Three 'Culture of Health' prize winners are rural; in at least one, the local newspaper did its job and helped out

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently awarded five U.S. communities the Culture of Health Prize for making big strides in improving local health; three of them are rural: Gonzales, California; Sitka, Alaska; and Lake County, Colorado. Winning communities get a $25,000 prize.

About 94 percent of Gonzales, a Salinas Valley town of about 8,400, is Latinx (most of them farm workers), and over a third of the residents are under 18. "Young residents are seen as an asset and empowered to act on their ideas. Voters supported this focus on youth when they approved a half-cent sales tax in 2014 to pay for activities like after-school programs and summer camp; improvements in parks and recreational places; and summertime career training," the RWJF website says. "The money also funds mini-grants of up to $5,000 that allow residents to suggest ideas and lead projects that will improve the town’s quality of life—small but important steps, such as upgrading a food pantry or adding new hydration stations for filling water bottles at schools."

Google map, labeled

Sitka, a town of 8,647, is spread among 4,811 square miles on a chain of islands in Alaska's Panhandle. "Isolated and bound together by geography, the community has recognized that the only way to ensure better health for all is to move forward collectively, across cultures and sectors," RWJF says. "To that end, a dozen years ago, partners formed the Sitka Health Summit. They came from local nonprofits and the community’s two health care providers—Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, the region’s tribal health organization, and city-owned Sitka Community Hospital—which merged this year." The Sitka Health Summit has proved effective in addressing the community's health needs and empowering local citizens to be part of the process, RWJF reports.

Lake County, Colorado (Wikipedia map)

Lake County and Leadville, its only incorporated town, make up a former mining community where residents have been working hard to turn the economy around over the past decade. In 2010, the county got a wake-up call when an annual statewide survey noted that children and teens in the county were likely to have poor health outcomes. "For two years, county government, local nonprofits, and youth worked to create a plan of action for improving young people’s well-being and futures," RWJF reports. "Released in 2013, it set goals for boosting academic achievement and post-secondary training, reducing substance abuse and teen pregnancy, improving access to parks and volunteer opportunities, and strengthening economic opportunity. Today, the efforts set in motion by that plan are paying off. Teen birth rates have dropped. The percentage of teens who report being physically active and eating breakfast every day have increased. More high schoolers are taking classes for college credit."

In 2016, the city and county won a grant from Great Outdoors Colorado, a state agency. "We received $3 million, the most awarded to one community," Marcia Martinek, editor of the weekly Leadville Herald Democrat, told The Rural Blog in an email. "Agencies in the community, with the help of kids and parents, started Get Outdoors Leadville!, which focused on getting youngsters out to recreate in Lake County. This was the start of many initiatives focused on health. As a newspaper we cover all the GOL activities to the utmost. Nothing cuter than a three-year-old in itty bitty skis on the ski slope. We aren't the richest community, but people are hard at work breaking down barriers to outdoor recreation. For example, I was just reading about the gear library which started last year and provides items such as skis, ski boots, snowboards, mountain bikes and fat-tire bikes for the use of kids who can't afford this kind of equipment. In the summer, older kids act as counselors for a GOL day camp for younger kids where they climb 14ers [peaks of 14,000 feet or more], fish, build trails -- all the outdoor stuff. And, no cell phones allowed. We will soon be doing a three-year update on Get Outdoors Leadville! So we've really supported these initiatives, but basically that's just doing our job."

Fewer rural students apply to, or get into, medical schools

The number of students from the rural U.S. who enrolled in medical school dropped 28 percent from 2002 to 2017, according to a newly published study in Health Affairs; it's the first study to examine long-term trends in rural student enrollment in medical school.

"The findings, published Tuesday from staff at the Association of American Medical Colleges, come as the nation faces a physician shortage in rural communities," Maria Castellucci reports for Modern Healthcare. A frequently cited 2010 study from the University of Washington School of Medicine found only 11.4% of physicians practice in rural settings although 19.2% of the population lives in those areas."

The study's authors said they were interested in the trend because research shows that doctors who grew up in rural areas are more likely to practice in a rural area after medical school. So, fewer rural med students could be one reason rural areas are seeing a shortage of physicians, Castellucci reports.

