Scranton reporter wins another Public Notice Journalism Award, for getting news from the 'legal ads'; he offers tips

By the Public Notice Resource Center

It was bound to happen again.

Jim Lockwood (left), a reporter for the Times-Tribune in Scranton, Pa., is the 2023 winner of PNRC’s Michael Kramer Public Notice Journalism Award, given annually to the best reporting that uses public notice as a primary source of information.

The award was announced Monday as part of the National Newspaper Association Foundation’s 2023 Better Newspaper Editorial Contest. Lockwood won the prize in 2015 and came in second or tied for second every year after that except 2022.

Lockwood’s entries in the contest generally distinguish themselves by focusing on a full body of work instead of a single story. His latest entry was 14 articles based in whole or in part on a notice. None were earth-shattering, but eight were important enough to land on the front page, including those that reported on:

• Expansion of a local VFW post
• Economic development plan to improve downtown gateways
• Scranton’s first solar farm
• First Wawa store in Lackawanna County
• Police department seeking outside accreditation
• City hiring lobbyists to lobby for federal funds

His entry also used a notice published in 1911 to explain how the city acquired a park it was planning to lease to a local nonprofit organization. The entry was further distinguished by the importance it assigned to the notices, which were invariably cited as source material early in his stories — more often than not in the second or third paragraph.

How does he do it? “Jim checks the public notices every day without fail and often finds news within them,” Times-Tribune Metro Editor Jessica Matthews said in the cover letter with Lockwood’s entry. “Jim’s longstanding practice is to read public notices, clip and mark them up, save them for future reference or pass relevant ones along to his colleagues for their beats.”

Second place this year went to Elisabeth Waldon of the Daily News in Greenville, Mich., for her reporting on a series of tardy or otherwise insufficient notices published by a local township. Brad Nygaard of The Journal in Crosby, N.D., took third place for his story about how the city inspected homes that were considered a public nuisance without providing proper notice. Nygaard won the PNRC award in 2020 and tied for second last year.

Public notice reporting tips

Lockwood says public-notice journalism is an art, but he promises that with practice, any reporter can become an expert in ferreting out important news from public-notice advertising and keep readers in the know.

Lockwood’s three Rs of public-notice journalism:

• Read them. They are right under your nose, in your own newspaper, and there is really no excuse not to read them.
• Report on them. You will see something in public notices that will spark your curiosity. When that happens, dig a little deeper and report on what you find.
• Reference them. Don’t be afraid to attribute information in your article to the public notice you are reporting on. Just treat it like any other source and write, “according to a public notice published in this newspaper.” This type of attribution adds transparency to your reporting and helps readers understand the importance of publishing notices in newspapers.

Be an early bird: Lockwood advises daily newspaper reporters to read their paper’s public notices first thing in the morning. Sometimes they announce meetings, hearings and other events and initiatives taking place that same day. “Don’t wait until 5 p.m. or you might miss something important,” he said. Weekly newspaper reporters shouldn’t dally either.

Penetrate the legalese: Often lawyers write public notices using legal terms, and they are hard for readers to comprehend. “The more you read them, the better you’ll get at understanding them,” Lockwood says. “You’ll learn the patterns and you will be able to get to the point quicker.” Sometimes the “nut graph” that tells you what the notice is really about will be the third line from the bottom. “They always bury the lede.”

Exercise your curiosity: Sometimes getting good public notice stories comes from old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting. Lockwood recalls seeing a notice advertising a hearing on condemned and abandoned property, which consisted of two boats and a trailer. It listed the date and time for the sale at the county courthouse and nothing else. His curiosity piqued, he dug a little deeper and discovered the notice was a poorly worded announcement that someone had a tax lien and had been required to liquidate their boat and trailer. “This is an example of bare-bones info in some notices, giving no hint of why or who ran this,” he says. While this public notice did not result in a story, Lockwood found it worth digging into.

Where to look for public notices. If your paper is not the newspaper of record in your town, or if other newspapers in your city or county run notices, then turn to them. Often public notices are required to be posted at the courthouse or town hall. Another resource is the statewide public-notice website operated by your state newspaper association, which you can access from this page.

“When you read public notices, ask yourself ‘what is going on here? What is the real story?’” Lockwood says. “Keep pulling away layers, like an onion, and keep those layers stored away for reference.”

Uvalde weekly's editor-publisher wins Texas Press Assn. award for community leadership, the latest in a long line

Craig Garnett (Oklahoma Press Association photo)

Craig Garnett, editor and publisher of the Uvalde Leader-News, received the Texas Press Association's Frank W. Mayborn Award for Community Leadership at the group's recent convention. He was cited for the twice-weekly's coverage of the school shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead, and its aftermath, the Texas Press Messenger reports. Incoming TPA President Ken Esten Cooke writes, "The entire staff . . . showed bravery and tenacity through a horrible community tragedy."

"On May 24, 2022, we got an assignment we never expected and we never wanted," Garnett told his colleagues. He told college students in an Dow Jones News Fund editing program at the University of Texas, "If we hadn't been a family, we wouldn't have survived the past year."

Garnett earned an economics degree from Southern Methodist University in 1975, joined the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1977 and moved to the Kansas City Star in 1978. He became general manager of the Leader-News in 1982 and owner and publisher in 1989.

"Garnett and the newspaper have won countless regional and state press awards," the Messenger reports. "The Leader-News took home sweepstakes honors in the 2022 Texas Better Newspaper Contest." Its latest award was for Best Editorial in the National Newspaper Association contest.

