Documentary explores why real news is disappearing from local TV newscasts

The current state of local news — both in newspapers and on television — has prompted the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute to form a commission to study whether people are getting enough information about their communities to make informed decisions. According to a new documentary from two Quinnipiac University professors, local television stations are failing to provide much in the way of news, reports Andy Bromage of the New Haven Advocate in Connecticut.

In "Deadlines and Dollars," Karin and Bill Schwanback, in a photo by Kathleen Cei, follow four local news reporters in Connecticut to examine why so little airtime goes to stories beyond the usual "crime and grime" stories. "On WFSB Channel 3, crime and spot news (those on-location reports that jazz up a newcast) typically get 58 percent of total news coverage, the film says, while government stories get just five percent," Bromage writes. "WTNH Channel 8 also does 58 percent crime/spot news, and 10 percent government. Lending credence to the 'if it bleeds, it leads' cliché, crime and grime lead Channel 8's newscasts 70 percent of the time and Channel 3's 80 percent of the time!"

Karin Schwanback explains those stats, which were the result of a six-week survey of the station's 11 p.m. broadcasts, are the a result of the increasingly profit-driven nature of local TV.

Crime and spot news are easy to produce with fewer reporters, which keeps costs down and profit margins up. Unlike the newspaper industry, which sees profits in the 18 percent range, TV networks are posting 40 to 50 percent profits.

Schwanback says she just as easily could have focused the film on photographers, editors or news directors. "They're all facing the same problem: They're working for publicly traded companies in which the mandate is to make a profit," she says, but chose reporters because she's sympathetic to their dilemma. (Read more)

Save money by making the earlybird deadline for weeklies' API news seminar; a good investment

Weekly newspapers are no longer weekly. Changing consumer demand for local news is turning weekly organizations into daily, even hourly, information providers. A few weeks ago, we highlighted how the weekly newspaper The Crittenden Press in Marion, Ky., had started a blog to keep readers informed between issues. Readers are starting to expect such efforts, and editors can learn how to meet readers' demand for 24/7 coverage across multiple platforms with limited budgets at "Leading the Weekly and Community Newsroom," June 18-21 at the American Press Institute in Reston, Va.

These seminars are expensive, but some of the best in the business. The tuition is $1,195, but those registering by April 18 will get a 10 percent discount, to $1,076. Members of the National Newspaper Association and Suburban Newspapers of America get additional discounts by registering and paying through those organizations' Web sites. The hotel and meal package at the Hyatt Regency Reston is an additional $980.

To register through API, click here. For more information contact Mary Peskin at 703-715-3336 or mpeskin@americanpressinstitute.org.

In Farm Bill debate, extra money for rural development vanishes; deadline may be extended

Rural development can work wonders for small communities, but the new Farm Bill won't be putting any more money into the cause. While earlier versions of the bill raised rural development funding by as much as $400 million, the latest have removed any such increase. That's because "Rural development advocates have not been able to speak with a loud and insistent enough voice to become anything more than mice jumping up and down squeaking, 'Me, too, me too,' as the farm bill elephants dance," writes Jason Gray in the Daily Yonder.

Gray explains that those competing interests — such as a crop subsidies or a new disaster aid program — managed to keep the attention of Congress and its funding. "I suspect that the rural development mouse will never become an elephant in its own right until Congress understands that effective rural development programs benefit both rural communities and the nation’s fiscal bottom line," Gray writes. "We’re caught in a cycle: We can’t reduce funding for the programs that treat the symptoms of poverty, such as hunger — which means the country doesn’t have the money to fund development that might alleviate the causes of poverty."

Gray does note some "good news" in the House and Senate versions, such as the $150 million in funding for socially disadvantaged farmers and those just starting out as farmers. Of that $150 million, $100 million is slated for the Pigford settlement, which arose out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's admission that it had discriminated against African-American farmers. Grayt is research and policy director of the Southern Rural Development Initiative. (Read more)

Meanwhile, the House voted today to extend the 2002 Farm Bill another week to give lawmakers more time to finish the next one, but the Bush administration "is threatening to block an extension ... unless lawmakers meet its demands for changes in policy and avoids raising revenue to increase spending," reports Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register. Friday is expiration date for existing programs. "It seems every time Congress advances this Farm Bill, the White House has to throw up another obstacle to the bill's completion," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told Brasher. "It's like we've pulled up in the combine for harvest, only to see a big boulder in the middle of the field setting us back." (Read more)

The Senate is expected to follow the House's lead, reports Peter Shinn of Brownfield Network. House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., told Shinn he expected "to have these things wrapped up by the 25th," and President Bush could have the bill on his desk by May 9. (Read more)

Clinton, Obama on both sides of fence regarding moratorium for coal-fired power plant construction

As coal-producing states such as Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky prepare to hold their presidential primaries, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are treading carefully on coal issues. We reported recently that they equivocated on the issue of mountaintop-removal strip mining, and Scott Finn of West Virginia Public Broadcasting reports that they have been far from clear about a possible moratorium for new coal-fired power plant construction.

At different times, both have suggested they would support such a coal-plant moratorium, and have nevertheless suggested that such a freeze would be impractical in many places. “I am very disappointed and surprised at the comments by both presidential candidates. It leaves you somewhat confused over what kind of energy policy they advocate,” Chris Hamilton, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, told Finn.

Recently, Sally Mauk, news director of Montana Public Radio, talked to Clinton about a moratorium. Since cleaner coal technologies could be years away, Mauk asked Clinton, "“In the meantime, would you support a moratorium on new coal fired power plants?” Clinton replied, “It’s doable. We’re just not doing it. So yes, I would like to see us hold off on new coal power plant construction while we push to do the demonstration projects, push to do the energy efficiency. In some places that’s practical, in other places it isn’t. But the longer we wait, the less likely we are going to be to have the right solutions.”

Finn followed up with Clinton's domestic policy director, Catherine Brown, to clarify Clinton's stance on a moratorium, and reported:

“I don’t think there’s any ambiguity in her position. It’s a very bold and realistic position, given where we are with the technology right now,” Brown said.

Brown hangs onto the last part of Clinton’s statement, that in some places, it’s practical, in other places, it isn’t.

“The ultimate goal is to be able to have that technology operating wherever it is possible, but she recognizes that we are a long way from that, given that we don’t have any commercial coal plants that are capturing and storing their carbon,” Brown said.

Obama addressed a possible coal-plant moratorium in a July 2007 interview with environmental magazine Grist.com, “I believe that relying on the ingenuity of the free market, coupled with a strong carbon cap, is the best way to reduce carbon emissions rather than an arbitrary freeze on development,” he said. (Grist.com interviewed Clinton in August 2007 but did not ask directly about a moratorium.) As with Clinton, Finn went to the Obama campaign to find out more about the candidate's position, and reports:

We tried to get Obama’s campaign on tape. They refused. But they did say that Obama’s proposal to cap and trade greenhouse gases would make it nearly impossible to build traditional coal-fired power plants in the future:

“Obama will use whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low carbon coal technology,” the Obama campaign e-mail says.