"In addition to finding that the number of students from rural areas enrolled in medical school has declined, the study also found the number of applicants from a rural background dropped during the same period," Castellucci reports. "Just 2,032 people from rural areas applied to medical school in 2017, down by 18% from 2002, when 2,479 applied."

The study didn't explore the reason for the drop in applications and attendance, but co-author Scott Shipman speculated on several reasons. Fewer rural students may apply for med school because they haven't seen the diversity of medical careers that are available, they don't feel high school prepared them academically, they don't want to take on so much debt, and/or may not want to travel far from home, he told Castellucci.

Shipman said enrollment might have declined because rural students aren't as competitive as urban candidates. Though rural students applying to med schools had higher grade-point averages than urban students, they had lower average scores on the MCAT, the exam required for medical-school entry, Castellucci reports. Rural students also tended to have fewer extracurricular activities on their transcript to improve their competitiveness.

When isolated from other factors, rural residents were more likely to be accepted to medical school than urban residents. Shipman said that shows that rurality, by itself, can work in an applicant's favor, but other factors are weighing more heavily. "Shipman and his co-authors recommend several changes to increase the number of rural applicants and enrollees to medical school such as pipeline programs for high school students in rural areas to expose them to medicine as a profession early," Castellucci reports.

Small-town editor urges students: consider rural journalism

Sara Baranowski

When Sara Baranowski was a graduate student at the University of Iowa, she had a specific career in mind: she wanted to be a political reporter at a large daily newspaper. So how did she end up as the award-winning editor of a twice-weekly paper in a town of 5,000, and why is she happy with that?

"I was hired by a small daily newspaper, and learned fairly quickly that corporate ownership wasn’t for me. I was a cog in a big machine whose values didn’t align with my own. What was important to the organization seemed trivial to me," Baranowski writes for the Poynter Institute. "When a job opened at the twice-weekly Iowa Falls Times Citizen in a small town down the highway, I was intrigued. The company was family-owned and, in addition to owning two local newspapers, it also operated a small radio station. In my new role I’d have two jobs: radio news director and newspaper reporter. It was on-the-job training in a skill that interested me. And I’d have a back-up plan. If The New York Times thing didn’t pan out, I’d have NPR to fall back on."

Baranowski planned to work for the Times Citizen for only a year or two, but 13 years later, she's still there and loves her job. She realized that the goals she set for herself in college had been influenced by professors who never encouraged students to pursue rural journalism, and she had never been exposed to the high-quality work being done by many rural journalists, she writes.

Her work at the Times Citizen prompted her to redefine what success meant. "Whereas before I thought of success as a big job at a big newspaper in a big city, now it’s something different: an important job at a small town’s only newspaper in a community that’s come to mean a lot to me," Baranowski writes.

She encourages journalism students not to let others define success for them, and to consider what would make them feel fulfilled. For Baranowski, it's "making a difference in a community through my work . . . by providing information and telling people’s stories, ultimately making it a better place for everyone — and having control over what I do and how I do it."

Water scarcity increasing in the Eastern United States

Wall Street Journal map and charts based on U.S. Geological Survey data. Click on the map to enlarge it.

"Increasing competition for water is playing out across the Eastern U.S., a region more commonly associated with floods and hurricanes and one that was mostly a stranger, until recently, to the type of bitter interstate water dispute long seen in the West," Jesse Newman reports for The Wall Street Journal. "Eastern farmers’ rising thirst for water, together with urban growth and climate change, now is taxing water supplies and fueling legal fights that pit states against each other. The shift has exposed the region to changes in water supply occurring globally as swelling populations, surging industrial demand and warmer temperatures turn a resource seen as a natural right into a contested one."

"One striking marker of expanding stress," Newman wrotes, is the boundary between water-rich and water-poor areas. Geologist John Wesley Powell set it more than a century ago on the 100th meridian, which is the north-south border of Texas and Oklahoma. "According to a team of scientists, including those at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the boundary has shifted about 140 miles eastward since 1979 because of warmer temperatures or reduced rainfall. The scientists predict the West’s drier climate will continue to push eastward and pressure water supplies for farms and cities alike."