Masthead Maine papers sold to National Trust for Local News, which will own and operate most of the state's papers

Reade Brower

Maine news-media mogul Reade Brower has sold most of his newspapers to the National Trust for Local News, a nonprofit that seeks to "keep local news in local hands" and made a similar purchase of 24 papers along the Front Range in Colorado two years ago. Brower has owned most of the state's newspapers, and now the Trust will. It is looking at other states with an eye to similar purchases.

"The sale price was not disclosed, but it encompasses five of the state's six daily papers and 17 of its weeklies," reports Rachel Ohm of the Portland Press Herald, the state's largest daily and part of the sale. It includes all the assets of Masthead Maine, including the Sun Journal in Lewiston, the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, the Times Record in Brunswick and 17 weekly papers in southern and western Maine, including the Forecaster group."

Elisabeth Hansen Shapiro

The deal is set to close in July. Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of the trust, "said the papers will continue to be managed by Masthead Maine CEO Lisa DeSisto and her staff," Ohn writes. Hansen Shapiro told her, "Our overall framework and set of values is that local news is really critical to communities being able to hang together and function well. . . . We have an overall set of principles and strategies for sustainability and for enhancing the quality of local service, but all the details of what that means for the papers is really something we're going to be working closely with Lisa and working with community members on."

Brower told Ohm: "This is the most independent route I think I could have taken that maintains both the independence of the press and continuity for staff and readers. I believe they want to continue to run this as a sustainable business, which I like, and I don't believe they will try and drain resources, which I like."

Steve Greenlee, executive editor of the Portland Press Herald and its Maine Sunday Telegram, said he viewed the sale as a win for the future of Maine's news industry: "This is the ideal outcome for us, and it's an amazing opportunity. . . . Those of us who devote our lives to journalism do it to serve the public good, and now our business model will support that mission entirely. This may be the most important moment in the history of Maine journalism."

The News Guild of Maine, which represents workers at the papers, said it was thankful that Brower had chosen to “pursue a nonprofit business model rather than sell his companies to the bad actors that have decimated news organizations across the country. We see the nonprofit model as one that can better sustain journalism’s dual nature as both a consumer product and a public good.”

Brower held onto six coastal weeklies, Lori Valigrar of the Bangor Daily News reports: The Ellsworth American, The Mount Desert Islander in Bar Harbor, The Courier-Gazette in Rockland, The Republican Journal in Belfast, The Camden Herald and The Free Press in Camden, where Brower lives. Publisher Chris Crockett "said he was not given an explanation about why his group of papers was not included in the sale." The Associated Press notes, "Brower purchased MaineToday Media, the parent company of the Press Herald, the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, in 2015 and added newspaper groups and newspapers over the next several years."

In a first, rural people in a national survey say mental health and addiction treatment are the top needs in rural health

Researchers asked rural stakeholders to name their most important public-health
priorities through 2030.  (Rural Healthy People 2030 chart; for a larger version click on it)

For the past 20 years, primary-care access was listed by health-care stakeholders as the top concern for rural people, but a recent survey shows that for the first time in two decades, the focus has changed mental health and addiction treatment, reports Liz Carey of The Daily Yonder. "Rural Healthy People 2030, released by the Southwest Rural Health Resource Center, surveyed a national sample of people. . . . Participants included people working in health care, public administration, education, human services, and other fields. . . . While access to health care remained one of the top five issues according to survey respondents, researchers said, the growing impact of mental health and addiction took the number one and two spots on the list regardless of age, race, region or occupation."

Survey researcher Timothy Callaghan told Carey, "For the past two decades, health-care access has been, far and away, the most important topic no matter how we cut the data. The fact that mental health and addiction came out ahead of health-care access this time certainly surprised us, but when you start thinking about the context of the past decade and the context of the pandemic in which you launched the survey, the findings are a bit less surprising."

The pandemic's impact highlighted mental health needs. Carey writes, "A survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and CNN found that 90% of the American public felt the country was facing a mental health crisis. Adults across the country during the pandemic reported increased symptoms of anxiety, depression, hopelessness and sadness and suicidal ideation, as well as increased drug and alcohol use." The crisis hit rural areas more dramatically due to a lack of services before 2020, Carey reports: "Behavioral health providers were scarce in rural areas even before the coronavirus pandemic hit. . . . The need for their services is rising while access to providers is declining . . . . For people with substance-abuse problems in rural areas already under-served by mental health and behavioral health professionals, as clinics close, practitioners move to telehealth, and funding for services runs out, experts say."

Callaghan told Carey that the study shows where rural-health stakeholders want rural health systems to focus their efforts: "We now have a better sense of the areas that are particularly in need of rural health investment. We now know that addressing addiction and addressing mental health issues have become increasingly important to rural experts over the past decade, and while health-care access remains important. . . . We nonetheless have to start prioritizing the issues that are most important, which are addiction and mental health."

Appeals court blocks Mountain Valley Pipeline again, in suit that says Congress overstepped its authority to spur it

UPDATE, July 15: The pipeline company asked Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency appeals from the 4th Circuit, to dissolve the circuit court's order.

"A federal appeals court has again blocked construction on a segment of a contentious natural gas pipeline being built through Virginia and West Virginia, this time doing so even after Congress ordered the project’s approval," Matthew Barakat of The Associated Press reports.

"The stay issued Monday by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond comes after Congress passed legislation last month requiring all necessary permits be issued for construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The law also stripped the 4th Circuit from jurisdiction over the case. Environmentalists, though, argued that Congress overstepped its authority by enacting the law, saying it violates the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution."

The pipeline builder, Equitrans Midstream, "said Tuesday it is evaluating all legal options, including an emergency appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court," Reuters reports. The company said, "Unless this decision is promptly reversed, it would jeopardize Mountain Valley's ability to complete construction by year-end 2023."