Finn also looked at Senate records and found that both co-sponsored the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007, and that both want to cut total greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. To listen to his full report, go here.

The energy and environment issue page of the Clinton campaign Web site declares: "Centered on a cap and trade system for carbon emissions, stronger energy and auto efficiency standards and a significant increase in green research funding, Hillary's plan will reduce America's reliance on foreign oil and address the looming climate crisis. Setting ambitious targets, the plan would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of global warming, and cut foreign oil imports by two-thirds from 2030 projected levels, more than 10 million barrels per day."

The energy and environment issue page of the Obama campaign Web site declares: "Obama will significantly increase the resources devoted to the commercialization and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies. Obama will consider whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low-carbon coal technology."

Obama aides set conference call on rural Pa. plan

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign says it will host a conference call to discuss its rural policy plan for Pennsylvania tonight at 6 p.m. EDT. On the call will be former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and Carlos Monje, Obama's deputy policy director. They will speak about the plan and then answer questions.

Josh Bendor of the campaign writes, "We would be delighted to be joined by readers (and writers) of The Rural Blog, especially those in Pennsylvania, which will be the focus of the call. Those who are interested can sign up at and submit questions at http://pa.barackobama.com/policypa." The plan can be found here.

Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton will meet in debate tonight at 8 p.m. on ABC. He heads to Raleigh and Greenville, N.C., tomorrow; she says she plans to campaign in Pennsylvania through April 22, the date of its primary.

Study to see if shift to Internet for news means citizens know less about their communities

"As people turn increasingly to the Internet for their news, there is concern whether they are learning enough about what goes on in their communities," so the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute "are setting up a commission, funded by the foundation, to analyze whether people are getting the local news they need to make decisions in their communities," reports The Associated Press.

With “the thinning down of newspapers and local television in America, there is measurably less local, civic information available,” Knight CEO Alberto Ibarguen said. "The panel will make recommendations that might include actions by the Federal Communications Commission or tax policies aimed at helping communities better meet their information needs," AP's Jennifer Kerr reports. "The commission, expected to run for about a year, will be funded by $1.7 million in grants from Knight."

The commission chairs will be former solicitor general Ted Olson and Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google. "About a dozen other members, including those with a journalism background, will be chosen," Kerr reports. (Read more)

Obama's remarks are often reported out of context

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Much of the coverage of Sen. Barack Obama's comments about small-town voters continues to report it out of context. He deserves to be questioned and criticized for the remarks, but he also deserves to be treated fairly.

Latest example: Some irresponsible commentator tonight on CNN, who would want us to mention his name, quoted Obama as saying that people retreat to guns in bad economic times. Others have said likewise about religion as a refuge from bad times. That is not what the presidential candidate was saying. He was talking about how those concerns influence voting.

Most of the published transcripts and recordings of Obama's remarks begin with him saying "You go into some of these small towns . . ." But immediately before that line, in response to a question from his California audience about how he can catch up in Pennsylvania, he said “Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives.”

Obama was talking about voting behavior, not general behavior, but there have been repeated references in news reports to “blue-collar workers” who are beaten down economically “clinging to guns or religion,” without any reference to voting. That was the context in which he spoke – what people think about when they decide for whom to vote – and that context should be reflected. At least the people should be referred to as "voters." For more on this, click here.

UPDATE, April 16: Writing on Slate, John Dickerson analyzes the problems Obama has created for himself but agrees with our previous and current observations: "He wasn't expressing a sweeping view of the human behavior of small-town people. He was making a tactical point about how politicians appeal to voters at election time, but that tactical point about electoral behavior still relies on an unflattering view of small-town voters. No matter what helping hand you extend him, Obama still claimed that voters have been hoodwinked on Election Day, and no one wants to be told that in the past they've been duped into voting for the wrong person." (Hat tip to Al Giordano of The Field)

Va. legislator rips power-plant foes, newspaper

A state House member in southwest Virginia charged over the weekend that much of the opposition to a coal-fired power plant in the state's coal region comes from outside the region, and blamed one of the region's newspapers for whipping up opposition.

Delegate Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, told a crowd of 150 at the Virginia Mining Association's annual meeting "that their support for the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center is critical in the face of vocal opposition to the plant," reports Keith Strange of The Coalfield Progress in Norton.

“A lot of you, and me personally, have been attacked (including by) one of our local newspapers,” Kilgore said. The Progress didn't name the paper, but Kilgore was probably referring to the Bristol Herald Courier, which has published editorials opposing the plant proposed by Dominion Power. (Read more, subscription required)

Legislatures in 38 states debating gun bills, the most since the NRA started keeping track in 2001

Is your state debating proposed restrictions on guns, or laws to allow heat to be packed on college campuses? You're not alone. In fact, at least 38 state legislatures are considering gun-related bills, and some have passed, reports Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times.

Much of the legislation "focuses on cutting off gun access to convicted criminals and the mentally ill and on improving methods to trace guns used in crimes," Steinhauer writes. "Underlying many of the proposals is an effort to redefine the gun debate as a law enforcement issue, rather than one that focuses on broad-based gun ownership, to sidestep prickly Second Amendment concerns. . . . Nearly a dozen states are considering forcing gun owners to report their weapons stolen or lost."

The 38-state figure comes from the National Rifle Association, which told the Times it has been tracking 208 gun bills, "the highest number since the gun group began monitoring state laws in 2001," Steinhauer reports. The group's chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, told her, “There has been a brick-by-brick restoration of the Second Amendment” over the past 10 years or so at the state level. “It is one of the most uncovered, fundamental sea changes in American politics.” (Read more)

Rural ambulance services are fading in Oklahoma

Rural areas often have few options when it comes to emergency services, and in Oklahoma, a tough situation is getting worse. Over the past eight years, rural Oklahomans have lost about 50 ambulance services, and 13 communities have no dedicated ambulance service, reports Kim Archer of the Tulsa World.

"Rising gas costs, a higher number of uninsured patients and Medicare reimbursement cuts have fueled the downward spiral for services that play such a critical role for rural Oklahoma," Archer writes. "Many Oklahomans depend on rural ambulance service as their sole health-care provider. Each service has its own way of funding itself, from collecting fees to property taxes. All rely on Medicare reimbursements."

The reduction in ambulance services means those that remain are spread even more thin, leading to longer wait times for people in need of care. Rural ambulance services also face a problem in terms of recruiting paramedics or emergency medic technicians, since the services cannot offer benefits comparable to those given by police or fire departments. Oklahoma lawmakers have proposed legislation to address the ambulance crisis, but none has been enacted. These issues are far from limited to Oklahoma, so probably deserve coverage in other states. (Read more)

Agriculture Committee chairs agree on Farm Bill; now it's up to chairs of the tax-writing committees

The chairmen of the agriculture committees in the House and Senate have agreed "on the major sticking points of the Farm Bill," reports Barbara Leach of My Rural America, channeling Jerry Hagstrom of CongressDaily, a subscription-only news outlet.

"Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus and House Ways & Means Committee Chair Barney Frank still have to agree on the offsets," Leach writes. "House and Senate conferees still need to vote on various other issues." And there's still a question about whether President Bush will sign the bill, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature. (Read more)

UPDATES: While the two committee chairs agree to a "broad outline" for a new Farm Bill that is about $10 billion over the budget baseline for the next 10 years, "neither side agrees on the ways to come up with the extra money," reports Dan Looker of Agriculture Online. He reports that the main sticking points are the disaster aid program (which the Senate version funds with $4 billion) and tax cuts (worth $2.5 billion) for farmers. Committee members discussed those issues during yesterday's conference committee meeting, and they will renew the debate during today's meeting. Still, "House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) said he isn't optimistic that a farm bill will be finished unless the financing issues are resolved," Looker writes. (Read more) With Friday's expiration of an extension that was supposed to be the last one, the impasse "raises the specter of a new farm law that won't spend more money than authorized by last year's Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline for farm programs," notes Peter Shinn of Brownfield Network. (Read more)

Here is a full list of members of the conference committee (thanks to the Iowa Independent):

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.
Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa
Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn.
Rep. Tim Holden, D-Penn.
Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C.
Rep. Bob Etheridge, D-N.C.
Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa
Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif.
Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif.
Rep. David Scott, D-Ga.
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. (Education and Labor)
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. (Education and Labor)
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. (Energy and Commerce)
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J. (Energy and Commerce)
Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Penn. (Financial Services)
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. (Financial Services)
Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif. (Foreign Affairs)
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif. (Foreign Affairs)
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. (Judiciary)
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va. (Judiciary)
Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.V. (Natural Resources)
Delegate Madeline Bordallo, D-Guam (Natural Resources)
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. (Oversight and Government Reform)
Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y. (Oversight and Government Reform)
Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn. (Science and Technology)
Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas (Science and Technology)
Rep. Nydia Velasquez, D-N.Y. (Small Business)
Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C. (Small Business)
Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn. (Transportation and Infrastructure)
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C. (Transportation and Infrastructure)
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.(Ways and Means)
Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. (Ways and Means)
Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte of Virginia
Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla.
Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.
Rep. Robin Hayes, R-N.C.
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo.
Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas
Rep. Todd Platts, R-Penn. (Education and Labor)
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas (Energy and Commerce)
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala. (Financial Services)
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. (Foreign Affairs)
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas (Judiciary)
Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, R-Wash. (Natural Resources)
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio (Oversight and Government Reform)
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas (Science and Technology)
Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio (Small Business)
Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo. (Transportation and Infrastructure)
Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La. (Ways and Means)
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.
Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla.

Smaller media outlets get Sigma Delta Chi Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists

The Society of Professional Journalists announced its annual Sigma Delta Chi Awards for excellence in journalism in 2007, and a few smaller newspapers an broadcast operations claimed wins over big-city news outlets.

The best example was the Kennebec Journal of Augusta, Me., which won for editorial writing, a category that failed to produce a Pulitzer Prize winner this year. Located in one of the nation's smallest state capitals (pop. 18,500), the Journal has a circulation of only 15,000. Its opinion editor, Naomi Schalit, right, earned the award for her week-long, 13-story series "For I was hungry." It was a unique way of exploring a critical issue, hunger in Maine, and also taking a stand about it. John Christie, the newspaper's publisher, described the series this way:

Most series are written by news reporters or a team of reporters. But this series was researched and written solely by the opinion page editor and not only reports the facts of hunger in Maine, but also editorializes about what should be done about this sad and urgent problem.

Opinion page investigative series are rare at newspapers of any size, but nearly unheard of at small daily newspapers like ours. Usually, only metropolitan newspapers with opinion page staffs of half a dozen or more can free up a writer long enough to delve deeply into a single topic. But this newspaper made a commitment to the community three years ago when I published our vision statement. We want, I wrote at the time, to become “distinguished papers of our size; we go beyond standard news coverage with journalism that informs, probes and provokes.”

Mine and Safety Health News, based in Pittsford, N.Y., won for the second straight year for Public Service in Newsletter Journalism. This year's winning entry was on the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster in Utah; last year, it won for coverage of the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia.

In categories for newspapers with circulation of less than 100,000, the Wisconsin State Journal of Madison (circ. 87,547) won for public service with its week-long series "Elder abuse: A silent shame." Included in that series was an article about how the safety net for the elderly is often not as strong in rural areas. The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., (circ. 95,709) won two awards in the small-paper class, for deadline and non-deadline reporting. The Columbian (circ. 46,203) of Vancouver, Wash., next to Portland, Ore., won for investigative reporting.

BusinessWeek won the magazine investigative-reporting award for its "Poverty Series," which chronicled "U.S. companies' audacious drive to extract more profits from the nation's working poor," including those in rural areas. Michigan Radio in Ann Arbor won for public service in radio journalism with "Grading Michigan Schools," a comprehensive look at education in the state. Two small TV stations, KOMU-TV in Columbia, Mo., and WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Miss., won awards for stations outside the top 25 markets. KOMU-TV won for its documentary, "Mercy in Motion: The Culture that Crawls in Vietnam," while WLOX-TV won for public service with its report "Home Sweet Meth Home."

This year’s winners were chosen from more than 1,000 entries in 48 categories including print, radio, television and online. The lesson from the smaller winners, especially the Kennebec Journal, is that smaller news outlets can tackle major projects successfully.

St. Louis paper notes Ky. and Okla. use databases to track purchases of key meth ingredients

Pharmacies have been the first line of defense when it comes to stopping the production of methamphetamine, with many states passing laws regulating the purchase of a key ingredient, the cold medicine pseudoephedrine. In many states, purchases and buyers are logged at pharmacies, but a lack of oversight of such logs has meant they often provide little help to law enforcement.

In Kentucky and Oklahoma, however, pharmacies and police have turned those logs into online databases that have prevented illegal sales as well as led to meth lab busts. Such systems offer a model for Illinois and Missouri, which led the nation in meth busts with 1,189 — twice as many as any other state — last year, reports Christine Byers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

In Laurel County, Kentucky, police have been using MethCheck software for the past two years. (P-D photo by J.B. Forbes shows Detective Brian Lewis talking with pharmacists in the county about possible illegal purchases of pseudoephedrine.) "In the first year of using the program, the number of labs the squad seized more than quadrupled," Byers writes. "Using federal and state money, Kentucky plans to spend about $500,000 to link its 1,290 pharmacies statewide in June." The linking of pharmacies is the key, because it means meth producers can't just go from store to store, buying pseudoephedrine and signing logs that remain isolated. A similar system already is in place in Oklahoma, where officials said the database linking the state's 1,485 pharmacies has helped reduce the number of confirmed meth labs by 92 percent since 2005. "You're basically putting the 'Welcome' mat out for meth cooks to come to your state if you don't have a database," Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesman Mark Woodward told Byers.

