Among this year’s seven inductees to the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame are Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, and Jim Phillips, longtime news director of the two radio stations in rural Grayson, Ky.

Cross, right, said in remarks at the induction luncheon that he was being recognized largely for his work at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, where he worked for more than 26 years, the last 15½ as political writer, but was nominated by one of the people he serves as "extension agent for rural journalists" – Sharon Burton, editor and publisher of The Farmer’s Pride, Kentucky’s statewide agricultural newspaper, and the weekly Adair County Community Voice in Columbia. "That’s the most satisfying part of this honor," he said. For his remarks, click here. Cross started out as a rural journalist, at the Clinton County News and WANY Radio in Albany, and later edited, managed or helped manage weekly papers in Monticello, Russellville and Leitchfield. In 2001-02, he was national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, and in 2004 became director of the institute, which is based in the University of Kentucky’s School of Journalism and Telecommunications.

Phillips, right, has also had careers in both newspapers and broadcasting, but he went the other direction, moving to WGOH Radio after more than 15 years as editor of The Journal-Enquirer, the local weekly. He has been at the station, now joined by WUGO-FM, for more than 41 years. "God has given me a journalistic career I could not have imagined," he told the crowd at the induction luncheon. "I’ve just loved every minute of it." He said he had to get back to Grayson because he had a newscast to do this afternoon. Another inductee, Jack Lyne of Site Selection magazine, also has rural roots; he grew up in Russellville, where he was inspired and mentored by the local editor, Al Smith, who did likewise for Cross and many other Kentucky journalists. "When it comes to Kentucky journalism, Al’s got more assists than John Wall," the Kentucky basketball star, Lyne said. He also credited others in Russellville who pushed him toward excellence and emphasized hard work.

Other inductees were Neil Budde of the DailyMe, formerly of Yahoo! News and the Wall Street Journal Online; Liz Everman, longtime anchor for WLKY-TV in Louisville; and two posthumous honorees, Fred Paxton of Paducah-based Paxton Media LLC and Lois Ogden Sutherland, founder of the journalism program at Northern Kentucky University.