A town of 400 in the Southern Cascades buys surrounding forest for wildfire protection, tourism, and to set an example

100-year-old Douglas firs in the Butte Falls Community Forest
(Photo by Amanda Loman via Columbia Insight)

The small town of Butte Falls, Oregon, decided to purchase its surrounding timber -- not to sell it, but to create an older, more wildfire-protected forest that also serves as recreational tourist destination, reports Grant Stringer for Columbia Insight, a Pacific Northwest environmental news source. "With a population of just 400 people, Butte Falls is a speck in an ocean of remote timberland, much of it burned. . . . Conventional wisdom in the region would have Butte Falls try to reclaim its former glory as a logging hub. . . . But community leaders plan to protect their future by looking to the forest itself. . . . Locals want to grow an older and biodiverse forest that they say will better protect the town from wildfires while attracting outdoor tourism."

Butte Falls' town leadership is onto something. "Conservationists and the state's top politicos say the small project playing out in a remote corner of Pacific Northwest forest can teach other communities how to adapt to climate disasters and hard times," Stringer writes. "It's a strategy some environmentalists want to implement across U.S. forests to sequester carbon, promote biodiversity and blunt severe wildfires. . . . In the new Butte Falls Community Forest, local foresters could build a trail network and recreation amenities near a roaring waterfall to bring outdoor tourism to the town, providing incomes without relying on dwindling timber jobs."

Map by Mackenzie Miller, Columbia Insight

The idea for a community forest came to Linda Spencer following the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, Calif., 250 milkes south. The blaze was "a wake-up call for Spencer, who was the mayor of Butte Falls at the time. . . . When the Seattle-based timber giant Weyerhaeuser informed the Butte Falls City Hall of plans to clear-cut and sell the cleared parcels surrounding the town, likely to another timber company, Spencer jumped at the opportunity to create a community-owned forest instead. . . [she saw] the project as a way for the community to assert control of a resource that is critical to the town's future and the quality of its environment." Spencer told Stringer: "We didn't want someone else managing the forest around us. We wanted to manage it ourselves."

Stringer reports, "Climate science is unpopular in Butte Falls, which is staunchly conservative, says Mike Smeltz, a local forester. . . . But when a group of locals visited the new community forest on a recent Saturday, there was broad agreement that the climate is less hospitable for certain conifers than it once was. . . . . If Butte Falls can weather this fire season, Smeltz will lead efforts to thin the forest by cutting down young trees and dead limbs. . . . That will help the largest trees, including mighty ponderosa pines towering above the thicket, to continue flourishing. According to Smeltz, the town already secured $450,000 from the Oregon Department of Forestry and another $450,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for this work."

Apply by Aug. 6 for 4-day statehouse reporting seminar in Madison, with travel and almost all other expenses covered

"The most consequential political issues of our time are being decided in statehouses across the country. For journalists on the front lines, the stakes have never been higher, as partisan positions have only hardened with a new presidential election cycle looming in 2024," says the National Press Foundation, which will hold a four-day training conference in Madison, Wisconsin, Sept. 18-21.

The foundation will cover airfare, ground transportation, hotel costs and most meals. Competitive applications for this free training are due Aug. 6. APPLY HERE.

NPF says it "has assembled a team of expert speakers and instructors to help guide journalists through the thicket that is the legislative process, where hard-ball politics makes the job of accountability and the search for the truth even tougher."

NPF adds, "The training will be held from 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 18 to 2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21. Attendance is mandatory for all sessions, and editors must commit to freeing their reporters from daily news obligations during the conference. . . . We greatly value diversity in all our programs and particularly seek applications from local and nonprofit news organizations, journalists covering communities that have been disproportionately hurt by the pandemic; Black, Indigenous and other journalists of color; and those who do public-interest reporting in and about news deserts."

Taos News, N'West Iowa Review, Antelope County News of Nebraska are top winners in NNA news-editorial contest

Current print edition of the Taos News

The Taos News of New Mexico, the N'West Iowa Review of Sheldon and the Antelope County News of Nebraska were among winners of awards for general editorial excellence in the National Newspaper Association Foundation's annual Better Newspaper Contest, announced Monday.

The Taos News won among weeklies with circulations of 6,000 to 9,999. The Review won the 3,000-5,999 class, and the Antelope County News won among those with circulation under 3,000. The Park Cities People of Dallas won the 10,000-and-up class and the Sioux City Journal won the daily class. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle of Cheyenne won second place among dailies. Other second placers were the Idaho Mountain Express of Ketchum, 10,000 and up; the Jackson Hole News & Guide of Jackson, Wyo., 6,000-9,999; The Highlands Current of Cold Spring, N,Y. (a reader-funded nonprofit), 3,000-5,999; and the News Letter Journal of Newcastle, Wyo., under 3,000.

The Highlands Current won NNA''s Civic-Community Service Award for the second year in a row, for a five-part series on the history of African Americans in the Hudson Highlands; the Taos News was runner-up.

The Tribune Eagle won first place among dailies for best local-government reporting. Weekly winners were Preston Hollow People of Dallas, 15,000 and up; the News & Guide, 6,000-14,999; The Standard Banner of Jefferson City, Tenn., 4,000-5,999; The Ark of Tiburon, Calif., which won first, second and third places in the 2,000-3,999 class; and the Southwest Ledger of Elgin, Okla., under 2,000.