The effects can be seen all over the East: "Burgeoning coastal populations have lowered water tables and dried up streams in Long Island," Newman reports. "Near Tampa, Fla., groundwater pumping has drawn saltwater into aquifers, drained lakes and triggered sinkholes. Decades of pumping by farmers and others have led to sharp declines in critical aquifers that flank the lower Mississippi River."

Meanwhile, Florida and Georgia are fighting in court over farms' and fisheries' use of water from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin. The case landed before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 but has not been heard. In early November the court appointed a special master (the second one for the case) to hear arguments, Newman reports. Georgia has talked about getting its slightly irregular border with Tennessee regularized so it can draw water from the Tennessee River, but the Volunteer state isn't volunteering.

Study: political beliefs may influence where people move, help deepen rural-urban political divide

Republican vote in counties of 20,000 or more from 2004
 to 2016; click on the image to enlarge it. (Penn State maps)

When people living in an extremely partisan county move to a new county, they tend to pick one with the same political atmosphere, according to a newly published study by Pennsylvania State University researchers. The study did not include counties with fewer than 20,000 residents.

"People moving from moderate partisan counties are just as likely to move to extreme partisan counties as they are to move to other moderate counties. However, people who live in a politically extreme county are significantly likely to move to a similarly extreme county," according to a Penn State press release. "This type of political sorting might turn extreme counties into 'magnets' that pull people from moderate counties and exchange them with other extreme counties."

The migration patterns shown in the study could contribute to the growing political divide in the U.S., according to study co-author Bruce Desmarais, a political science professor. When people self-sort politically, they're less likely to encounter differing points of view. He notes that other factors such as jobs still play a larger role in decisions about where to move.

Rural places keep building jails as moneymakers, but report from advocate of bail reform says they may not pay off

The Grayson County Detention Center in Leitchfield, Ky., houses many federal prisoners and is expanding.

While the overall incarcerated population in the U.S. has fallen over the past decade, jail and prison capacity has increased, especially in rural areas that increasingly rely on jails for revenue, according to a new report from the Vera Institute for Justice, "Broken Ground: Why America Keeps Building More Jails and What It Can Do Instead." (For simplicity's sake, it refers to prisons as "jails.")

Nationwide, jail capacity grew by 86,400 beds—over 11 percent—between 2005 and 2013, mostly in smaller cities and rural areas. "To justify this growth, incarceration is still often framed as a solution, rather than a problem, positioning jail expansion as a pragmatic answer to growing jail populations," the report says, but it says more jail and prison capacity almost ensures increased incarceration rates.

"There are several reasons why rural counties have steadily built out their jails over the past decade, but one of the biggest ones is the potential to turn the facility into a money generator," Emma Coleman reports for Route Fifty. "By building a new jail, or adding an expansion on to an existing one, counties are able to rent the extra space out to other counties, or to the state and federal government, when their facilities experience overcrowding." In recent years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become a big customer, the report says.

"Usually a county could get paid $50 to $100 per day for housing people from outside their jurisdiction," report co-author Chris Mai told Coleman. "It makes people think a larger jail is a sound financial decision."

However, the report shows that pursuing jail expansion could be a long-term risk. Though jail populations have always increased eventually, "growing bipartisan support for policies like the elimination of cash bail, the decriminalization of marijuana, and diversion programs, coupled with falling crime rates, could change that calculus," Coleman reports. "Instead, new jails right now are being built for a shrinking market—and county taxpayers are on the hook for larger, more expensive facilities that may very well sit empty." The Vera Institute favors bail reform.

Southern states differ in response to coal-ash rule rollbacks

"As the Trump administration scales back federal regulation of the waste from coal-fired power plants known as coal ash, a handful of Southern states have passed laws forcing utilities to clean up or contain the toxic mess," Max Blau reports for Stateline. "Other states, though, have done little or nothing."

Coal-fired plants produce 130 million tons of toxic coal ash, one of the largest sources of industrial waste in the nation, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The ash is commonly put in nearby ponds or pits that frequently leach toxic chemicals into drinking water and/or bodies of water. The South is home to nearly half of America's largest coal ash disposal sites, Blau reports.