In Missouri, lawmakers have passed bills to create a system modeled after Oklahoma's, but the necessary funding won't be available until next year. In the meantime, some counties are pursuing grants to establish their own databases now. Oregon, however, has taken an alternative approach by making pseudoephedrine a prescription drug, a move the state said makes expensive databases unnecessary. (Read more) As we noted last week, meth cooks can find other ways of securing key ingredients, such as stealing from farms.

Got a local controversy over a coal-fired power plant? It's probably part of a national campaign

A quick search through our archives would turn up many posts about contested proposals for new coal-fired power plants, such as one in southwest Virginia, opposed by protesters (in a Bristol Herald Courier photo by David Crigger). Throughout the country, almost every proposal for new construction or even an expansion of an existing plant has stirred strong opposition, often supported with legal help from environmental groups such as the Sierra Club.

While opponents of coal-fired plants seek immediate and local goals, "the plant-by-plant strategy is part of a campaign by environmentalists to force the federal government to deal with climate change," reports Judy Pasternak of the Los Angeles Times. "The fights are scattered from Georgia to Wyoming, from Illinois to Texas, but the ultimate target is Washington, where the Bush administration has resisted placing limits on carbon dioxide and Congress has yet to act on a global warming bill." Those on the other side — utilities and other companies in the energy business — are fighting back with ad campaigns and legal maneuvering of their own, "bringing the clash over coal to a pitch that rivals the environmental and legal fights over nuclear power decades ago."

The environmental coalition, which includes Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund and Environmental Integrity Project, takes credit for derailing 65 coal-related power projects in the last three years, but an industry lobbyist told Pasternak the actual number is far smaller. Still, industry leaders are trying to form a strategy to rebuff the environmentalists' challenges, but because different companies have such different stances on global warming a comprehensive plan has been elusive.

"Since a meeting in Washington last summer, the partners in the anti-coal crusade have been focusing more squarely on carbon dioxide emissions in their local skirmishes, hoping to create precedents for dealing with a pollutant that is not federally regulated," Pasternak writes. She provides nice summary of the national trend, and it's worth a read to learn more about how local disputes fit into the bigger picture. (Read more)

Negotiators deadlocked and 'facing failure in the face' as deadline to pass a Farm Bill looms Friday

David Rogers learned the agriculture beat in Washington as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Now he writes for Politico, the political news outlet, but from time to time offers some of the best reporting on what's going on with the Farm Bill. He writes today that negotiators "are staring failure in the face, with a major deadline Friday, continued Democratic infighting and the commodity lobby’s stubborn resistance to altering an outdated subsidy system." Trade issues are also complicating the talks, made urgent by Friday's expiration of an extension of current farm and nutrition law.

In his new role, Rogers is able to be more analytical and pointed, and he gigs the Bush administration: "Having raised the banner of reform, the White House appears to be playing the role of the spoiler, resisting even modest revenue-raisers accepted by House Republicans while refusing to come off the bench and pressure for some savings from direct payments to producers, now costing $5.2 billion a year even with today’s high crop prices."

The biggest stumbling blocks are the Senate's wish for an extra $4 billion in disaster aid, pushed by the National Farmers Union and other interests from the marginal, drought-sensitive row-crop region of the Dakotas and Montana, and $2.5 billion in tax breaks, including one for the horse industry. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) told Rogers, “The tax package will not be in this farm bill. It ain’t going to happen, and the sooner the Senate realizes that, the better.” Peterson dropped the disaster provision in a compromise offer last week, infuriating Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Rogers reports. But Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has deeper problems with his House counterpart, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel of New York, over Baucus' proposed revenue measures to pay for the disaster aid. (Read more)

Things got no better today. For an afternoon update from Peter Shinn of Brownfield Network, click here.

Obama's remarks raise larger issue of rural needs, obscured by coverage of, and commentary on, flap

The controversy over Sen. Barack Obama's analysis of small-town voters has obscured the more important issue of how to revive rural economies, and some of the coverage and commentary about the flap have failed to make an important distinction. All this highlights the need for another presidential candidate forum on rural issues, which the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and other organizations have proposed.

Dee Davis of the Center for Rural Strategies, right, writes on the center's rural news portal, the Daily Yonder, "As this political tempest runs its course, the challenge is to see if the country can get beyond a debate about whether small town voters are bitter. The real challenge is to follow up on Senator Obama’s earlier candid moment. Rural life is threatened by economic policy that perpetually fails rural communities."

In rural America, Davis writes, "Poverty rates are substantially higher, as are rates of unemployment, substance abuse, diagnosed clinical depression, and deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The way we have come to address these specific issues is that every four years presidential candidates come to Iowa and take a stand on ethanol subsidies. As if it mattered. That so many small-town voters are not embittered by a national political process that ignores them may be a more unflattering testament than the annotated list of Senator Obama’s stereotypes."

As for Obama's characterization, Davis writes, "There may be a measure of truth in all stereotypes. That is why they are so dangerous to use. Who wants to be on the receiving end? Who wants to be labeled? Even in the context of sharing polling data that correlates professed values with recurring disappointments, who wants to be summed up and explained away for the benefit of Marin County donors? My bet is that the voters across the Bay in inner-city Oakland would enjoy the experience no more than those in small-town Pennsylvania."

The Center for Rural Strategies is among the organizations that have joined our call for a rural-issues forum, and Davis suggests that it's become all the more timely. "In a time when the world is struggling to re-imagine how it will feed, fuel, and heal a damaged planet," he writes, "a full-throated oratory on where rural fits in may find surprisingly attentive audiences both back home and in parlors beyond." (Read more)

Another supporter of a rural issues forum is Barbara Leach of My Rural America, who writes on her blog, "Everything isn't coming up roses in rural America and from our view point, it's a good thing when political leaders start recognizing it." (Read more) Other supporters include Farm Foundation, the Indiana Farm Bureau the League of Rural Voters and RuralVotes.com, publisher of The Field, a presidential-election blog.

Rural newspaper commentary on Obama's remarks is starting, and is not all predictable. Dan Jackson, left, is a Paris, Tenn., businessman who writes a weekly column for The Paris Post-Intelligencer, a 7,800-circulation daily northwest of Nashville. Jackson writes in his column to be published Wednesday that he is for John McCain but is now open to supporting Obama, "for at least attempting to understand the situation of the rural U.S." He quotes Obama's remarks and writes:

For the life of me I can't figure out where something in that paragraph is untrue. Over the last 25 years how many manufacturing jobs have we lost in rural Tennessee never to see them return? How many have we lost in the last year? How are the cities of Nashville, Memphis and even Chattanooga doing? Not a lot of job loss there! . . . And what of the Clinton and Bush administrations? Did either of them implement any policy alleviating the burden on rural America? Did either of them structure any type of economic policy that might at least begin to ease the long term job losses in our small towns? I don't think so. So why haven't they? Why is small-town America ignored? Why have we continued to struggle while those in bigger population areas continue to succeed? Why? Because our voices are small and spread too thin. Why? Because Democrats listen to the cities and Republicans listen to corporations. Why? Because it's too complicated to understand and too difficult to fix. So when Obama says it's not surprising we've become bitter and clung to issues we understand how is that demeaning? After all, isn't this exactly what the Republicans and Democrats of our fine land have done as well? . . . For the first time in what seems like the never ending campaign for President 2008, one of the candidates has mentioned small-town America. So when Obama says we are bitter isn't he correct?