The Uvalde Leader-News of Texas won Best Editorial among 2,000-3,999-circulation weeklies, for "Delay may be darkest hour," about law-enforcement officers' delay in dealing with the shooter who killed 19 children at Robb Elementary School last May. Other weekly editorial first places were The Examiner of Beaumont, Texas, 10,000-14,999; the Taos News, 6,000-9,999; the Review, 4,000-5,999; and the Marietta Monitor of Oklahoma, under 2,000.

The Wyoming Truth of Laramie won among dailies for best investigative or in-depth story or series. Weekly winners were The Maine Monitor, 10,000 circ. and up; The Highlands Current, 3,000-9,999; and the Manchester Cricket of Massachusetts, under 3,000.

The Taos News was judged to have the best website. The News & Guide won first place in social-media journalism, and the Casa Grade Dispatch of Arizona was second. The Antelope County News won first prize for best use of social media for breaking news, and the Cedar County News of Hartington, Neb., was second.

The winners will be recognized at a ceremony Sept. 30 during NNA’s annual convention in Washington, D.C. Registration to to attend the awards is here. NNA said the contest received 1,312 entries.

Church grows as many shrink, maybe because all welcome

Pastor Grant Myerholtz sings with his congregation.
(Photo by Will Crooks, The Washington Post)

T-shirts, tattoos and a universal "Y'All are welcome" message keep pew seats filled at Mt. Hebron Baptist Church in Hartwell, Ga., pop. 4,500, reports Alison Miller of The Washington Post. "At a time when many houses of worship are struggling to sustain themselves — with church membership and attendance both at all-time lows in this country — [Pastor Grant] Myerholtz seems to be pulling off a miracle of sorts: Tiny Mt. Hebron is flourishing. Barely a dozen people showed up for his first sermons in fall 2020; these days, sometimes 100 faces are looking up at him."

Myerholtz, who normally preaches in a T-shirt and jeans, offers an "interpretation of scripture [not] traditionally heard in a conservative community," Miller writes. "For instance, Myerholtz gave the opening prayer at the Hartwell Pride festival — which already had weathered a backlash from area churches over a proposed spring drag show." The organization's president, Collin Graham, who is trans, told Miller: "There's a community of people that guard their religion and say, 'It's not for you. You're a sinner. You can't love God like that.'. . . So I think it was important to have [Grant] out there to show people that you can be a Christian and you can be gay or trans."

Hartwell is in the "heart" of Hart County in
northeastern Georgia. (Wikipedia maps)

"Hartwell is the seat of Hart County, where chicken farming is the major industry, and massive broiler sheds house millions of birds. Downtown businesses include a store for ax throwing as well as an art gallery. American flags abound," Miller reports. "Church is, and has always been, the community's backbeat. . . . Myerholtz is a native son, with a family history several generations deep. He said he became weary of [preaching within] denominational doctrines, which he felt got in the way of Jesus's teachings. He stepped away." Myerholtz told Miller: ""If it were up to me, a representative of every ministry in this town would be there with arms wide open. We have the easiest job on the planet as Christians if we want to accept it. That is simply to love everybody."

Including everyone has not helped Myerholtz "win over other Baptist leaders in the area," Miller reports. "On the day that Myerholtz prayed at the pride festival, the Rev. Andy Buchanan of Liberty Baptist Church opened its doors and invited the community to pray for 'those who are engaged in this evil.'. . . . By contrast, Myerholtz showed a movie clip from Disney's The Lion King and then quoted 1 Peter 5:8. The verse warns that the devil prowls about like a 'roaring lion' looking for someone to devour. The exhortation that follows is to stand firm in faith, knowing that others in the world are dealing with similar suffering." Myerholtz told Miller: "In God's kingdom, it doesn't matter what color we are. It doesn't matter what party we are. What does matter in God's economy is how we treat one another."

Rural Plains publishers seek a path to follow; at least one is bolder, and transparent about costs and raising prices

Joey Young of Kansas Publishing Ventures, left, followed Nick Mathews of the University of Missouri, right, to discuss his weekly rural newspapers' role in the interventional research being done by Mathews and his colleagues. (Photo by Al Cross)

This is the first in a series of articles about the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, held by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog.

Rural newspaper publishers in the Great Plains show "a pronounced lack of urgency as they await a clear, proven path to follow" as their industry undergoes its greatest change, University of Missouri journalism professor Nick Mathews said Friday in what amounted to a keynote address at the third National Summit on Journalism in Rural America in Lexington, Ky., and online.

"Our data reveals a profound grip of fear in rural weekly newsrooms, leaving leaders in a paralyzing state of inaction and risk aversion," Mathews said. "Innovation is undermined as they exhibit a pronounced lack of urgency and passively await the emergence of an industry trailbazer. In other words, some newsroom leaders would rather follow than lead into the future."

Mathews reported on the research he and Teri Finneman of the University of Kansas and Patrick Ferrucci of the University of Coloardo have done with rural publishers and newspaper readers in Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas about the future of the newspapers and alternative sources of revenue for them. He appeared immediately before Joey Young of Kansas Publishing Ventures, which is testing some of those sources in a rare intenventional experiment in rural journalism.

The researchers' surveys found that readers are more willing to support them with non-subscription revenue than publishers think. That has been previously reported, so Mathews' presentation emphasized the focus groups that they held with the publishers, which Mathews said found "an overall hesitancy to embrace contemporary innovations."

That is partly driven by the small size of their staffs, which hinder the capacity to innovate or even contemplate innovation, Mathews said. But in the focus groups, when confronted with the challenges of the future, he said "Newsroom leaders perceive staying the course as the safe and secure decision, instead of exploring potential innovations to bolster their financial futures."

He added, "This inertia persists, despite the unsettling realities within their communities. One publisher acknowledged, 'Our circulation won't hold up with the current population we have over time. They're just aging out. We don't see the young subscribers to replace that. So we're going to have to do something, I would say, in the next decade." Those last words brought chuckles from some in the crowd at the Summit, who clearly believed action will be needed sooner.

Joey Young was already taking action at KPV, which owns three weeklies in south-central Kansas, like throwing concerts and marketing a beer brand. Finneman and Mathews approached him ,about testing alternative revenue sources, and helped him get grants to jump-start more experiments, such as memberships and e-mail newsletters. He said they are seeing growth in circulation primarily through newsletters: "I really think it's an effective way to deliver the news," and it doesn't cannibalize print circulation because it requires a subscription to the newspaper.

Faced with the need for more revenue, Young and his wife Lindsey published a story with graphics called "The cost to print," explaining why they needed to raise their annual subscription price above $50 and the single-copy price above $1.50: "Our costs have gone up largely somewhere between 38 and 42 percent in the last two years."

That cleared the way for a big increase, to $144 a year, and the start of an online paper as an alternative. "Almost all of our readers who contacted me said, 'We want the print product. Just charge us more'," Young said. "We did our first round of renewals this past month, and there was tension in the newsroom. People were worried. Are people going to freak out? Are we going to get a bunch of phone calls? Are people going to be mean to us? We got a ton of really nice notes. We have the exact number of renewals that we normally would. It's a small sample size, but so far everything's been fine."

 

Mathews, noting that he had been regional editor of three daily papers and three weeklies, concluded, "I'm gonna leave you with one last plea. I beg of you. Newsroom leaders must recognize that remaining stagnant, idle and believing, even if not saying that nothing is wrong, is wrong. The choice of inaction is not a viable choice."

For the Zoom recording of these sessions, and others that morning, click here.

Digital rural newsroom helps fill gaps left by shorthanded local papers, allowing them to use its in-depth reporting

The Border Belt Independent covers Bladen, Columbus, Robeson and Scotland 
counties in southern North Carolina. (Illustration by Xandr Brown, The Daily Yonder)

Police took a drunk man to his girlfriend's home, he killed her, and no reporting ensued. Questions?

"Mandy Chardoudi's mother was murdered by her ex-boyfriend on November 17, 2018. Chardoudi was shocked to learn nearly four years later in a Robeson County courtroom that her mother's murderer had not made his own way to her mom's house. He had been delivered to her doorstep by an on-duty Lumberton police officer. . . . Bonnie Wathey had sent the tip to a local paper on behalf of her friend, Mandy Chardoudi, whose first inquiry to the paper had gotten no traction," reports Xandr Brown of The Daily Yonder. "Sometimes news outlets consciously avoid doing stories. But other times, it's a matter of being strapped for reporters and resources. Those gaps in coverage can be harder to fill in rural areas."

Sarah Nagem reported Mandy Chardoudi’s
story. (Courtesy photo via The Daily Yonder)

Wathey did get a response from "an independent newsroom that covers four southeastern counties of North Carolina," Brown reports. "The Border Belt Independent is a nonprofit news organization that publishes a weekly digital paper with in-depth stories. Sarah Nagem, the editor of the publication, reported the story. The article went viral, circulating to news outlets statewide."

The Independent fills gaps that small, rural newspapers often don't have reporters to cover, Brown writes: "Publishing an in-depth story about the performance of local law enforcement shows why newsrooms like the Border Belt Independent are important. Nagem said that lack of local journalism capacity can be a big problem." She told Brown, "I think that, like other rural communities across America, we have elected leaders and county managers and town managers who have gotten away for a really long time with not talking to the media and not being very transparent. . . . That's one of the areas where we can help the most."

Border Belt Independent Publisher Les High

While traditional papers focus on day-to-day events, the Independent's award-winning publisher, Les High, sees it as "a dual service, providing information directly to the community and giving unique local content to the region's newspapers," Brown reports. Its four counties were once centers of the tobacco industry and textile manufacturing. . . . Today, the Border Belt Independent is helping cover the ways residents are redefining the area in positive ways — like reviving the counties' agricultural roots."

The partnership shows a dynamic shift in newspaper management. Penelope Abernathy, visiting jouirnalism professor at Northwestern University, told Brown, "In the old days, journalists on different publications competed with one another. We have lost so many journalists over the last 15 years, almost 60% of journalists. . . . Whether you're working on a digital startup site or on a traditional newspaper, a wise editor understands that the only way you're going to be able to cover what needs to be covered is to collaborate." Brown notes, "The Border Belt Independent allows local papers to republish its stories for free. It can do that because it has found other funding supporting its mission of serving rural communities." That's mainly from foundations.

Rural business expansion tripped up by lack of comparable sales that banks need to justify loans on balance sheets

The proposed Maine Grains expansion would include spaces for
local startups. (Photo of artist's rendering by Ryan David Brown, WSJ)

Rural towns often lack valuable real estate, which has a widespread impact on their ability to grow, reports Ruth Simon of The Wall Street Journal. Simon's prime example is Maine entrepreneur Amber Lambke, who launched Maine Grains in Skowhegan, pop. 8,700. Maine Grains' success helped invigorate Skowhegan's economy, but it has hit a financial and uniquely rural economic block, Simon reports: "Lambke wants to construct a new building on the empty lot next door but has run into a problem impeding economic development in rural communities across the U.S.: The new building would cost $7.4 million to erect. When completed, it would be worth $2.4 million, according to an appraiser brought in from Boston by a local bank."

Skowhegan (Wikipedia map)

Ines Polonius, chief executive of Communities Unlimited, a nonprofit lender and development organization in the rural South, told Simon that real-estate collateral "is the number-one barrier to any rural business," because there are few if any comparable sales to determine value, which a lender would put on its balance sheet as an asset to support the debt.