Jackson notes manufacturing jobs lost in the Paris area and writes, "Tell me those same workers, displaced and distraught have not turned in time of crisis to issues they understand? For if the candidates, hell if the Presidents of these United States have not been able to understand the issue of job loss in small-town America, how can Uncle Jimmy or Auntie Jo? Can you blame these people for voting for President based on gun control? Can you blame these people for clinging to religion? Can you blame these people for a fear of Muslims? Meanwhile, we've got Hillary doing shots of whiskey in an Indiana bar. It was Crown Royal; that's a Canadian whiskey! So I guess this shows she's in touch with us?"

Rural journalists writing their own commentaries on this should be sure to note the context in which Obama was speaking: how he gets votes in rural areas and small towns. He was talking about voting behavior, not general behavior, but that important distinction has not been made in much of today's commentary. The best coverage gets it right; as Perry Bacon and Shailagh Murray write in The Washington Post, Obama "explained his struggles appealing to working-class voters" and quoted him speaking in Muncie, Ind.:

"So I said, 'Well, you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on,' " he continued. "So people they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country or they get frustrated about, you know, how things are changing. That's a natural response."

The Post reports that aides "described Obama as frustrated with himself for word choices such as 'cling' and references to hot-button issues including religion and guns, but also stunned at the uproar over what to him seemed a fundamental fact of American life." (Read more)

Clinton says Obama demeaned, condescended to small-town America with 'elitist' remarks

The latest focus of the race for president, playing out today in Indiana, is whether Sen. Barack Obama condescended to small-town America in remarks that he made at a private event for maxed-out contributors in San Francisco last Sunday and that were posted in audio form on Huffington Post by Obama contributor and self- described citizen journalist Mayhill Fowler yesterday. Obama said:

"Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Today in Indianapolis, echoing and expanding on remarks she made yesterday in Philadelphia, Clinton said the Democratic front-runner made "demeaning remarks . . . about people in small-town America. Senator Obama's remarks are elitist and they are out of touch." She went after him point by point:

“You know, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a matter of Constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it’s a matter of personal faith. Americans who believe in protecting good American jobs believe it is a matter of the American Dream.
“You know, when my dad grew up it was in a working class family in Scranton. I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't cling to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich. Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe.
“I also disagree with Senator Obama's assertion that people in this country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration. People of all walks of life hunt – and they enjoy doing so because it's an important part of their life, not because they are bitter. And as I’ve traveled across Indiana, and I’ve talked to a lot of people, what I hear are real concerns about unfair trade practices that cost people jobs. [At this point, the crowd applauded.]
“I think hard-working Americans are right to want to see changes in our trade laws. That’s what I have said. That¹s what I have fought for. I would also point out that the vast majority of working Americans reject anti-immigration rhetoric. They want reform so that we remain a nation of immigrants, but also a nation of laws that we enforce and we enforce fairly."

Clinton wrapped up by saying, "People don't need a president who looks down on them; they need a president who stands up for them." That got applause, too, reflecting the storm in the blogosphere and increasingly in mainstream media about Obama's remarks. He countered in Terre Haute yesterday:

And so people end up, they don’t vote on economic issues, because they don’t think anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms; they end up voting on issues like gay marriage, you know, and they take refuge in their faith and their communities and their families and things they can count on; but they don’t believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement; so here’s what’s rich: Senator Clinton says, well, I don’t think people are bitter in Pennsylvania; you know, I think Barack’s being condescending. … Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial-services companies, and she says I’m out of touch? No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana, I know what’s going on in Illinois. [At this point, the crowd began to stand and applaud.] People are fed up. They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter and they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America.

Today in Muncie, Obama acknowledged he was on defense. "When you’re bitter you turn to what you can count on," he said at Ball State University. "That’s a natural response. I didn’t say it as well as I should have, because these traditions that are passed on from generation are important because that’s what sustains us. … What we need is a government that is paying attention." For the Indianapolis Star's speedy coverage of Clinton in Indianapolis, by Bill Ruthhart, click here; for likewise by Mary Beth Schneider in Muncie, click here.

UPDATE: In an interview today with James Romoser of the Winston-Salem Journal, Obama "was asked whether he would apologize to small-town Americans who were offended by his quote in San Francisco," Romoser writes. "Obama said:

"Well look, if there -- obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that. But the underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so. And I hear it all the time when I visit these communities. People say they feel as if nobody is paying attention or listening to them and that is something -- that is one of the reasons I am running for president. I saw this when I first started off as a community organizer and the steel plants had closed, and I was working with churches in communities that had fallen on hard times. And they felt angry and frustrated."

Bill Clinton, campaigning in eastern North Carolina today, didn't refer to Obama's comments, reports Mike Baker of The Associated Press, but the self-described "rural hit man" noted a sign in New Bern that read "Rural Country Clinton Country" and said, "The people in small towns in rural America that do the work for America and represent the backbone and values of this country, they are the people that are carrying her through to this nomination." (Read more) Sue Book of the New Bern Sun Journal reports that Clinton took a dig at Obama for the remark, but doesn't quote him directly: "Clinton reminded the nearly 1,000 attending that most of the land mass of New York, which Sen. Clinton represents, is rural as is Arkansas, where she lived and worked after law school and began their political career."

Photographer from The Concord Monitor, circulation less than 20,000, wins Pulitzer Prize

With a daily circulation of less than 20,000, The Concord (N.H.) Monitor was the smallest papers to win a Pulitzer Prize this year, thanks to Preston Gannaway's win for feature photography. Gannaway, 30, won "for a series of photographs of Carolynne St. Pierre, a nurse who was dying of liver cancer; her husband, Rich; and their three children as they cared for her at home," reports Richard Maschal of The Charlotte Observer. (Gannaway is a Charlotte native.)

One of the photos from the two-year series shows Carolynne St. Pierre surrounded by her family in her final days (above). "It's the only sharp frame of three or four because I was shaking and crying," Gannaway, right, told Maschal. Family members allowed Gannaway to photograph them as long as she made all the photos available to them, so they could remember their loved one. Gannaway said she plans to share the $10,000 award with family as well.