"One problem with the appraisal gap is that it doesn't account for a project's potential impact, said Rob Riley, president of the nonprofit Northern Forest Center, which recently launched an impact investing fund in part to overcome the appraisal gap hindering rural residential-property redevelopment," Simon reports. "Appraisals don't determine whether a business can repay a loan, but they give banks comfort that they will be protected if things don't work out as planned. In valuing the Maine Grains project, the appraiser cited its location 'in a tertiary market' as a reason not to move forward. Other concerns were economic: rising interest rates, inflation and worries about a slowdown."

To fill the gap of comparable sales and potential customers, "Some developers have used state and federal tax credits to revitalize old mill buildings and create housing for people moving from big cities, creating momentum for other economic development, said Dave Eldridge, regional vice president for Kennebec Savings Bank, which is trying to help Maine Grains secure financing," Simon explains. "But Lambke's project is new construction. It is also smaller than many of these types of developments; Skowhegan is nearly an hour from Bangor and even farther from Portland. Commenting on rural financing, Eldridge told Simon, "It's almost impossible to take the 'build it and they will come' sentiment. It really has to be: Get them to come, and then you can build it."

Anne Ball, program director of the Maine Development Foundation, told Simon that such challenges will grow as inflation widens "the gap between the cost of new projects and the value of existing properties," Simon writes.

Local foes of Army's plan to burn nerve gas persuaded the federal government to change its plans; the job is now done

Craig Williams, local activist, became a national leader.

Headlines around the world Friday announced that the United States had completed destruction of its last chemical weapons, accomplishing a 1997 global treaty's goal of eliminating all declared national stockpiles of such weapons. The final deed was done at the Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond, Ky., ending decades of concern in the town of 36,000 and the surrounding rural area about leaks from the 23-square-mile depot and the incinerator that the Army wanted to build to burn nerve gases and other chemical agents.

Residents of the area mounted a campaign that succeeded in getting the plans changed to a chemical neutralization process, which required more billions and more time but eased fears. In 2019 U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell praised the Kentucky Chemical Demilitarization Citizens’ Advisory Commission and the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board, both co-chaired by local resident and Vietnam veteran Craig Williams. "He said no community has ever had a more effective leader looking out for their interests," the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

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“With singular focus and an unwavering drive, Craig poured over literally every document, every detail, and literally every inch of Blue Grass. He became the leading expert,” McConnell said. “Time and again, Craig showed an uncanny ability to find answers nobody wanted him to see.” The story of the efforts by Williams and others is told in a documentary by Ben Evans and the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, "Nerve," which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Environmental Film Festival at Yale University.

Yale student wins photography competition in rural Kentucky with his essay on the theme 'Picking Up the Pieces'

Tommy Fryman on his scavenging route through Cynthiana, Kentucky (Photos by Lukas Flippo)

From the inside out: Fryman hunts through a trash bin.

Lukas Flippo of Yale University was judged to have the best photo essay in the Dusk to Dusk 24-Hour Student Photojournalism Challenge in Harrison County, Kentucky, this weekend. The event was held by Boyd's Station, a local nonprofit arts-and-journalism residency with a gallery in the county seat of Cynthiana. Ten students pursued the theme "Picking Up the Pieces," assigned shortly before the contest began. The runner-up was Annie Barker of Michigan State University, who also won for best single image, and Abigail Pittman of the University of North Carolina was third.

Here's how Flippo described his subject: "We start with a partial inventory of what's in Tommy Fryman’s shopping cart, drenched in rain on this stormy Saturday in downtown Cynthiana: over a hundred crushed soda cans, a new pack of diapers, a new window blind, a pool noodle, and 4 pizza pans. Oh, and the chief offenders, two metal pipes. Even with the rope tied around them, they are too big for the cart, extending over a foot over the railing of each side of the cart.

Fryman gets paid at the recycling center.

"Fryman’s life is a numbers game. 24 cans a pound, 50 cents for a pound of aluminum at Randy’s Odd Jobs Recycling Center. Seven days a week, Fryman walks around town, averaging 10 miles a day, to pick up cans and other goods to sell at Randy’s Odd Jobs Recycling Center to supplement his disability check, which he receives for epilepsy. Cynthiana has no recycling system, and Randy’s business helps Tommy make the ends meet.

"Fryman is well known in the community. People stop their cars on the road to give him cans and businesses leave them by their dumpsters. No one bats an eye when Fryman bends over a trash can. The task gets harder everyday. Fryman gets short of breath, and legs frequently buckle and give out. But that won’t deter him from his mission: to clean the streets of Cynthiana and make some honest cash."

“Not many people have a heart like I do,” Fryman said. “And I won’t give up, not until God calls me home.”

Flippo's photo essay included five other pictures.

Rural regions will gain influence on Oregon's wildlife panel

These water-panel regions will be the basis for appointments.

In Oregon, a state with a strong rural-urban divide, rural areas will get a larger voice in wildlife policy now that members of the state Fish and Wildlife Commission will be appointed from watershed areas, not one each from congressional districts and the regions east and west of the Cascade Mountains, the state's main politcal divide.

Northwest Oregon, the state's main urbanized area, will still have control of the commission but won't be so dominant, reports Mateusz Perkowski of Capital Press: "Members will be chosen from among five river basins," but two basins "that include the populous Willamette Valley will each get two representatives, while the remaining three basins will each get one representative."

Oregon's six congressional districts

The much-amended bill passed the House unanimously and the Senate 23-2. "Tribes, farmers, ranchers and hunters claimed urban representatives disproportionately steer fish and wildlife policies, which should instead take into account expertise from across the state’s varied geography," Perkowski reports. The river basins will be those defined by the law for the state Water Resources Commission.

Lauren Poor, the Oregon Farm Bureau’s vice president of government and legal affairs, told Perkowski, “Consideration of how wildlife policies affect rural communities is something we feel has been lacking under the current commission structure.” If so, that won't change right away, since current commission members will be allowed to serve out their terms. But "giving southern and eastern Oregon greater influence on decisions, such as the looming update of the state’s wolf management plan . . . is a step in the right direction, she said."

Record heat around the world is scaring scientists

"A remarkable spate of historic heat is hitting the planet, raising alarm over looming extreme weather dangers — and an increasing likelihood this year will be Earth’s warmest on record," reports Scott Dance of The Washington Post. "New precedents have been set in recent weeks and months, surprising some scientists with their swift evolution: Historically warm oceans, with North Atlantic temperatures already nearing their typical annual peak; unparalleled low sea ice levels around Antarctica, where global warming impacts had, until now, been slower to appear; and the planet experiencing its warmest June ever charted, according to new data. And then, on Monday came Earth’s hottest day in at least 125,000 years. Tuesday was hotter."

It's scaring scientists, and it can't be blamed on "the onset of El Niño, the infamous climate pattern that reemerged last month," Dance writes. "the hot conditions are developing too quickly, and across more of the planet, to be explained solely by El Niño. Records are falling around the globe many months ahead of the El Niño’s peak impact, which typically hits in December and sends global temperatures soaring for months to follow."

Here are images from the Climate Reanalyzer at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute:

Without print journalism, communities will be fragmented and uninformed, award-winning Minnesota editor says

Reed Anfinson holds a freshly printed copy of the Swift County Monitor-News. (Associated Press photo by David Goldman)

By Reed Anfinson
Swift County Monitor-News, Benson, Minn.

This column is based on the speech given on acceptance of the Eugene Cervi Award at the annual meeting of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors in Reno, Nevada, June 24.

There is no doubt that if print journalism disappears, so will a citizen’s focus on and knowledge of local civic news. Left to self-motivation to seek out news on the internet, many will put it aside for later, never to return to it.

Their news consumption will become infrequent, scattered to those times when they may be directly affected by the action of a council, county board, zoning committee, or school district. But then putting it aside won’t matter because it won’t exist – no one will be left covering local news.

In America, 76% of the communities are under 5,000 population – more than 14,600. These communities most likely cannot sustain a news operation based on digital revenue alone. We don’t have the views or advertising to generate anywhere near the income needed.

Despite the loss of nearly 2,500 newspapers in America, despite the loss of tens of thousands of reporters, and despite the inability of many quality internet news sites to make a profit leading them to cut staff or close, we still hear and read the overly optimistic promises of a rich journalistic internet world.

The lies are exposed in the reality of steadily declining coverage of public bodies and life in our communities. 

We’ve been told that it can be folly to “romanticize print as somehow superior to digital-only” news. We subscribe more to a famous quote often attributed to Albert Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

For two decades, we’ve been promised a revolution of civic participation built on the broad, deep knowledge citizens will gain from online reporting, that it will be a participatory process where we educate one another. The reality of the past two decades has exposed the faults in this thinking.

What we have experienced is an internet world that has fractured society into warring social and political groups no longer willing agree to disagree, but viciously attacking one another. Death threats, shunning, misinformation, and ridicule are more common than harmony, compromise, and enlightenment.

Lies gain power, and the truth is harder to find. With the coming explosion of artificial intelligence software that allows anyone to craft eye-catching and reasonably sounding internet stories and videos that are entirely false or misleading, our ability to sort truth from lie will become increasingly challenging.

Print’s loss matters; the impact of its absence visible. Rather than a representative democracy strengthened by more knowledge on the internet, we find wherever a newspaper has disappeared the opposite is happening. Where a newspaper closes fewer people vote, fewer people run for office, more incumbents are re-elected, people become more rigid in their voting, sticking to one party or the other, and malfeasance in office increases.

It is visible in the empty reporter desks in newsrooms where the print product has declined as newspapers transition to digital only. What isn’t visible, at first, is the impact of the lost reporting.

Five underlying qualities of journalism give community newspapers equal standing with the government, business, and social powers that make up a community:

• Survey after survey shows that the local community newspaper is the most trusted news source. We are trusted because people know us and feel they can give us direct feedback if they think we are unfair or slanted in the news we write.
• Our financial strength, now significantly weakened, gave us the resources to challenge power when it would frustrate the public’s right to know. Individuals lack the interest and finances to challenge government officials and attorneys.
• We show up – day after day, month after month, year after year. The public officials know that we will write stories about their actions or inaction at every meeting. We will follow up, reminding citizens of past successes and misdeeds.
• Our knowledge of the laws that govern public officials, such as the Minnesota Open Meeting law, ensures transparency and accountability. Citizens lack this knowledge allowing them to be deceived in their efforts to attend meetings or gather public information.
• Perhaps our most powerful attribute today is our physical presence.  Newspapers have a deep reach among citizens in their communities. Elected leaders know that a story printed in the newspaper will circulate throughout the towns and rural areas. It is found on the store counter, around the house, in the library, and in the café every day of the week – its headlines, advertising, and photos catch your eye. Headlines in print reach out to everyone who passes by. People who don’t subscribe still see what is happening in their community at no charge. Without the print newspaper, many would never see those headlines or stories.

Nothing replaces the community newspaper’s ability to hold those in power accountable. But as our financial strength, staff with knowledge of laws protecting citizen rights, persistent coverage, and physical presence erode, American representative democracy is weakened.