Gannaway now works for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. To see her Pulitzer Prize-winning photos, go to www.prestongannaway.com and click on "Stories & Essays" and then "Remember Me." (Read more)

Flood forces Missouri paper's staff to higher ground; it freeezes bound volumes for preservation

As storms soaked the Midwest this week, floods caused major damage, especially in Missouri, where 47 counties have been declared disaster areas. In southwestern Missouri, the town of Monnett experienced historic flooding, and the staff of its local newspaper, The Monett Times, was caught in some of the worst of it. (Times photo: A firefighter guides production manager Charlotte Brady across a flooded street. Below, another view of the flooding.)

Thursday morning, members of the 4,000-circulation evening paper's staff had to be rescued by firefighters, according to the paper's staff report. The staff had started putting up the floodgates and sandbags by 7 a.m. to stop the rising waters of nearby Kelly Creek, but by 9 a.m., firefighters began preparing for a rescue effort as waters were waist-high in the street outside the newspaper office.

The water started to recede after 11 a.m., and managing editor Murray Bishoff navigated his way into the building. Inside, water had reached a height of five-and-a-half inches, but with with water still on the floor — and near the high-voltage press equipment — The Times could not print for the first time in its history. Instead, The Times published its Thursday edition online by 9:30 p.m. Included in that coverage was Bishoff's report on the flood.

UPDATE, April 15: Bishoff reports to us that 120 bound volumes of his newspaper (30 years' worth) were damaged by the flood, and he is freezing them to prevent development of mold pending restoration. "The Missouri State Historical Society directed us to get them frozen immediately, so yesterday and today we wrapped them in plastic and hauled them off to the local production plant for International Dehydrated Foods, who will deep freeze them for us to stop the mold," he wrote. "The Northeast Document Conservation Center tells me that if you get a filing cabinet soaked, freeze your files in two-inch sections, divided by wax paper so you can pull two inches out at a time and thaw them bit by bit, rather than everything at once. For my bound volumes, a disaster recovery provider should be contacted next. They further advised me that vacuum freeze drying will cause the least amount of distortion. Two firms, Munters Corp., based in Chicago (800-686-8377), and BMS Catastrophe, based in Fort Worth (800-433-2940), specialize in that process."

Law made headlines, but West Virginia schools have had hunter-safety courses for a long time

A few weeks ago, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin signed a law calling for schools to offer hunter-safety courses, an attempt to stem the decline in the number of hunters in the state, part of a national trend that we noted last September. The bill prompted a front-page story in The New York Times, but the law won't really change much because such courses already were being offered in many schools, reports Anna Sale of West Virginia Public Broadcasting. "Last year, more than 1,600 students in 22 counties completed the course during the school day or immediately after," Sale reports. "It’s typically offered in middle schools during the spring."

The state's Department of Natural Resources, which is selling about 40,000 fewer hunting licenses than it did 10 years ago, wants to get more courses in schools. According to Tim Coleman, who runs the DNR hunter safety program, concerns about safety have not kept the courses out of schools. Instead in the past, local superintendents have said demands on instructional time prevent adding such courses, but Coleman said the new law could change that. "A lot of time we have to convince them that it’s worthwhile to get it and that eliminates all that," Coleman said. "Now they have, they will make room for us."

West Virginia is not alone in its effort to attract young hunters. "In the last three years, at least 17 other states have passed laws aimed at increasing the ranks of young hunters, including 15 states that have taken the opposite approach of West Virginia," Sale reports. "They created hunter apprenticeship programs that reduce the safety training and license requirements for youth if they hunt with a licensed adult."(Read more)

Study says biofuels subsidy hurts poultry and pork producers by raising cost of grains

Add another study to the debate over biofuels. According to a new FarmEcon LLC study by Thomas Elam, U.S. biofuels policy is hurting the poultry and livestock industries, as well as ethanol producers to the tune of billions of dollars per year, reports Janie Gabbett of Meatingplace.com, which covers the meatpacking industry. Commissioned by the National Chicken Council, the National Turkey Federation and the American Meat Institute, the study estimates that rising feed costs for 2008-09 will cost the poultry industry about $8 billion and the swine industry about $3.6 billion.

Input costs for ethanol distilleries will climb, too, and the study projects they will rise by more than $8 billion in 2008-09. Ethanol plants need more corn, but there will not be enough to meet that demand. "According to the study, ethanol distilleries already in operation, plus those slated to come on line in the next year, will need up to 5 billion to 5.5 billion bushels of corn per year by 2009, but only about 4 billion bushels will be available, causing them to operate at only 75 percent to 80 percent of capacity," Gabbett writes. (Read more; subscription required)

In a column for The Delta Farm Press, Forrest Laws writes that the "pseudo-debates" about renewable fuels in regard to cost of production or emissions "pale in comparison" to the need to keep American wealth in America and create more jobs. He cites Oklahoma oilman T. Boone Pickens who has said he now supports ethanol production because America spends almost half a trillion dollars purchasing foreign oil each year. Pickens recently said on CNBC, “I’d rather have ethanol and recirculate the money in the country, than to have it go out the back door on us.” (Read more)

With laws limiting access to other ingredients, meth makers again target anhydrous ammonia

Like many states, a couple of years ago Texas enacted legislation to control the sale of key ingredients used in the production of methamphetamine. While that slowed production for a while, meth producers have returned to the old-fashioned source of one of those ingredients, farmers' tanks of anhydrous ammonia, reports Dan Packard of The Amarillo Globe-News. As a result, a meth labs are appearing in rural Texas once again, according to a local sheriff.

"We've found evidence of labs out in the country -- not in a barn, not in a house, just on the side of the road or in the middle of a pasture," Danny Alexander, spokesman for the Randall County Sheriff's Office, told Packard. While Alexander said the number of arrests for possession of meth has not gone up, the number of related crimes, such as burglaries and robberies has. The sheriff's office urged farmers to conceal their anhydrous ammonia tanks and for locals to report signs of meth cooks, such as trash from unwrapped lithium batteries, cold medication packs or a coffee filter container. (Read more)

Journal Register Co., owner of more than 300 newspapers, sees stock and debt ratings slide

The stock of the Journal Register Co., a Yardley, Pa.-based newspaper chain, has been falling for weeks. On Monday, the stock closed at 22 cents per share, slightly up from the day's low of 19 cents, reports The Associated Press.

As of yesterday afternoon, the stock was trading at 28 cents per share, and Moody Investors Service downgraded the company's debt rating "two notches deeper into junk territory late Thursday on concerns the publisher of the New Haven (Conn.) Register is losing too much top-line revenue to cover its repayment obligations," reports Mark Fitzgerald of Editor & Publisher.

Journal Register stock (NYSE: JRC) has been trading below $1 for the past month and is in danger of being de-listed. The company announced earlier this week that it might put itself for sale and that it had hired Lazard Freres & Co. LLC for financial advice. Fitzgerald writes that there are reports the company is considering filing for bankruptcy. (Read more)

Besides its flagship Register, the company owns 21 other daily newspapers and 310 non-daily publications in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Hartford Courant's Capitol Watch sees other signs of trouble. "When New Haven Register's longtime Capitol bureau chief, Gregory Hladky, was abruptly laid off exactly one month ago, some Capitol insiders said the already weak finances of the Journal Register Company must be worse than anyone realized," Christopher Keating writes, adding, "Hladky's position had once been considered safe by many because his articles from the Capitol appeared in a wide variety of the JRC's publications, including the weeklies." (Read more)

UPDATE, April 14: Alan Mutter explains in his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog that the company is "highly profitable" but is suffering from too much debt, largely from buying a chain of papers in the Detroit area.

In California and North Carolina, new projects tap cow and pig manure to generate energy

The annual Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw and Festival in Prairie Du Sac, and many other such events, have fun with dried manure. The wet version is no fun, except perhaps to laugh at someone who steps in it, but it does have potential when it comes to energy.

Riverdale, Calif., dairyman David Albers sees the potential in cow patties, and his Vintage Dairy Biogas Project is turning manure into natural gas for Pacific Gas & Electric "in what the utility hopes will be a new way to power homes with renewable, if not entirely clean, energy," reports Nichola Groom of Reuters.

The project has a goal of delivering enough natural gas to power 1,200 homes a day by harnessing the methane produced by decomposing cow manure. Methane is a greenhouse gas, and scientists have said controlling it — specifically as it created by animal wastes — might help curb global warming. Groom explains the process that transforms the waste into energy:

To tap the renewable gas from cow manure, the Vintage Dairy farm first flushes manure into a large, octagonal pit where it becomes about 99 percent water. It is then pumped into a covered lagoon, first passing through a screen that filters out large solids that eventually become the cows' bedding.

The covered lagoon, or "digester," is the size of nearly five football fields and about 33 feet deep. It is lined with plastic to protect the groundwater, and the cover, made of high density polyethylene, is held down at the edges by concrete. The digester's cover was sunken into the lagoon recently, and officials said it would be taut and raised in a few days as the gas collects underneath it.

Weights on top of the digester channel the gas to the small facility where it is "scrubbed" of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide. The end product is "close to 99 percent pure methane," according to BioEnergy Chief Operating Officer Thomas Hintz.

California has 2 million dairy cows, and there are other similar projects in the works. A key factor is a farm's proximity to gas transmission lines, essential to its participation. (Read more)

In North Carolina, the Swine Farm Methane Capture Pilot Program is seeking 50 farms to sell electricity made from hog wastes, reports Ann Bagel Storck of Meatingplace.com. "Selected farms will capture methane gas generated by their waste systems either by full or partial lagoon covers and use the gas to generate electricity," she writes. "The methane conversion systems must be operational with electricity available for purchase by Sept. 1, 2010." (Read more; subscription required)

Texas Country Reporter travels state's back roads, finding stories wherever he goes; going national

Bob Phillips, 56, has spent more than 35 years traveling Texas' back roads in search of stories, and along the way, he has become the Texas Country Reporter, a "Lone Star Charles Kuralt," reports Ralph Blumenthal of The New York Times. On each weekly broadcast — of which there have been more than 2,000 — Phillips presents stories such as the reopening of The Tee Pee Motel after 23 years. (Above, Phillips, in blue, interviews the new owner in a Times photo Michael Stravato.)

The program airs on 25 Texas stations and are later rebroadcast on cable and satellite channel RFD-TV, which reaches 30 million households, mostly in rural areas. Phillips receives his ideas from viewers — his inbox has at least 100 suggestions a day — and from just driving around.

"The programs, usually composed of three stories each, include seven minutes of commercial time, which the Texas stations and Mr. Phillips split for sale to sponsors — in his case, companies like a farmers' credit cooperative, a metal roofer and a sausage-maker," Blumenthal writes. "The Texas Country Reporter plans to go fully national in January with a second show called 'On the Road with Bob Phillips.' Shooting starts next month. One of his first stories? 'The person whose sole job is to fill the cracks in Mount Rushmore.'" (Read more)

Durham editor, speaking on his own for first time about Duke lacrosse case, offers a mea culpa

The editor of the Durham Herald-Sun, which has been criticized for its coverage of the 2006 rape charges against three lacrosse players at Duke University, said yesterday that the newspaper should have concluded earlier that the charges had no foundation.

"We were, honestly, too slow to recognize that there was no case at all," Bob Ashley told an audience at the University of Kentucky's main library. "Hindsight is a wonderful thing. In hindsight, should we have come to that conclusion sooner? Yes." He said the storm of media coverage of the racially charged case was "a frenzy unequaled by anything I've seen in 37 years of journalism," and his 45,000-circulation Paxton Media Group newspaper lacked the resources to compete with larger media outlets.

Ashley said the Herald-Sun's relations with defense attorneys for the students were not good because the layers thought the paper relied too much on now-ousted District Attorney Michael Nifong. He said the paper was not close to the prosecutor, and he did not know him personally, other than having sat next to him at a banquet. He said other news outlets got exculpatory evidence from the defense attorneys "because of better hustle or better connections."

The editor has appeared on panels in North Carolina, but "Yesterday was Ashley's first time speaking alone in front of a group of people about the lacrosse case," reports Jill Laster of The Kentucky Kernel, the student newspaper. "During his speech, he focused on the factors that 'kindled the fire of the Duke lacrosse case,' including race relations and the dynamic between Duke University and the surrounding community of Durham."

Ashley, a Duke graduate and native of Mount Airy, N.C., became editor in Durham little more than a year before the incident, when Paxton bought the paper, after 11 years at Paxton's 28,000-circulation Messenger-Inquirer in Owensboro. "In an interview after his speech, Ashley said the Duke lacrosse case is not the first time he has had to take heat as an editor for his paper's actions," Laster reports. The Owensboro paper "published a series of columns by a woman who claimed to be a cancer victim. More than a month into the weekly series, the woman said she did not have cancer, but AIDS. The Messenger-Inquirer fired her for not telling the truth; however, a large part of the community saw this as a reaction to the woman having AIDS."

Laster reports, "Ashley said criticism of how his newspapers have handled the Duke case and the incident at the Messenger-Inquirer has changed the way he works." He told her that editors should put themselves in the place of story subjects, "to keep them humble." (Read more)

Report urges more funding to buy private lands within national parks to prevent development

Not all the land within the 391 National Park Service properties is federally owned, and two reports warn that private development projects could start appearing unless these lands are acquired, reports Tami Abdollah of the Los Angeles Times. "Millions of privately owned acres in National Park Service boundaries could be developed into luxury homes or commercial enterprises because the federal government has not allocated funds to buy out these lands, according to two reports issued this week," Abdollah writes.