As they have lost print subscribers and advertising dollars, some newspapers increasingly focus on their digital products. They put up paywalls and, in the process, exclude most of their local residents from the news of their community.

If the news that binds us together in common purpose is gone, if the stories we share about our fellow citizens disappear, our sense of community weakens. When we don’t feel shared responsibility, the vital work that improves our schools, healthcare, public safety, recreational facilities, and cultural experiences fades. These aren’t exaggerations; they are realities based on what happens in communities that lost their newspaper.

At 95% of the public meetings we cover, we are the only person in the room who isn’t an elected official or staff. Though there is an online link to the meeting, no one tunes in. Without a community journalist in the room, the stories of your local government won’t be told.

A newspaper’s physical presence is a constant reminder that there is news you should be paying attention to in your community.

When you sit down with a print newspaper, you are more focused than you are online, where you suddenly find yourself on social media, shopping, or skimming sites for entertainment.

Print is patient. It is present. It is a physical reminder of community. It is community pride and spirit. Online, it loses those unique qualities that unite us with a common identity. Print is local.

Newspapers are a public good that deserves public support. Urge your members of Congress and the Minnesota Legislature to support legislation that helps finance their future.

Calif. law giving sows more room takes effect; state delays enforcement until Jan. 1; U.S. pork industry must adjust

Piglets and a sow in a farrowing crate on a farm in Walsh, Illinois, that meets
California’s new standards. (Photo by Jeff Roberson, The Associated Press)

"It seemed for a while that California’s controversial pork law would take effect only when pigs fly," but went into effect Saturday, July 1, and will have an impact far beyond the state's borders, reports Noah Goldberg of the Los Angeles Times.

Now, pork sold in California must have come from pigs raised in farrowing crates that have at least 24 square feet of floor space, "allowing them to fully turn around in their living area," Goldberg notes. The law, passed in a 2018 referendum and cleared May 11 by the U.S. Supreme Court, "targeted the practice among some farmers of keeping sows in cramped stalls separate from other pigs. . . . While the law went into effect Saturday, the state allowed for pork killed before that date to be sold in California through the end of the year."

As the court case proceeded, the Biden administration sided with pork producers, who "argued that California, which consumes around 15% of pork nationwide but only produces a marginal amount, should not be allowed to dictate the rules of pig farming to farmers outside of the state. Opponents of the law said it would be a massive burden on producers and that the costs of the changes would be passed on to consumers." They also warned of a slippery slope in regulation of animal agriculture.

Labor Department proposes rule to give miners same protection against silica dust as those in other industries

After decades of delay, federal regualators have proposed to limit the exposure of miners to silica dust to the same limits that apply to workers in other industres. Silica dust, produced from sandstone, has been linked to "the rising death toll from lung disease among mining industry workers," West Virginia's Mountain State Spotlight reports.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration, part of the Labor Department, announced the proposal Friday. Before it can take effect, it must be published in the Federal Register and MSHA must hold public hearings. It says those will be held in Arlington, Va., and Denver, but did not announce dates.

The change would reduce the exposure limit to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air from 100. “This is a good day for miners, although it has been a long time coming,” said United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts. "Just two weeks ago, the UMWA had noted that MSHA under the Biden administration had not yet proposed a new silica dust rule in a statement announcing that the union was not ready to make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential race," Mountain State Spotlight notes.

"In 2018, a landmark investigation by NPR and PBS Frontline focused on the impact of silica dust on a resurgence in deadly lung disease among miners. A 2020 inspector general’s report also criticized MSHA’s inaction on the issue," Mountain State Spotlight notes. The increases were especially large in Central Appalachia, where the depletion of thick coal seams and reliance on thinner ones has led to more generation of silica dust from sandstone that lies next to coal seams.

"The National Mining Association criticized the proposal, because MSHA would allow personal respiratory protection equipment in limited situations, but not as the central compliance tool," Mountain State Spotlight reports.

DEA chief says U.S. needs laws to keep social-media platforms from being used to promote and sell fentanyl

CDC graph shows large increases in deaths from fentanyl; click on it to enlarge.

The U.S. needs laws to force social-media companies to keep their platforms from being used to promote and sell fentanyl, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said on NBC's “Meet The Press” Sunday, in a program that was devoted entirely to the drug and the problems it is causing, such as overdoses.

“The border’s an important part of this conversation because most of the fentanyl that we see coming into the United States is coming in through the southwest border,” Milgram said, but “Social media is also a vital part of the conversation. It is what I call the last mile. Because what the cartels need – they’re selling the deadliest poison we’ve ever seen – they need that to … be able to expand and sell more, they need to be able to reach people at massive rates. And that’s what social media’s doing,” The Daily Wire reports.

Host Chuck Todd asked Milgram asked if social-media companies were cooperating with federal law enforcement in trying to fix the problem. She said, “We have not, until recently, gotten nearly as much cooperation as we need. . . . The deputy attorney general convened all of us in April of this year and made it very clear, number one, that the companies have to comply with their own terms of service, which say, ‘This is illegal. You cannot be selling fake pills. You cannot be selling drugs on social media websites’.”

Milgam also said law enforcement needs to be able to get information from social-media companies. Asked if there was something the DEA does not have that Congress could give them that would help them address the issue, she said, “So we talk a lot with Congress about social media. We talk a lot about the need for these platforms – essentially, one of the main ways we see Americans dying right now is through social media, the purchase of pills, fake pills on social media. So, again, if we’re after, how do we stop 110,000 Americans from dying?” She said Congress was “a place to start.”