According to a report from the National Parks Conservation Association, there are about 4.3 million acres of privately-owned land inside NPS properties. The park service identified 1.8 million acres as priorities, and said they could be purchased for $1.9 billion. While there willing sellers, there is little money, because "federal appropriations to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the primary source of the National Park Service's acquisition money, has dropped by more than $100 million in the last nine years, according to the report," Abdollah writes. In 1999, Congress set aside about $148 million for land acquisition, but in 2008, Congress set aside $44 million. (Read more)

Abdollah notes California's Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, where 46 percent of the recreation area's 153,000 acres are privately held, and Utah's Zion National Park, where a "mega-lodging and spiritual center" recently was built, as examples of at-risk properties. In addition to those, here are some other examples from the report, "America's Heritage For Sale":

• Gettysburg (Pa.) National Military Park, where about 20 percent of the land is privately owned.
• Valley Forge (Pa.) National Historic Park, where a hotel-museum complex is planned.
  
• Harpers Ferry (Va. and W.Va.) National Historic Park, where about 70 acres are for sale. The report said this land is where Thomas Jefferson once said, "This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic."
• Congaree (S.C.) National Monument, where 1,840 private acres are now home to the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and could be a habitat for the recovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker.
  

Crofton, Neb., shows how rural towns can look inward for economic development

Rural communities' best resources for economic development are their own citizens. In a column for the Sioux City Journal, Nick Hytrek highlights two local success stories in Crofton, Neb., a town of 754 people.

For 45 years, Loren and Maxine Steffen (at right in a photo by Hytrek) have run a gas station in Crofton. "In many small towns, when people like the Steffens retire, it marks the end of the business," Hytrek writes for the Iowa paper. "Once upon a time, children would take over the family business. Now those children usually have moved away. Unable to find a buyer, the elderly business owner is forced to close his or her life's work, leaving another empty building on Main Street."

In this case, however, the Steffens sold to a young man, Jeff Hoffart, who will keep the business going. At the same time, a young man who grew up in Crofton, Michael Guenther, returned to town to open an auto service. "It's the type of economic development that can serve as a model for all small towns, said John Crabtree, development director at the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Neb.," Hytrek writes. "Rural leaders must realize that growth comes from within, he said. It's highly unlikely to come from Fortune 500 companies relocating to small towns."

These two stories from Crofton, which as Hytrek writes, "is no different than the hundreds of other rural Midwestern towns searching for economic vitality," should encourage other towns to look within for growth. (Read more)

Illinois newspapers prevail over state high school athletic association in deal over photo sales

Finally, the Illinois Press Association and the Illinois High School Association have ended their year-long fight over rights to sell photographs taken at high-school athletic competitions. A court settlement has ended the dispute, which had moved from the sidelines of the state's football title games to the state capitol, reports Doug Finke of the State Journal-Register in Springfield.

"The pact between the IHSA and the Illinois Press Association gives newspaper photographers full access to sporting events and does not restrict what they do with the photos," Finke writes. "As part of the agreement, the IPA agreed to drop a lawsuit against the IHSA and no longer pursue legislation in the General Assembly to bar the IHSA from granting a private company the sole right to sell photos taken at championship high school sporting events. " (Read more)

GAO says mines lack communication gear and air supplies required by 2006 law, blames agency

In June 2006, Congress passed a law to force mines to install more safety equipment. The legislation was prompted by the deaths of 12 miners at West Virginia's Sago Mine, but two years later, a Government Accountability Office report says many mines have failed to add the equipment, reports Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette.

"Mine operators across the country have not all provided sufficient emergency air supplies or fail-safe wireless communications gear, according to the GAO report," Ward writes. "The U.S. Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration has delayed in providing the coal industry with guidance to implement reforms . . . passed in June 2006, the GAO concluded."

As of January, about 75 percent of underground mines had not provided the emergency air supplies required. The report was released by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., two days before a Senate hearing on Utah's 2007 Crandall Canyon mine disaster and other mine-safety issues. MSHA responded by issuing a statement that said it would offer mines help in implementing the demands of the 2006 law and establish a nationwide review for compliance with the act's requirements.

West Virginia Mine Safety Director Ronald Wooten told Ward most of the state's mines should have the required wireless communication devices installed by the end of the year. All 150 underground mines are expected to have installed underground refuge chambers as well. (Read more)

Indiana village's dream of energy self-sufficient BioTown founders on lack of private capital

In 2005, Reynolds, Ind., set out to become BioTown USA, a community powered solely by renewable energy. The big project drew plenty of attention — Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young even came to perform — as well as early support from BP, General Motors, and VeraSun Energy, but a lack of private capital is stalling progress, reports Tom Murphy of The Associated Press. "Money problems, leadership changes and other obstacles have fed skepticism about whether Reynolds will ever succeed at moving the state, much less the nation, toward homegrown energy and away from foreign oil," he writes.

The original plans to transform the town of 550 have been delayed, since the private capital state officials were counting on has failed to materialize. A lack of investors has halted startup firm Rose Energy Discovery's plans for building a facility to convert biomass into energy. At the same time, VeraSun has stopped construction of its ethanol plant as a result of rising corn prices and falling ethanol prices. The AP photo shows a symbol of the stalled plans: some of the 5,000 bales of corn stover which have sat unused for months, since the gasifier they were meant to feed has never been installed.

Despite the setbacks, officials have hope for Reynolds. After all, Juhnde, Germany, the model for BioTown USA, needed eight years to produce its own energy. A new technology developer, Energy Systems Group, has pledged to spend $10 million on a digester, and hopes to be producing power by the end of the year. "What we try to remind folks all the time is that this project, there's no manual that you pull out and say, 'How do you do a BioTown?' " Indiana Agriculture Director Andy Miller told Murphy. "We're kind of inventing it as we go."(Read more)

Big gas play puts money in Appalachian pockets

Landowners in Appalachia are being offered large sums for drilling rights as energy companies "are risking big money on a bet that this area could produce billions of dollars worth of natural gas," Clifford Krauss of The New York Times reports from Hughesville, Pa. "A frenzy unlike any seen in decades is unfolding here in rural Pennsylvania, and it eventually could encompass a huge chunk of the East, stretching from upstate New York to eastern Ohio and as far south as West Virginia." (Times map, from American Association of Petroleum Geologists)

The object of the frenzy is the hydrocarbon-rich but deeply buried Marcellus Shale, which "has been known for more than a century to contain gas, but it was generally not seen as economical to extract," Krauss writes. "Now, improved recovery technology, sharply higher natural gas prices and strong drilling results in a similar shale formation in north Texas are changing the calculus."

Thomas Murphy, a Penn State extension horticulture specialist, has developed a new specialty in educating landowners how to deal with energy companies. He told Krauss that more than 20 will spend $700 million this year developing the deposit, up to half in Pennsylvania. "The cost to companies for leasing mineral rights jumped from $300 an acre in mid-February to $2,100 now," Krauss reports. "Industry experts say in the last three years companies like Anadarko Petroleum, Chesapeake Energy and Cabot Oil and Gas have leased up to two million acres for drilling in the region, half of that in the last nine months."

For a report on Murphy's work, from Deborah Benedetti of Penn State Outreach magazine, click here. For information on the Marcellus Shale, from the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Association, click here.