The Obama administration created the nation's first comprehensive regulations for disposing of coal ash, but the Trump administration delayed the new rules from fully going into effect. Now, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, has proposed weakening rules on coal ash disposal and monitoring, Blau reports.

That means states will probably be largely responsible for coal-ash regulations, which the Trump administration has encouraged. "Lawmakers in Virginia and North Carolina have taken steps to require utilities to excavate coal ash from unlined ponds to prevent the heavy metals from seeping into groundwater," Blue reports. Also, "This past June, Tennessee officials settled with the Tennessee Valley Authority to excavate millions of tons of coal ash from ponds that the state said polluted the Cumberland River."

Some states, like Georgia and Alabama, have taken steps to adopt their own rules, but environmental advocates say the proposed rules won't do much to help. And some states, like Kentucky, are limited in their ability to regulate the industry because coal companies have persuaded legislators to pass laws restricting states from creating tougher regulations than the federal government. 

State officials in Georgia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky—as well as coal-industry groups—have praised the rollbacks, saying they felt the Obama-era laws were an overreach, and that it's wrong to impose a law on all states when some may have different needs, Blau reports.

Report for America touts 'the single biggest hiring announcement of journalists in recent memory,' many rural

Report for America will place a record 250 emerging journalists in 164 local newsrooms in 46 states and Puerto Rico in 2020; that's more than four times larger than the 2019 class and marks the single largest hiring announcement of journalists in recent memory, its website says. A considerable number of the winning newsrooms pitched projects with a rural angle (list below).

Though the newsrooms have been chosen, the journalists who will fill those slots have not. Applications for reporting slots are being accepted until Jan. 31, and will be chosen through a national competition. Click here to apply. The selected journalists and their newsroom pairings will be announced in April, and the journalists will begin work in June. About 50 RFA reporters will continue their work from last year.

Report for America is a national service program that places emerging journalists into local newsrooms for one to two years. An initiative of The GroundTruth Project, RFA was created as a direct response to the expansion of news deserts that leave communities uninformed on local issues.

Here are some RFA winners that pitched projects with a rural angle:

• The Associated Press in Frankfort, Ky,: State legislature, especially issues affecting Appalachia (54 of the state's 120 counties).
• Lexington Herald-Leader: 1) Health care in Appalachian Kentucky and watchdog reporting in Eastern Kentucky (filled by a current corps member); 2) a photojournalist for rural communities.
• WFAE 90.7 FM, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, and the Digital Public Library of America, all in Charlotte, N.C.: a partnership using radio and Wikipedia to fill news deserts.
• KOSU 91.7 FM in Oklahoma City: Agriculture and rural issues in Oklahoma.
• Rappahannock News & Foothills Forum in Washington, Va.: The changing nature of public services.
• 100 Days in Appalachia in Morgantown, W.Va.: White supremacy groups in Appalachia.
• Charleston Gazette-Mail: In addition to four other beats, coverage of poverty in southern West Virginia (filled by current corps member).
• West Virginia Public Broadcasting: State government and southern West Virginia (filled by a current corps member).
• The Victoria Advocate in Victoria, Texas: 1) rural counties surrounding Victoria; 2) rural health care (filled by current corps member).
• KUER 90.1 FM in Salt Lake City: Indigenous issues in southern Utah (filled by current corps member).
• The Spectrum in St. George, Utah: National parks.
• Southern Illinois Local Media Group (Randolph County Herald Tribune): Town of Chester.
• Kansas City PBS: Rural issues in Missouri.
• The Columbus Dispatch: Rural issues in central Ohio.
• WKSU 89.7 FM in Kent, Ohio: Rural health care.
• The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass.: Legislative coverage affecting rural western Massachusetts.
• New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News in Manchester: Northern New Hampshire.
• Valley News in West Lebanon, N.H., and White River Junction, Vt.: 1) Environment and climate in the Upper Connecticut Valley; 2) photojournalism in northern New Hampshire.
• Vermont Public Radio in Colchester: The Northeast Kingdom.
• VTDigger.org in Montpelier: Southern Vermont.
• The Cordova Times on the southern Alaska coast: Native communities.
• The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif.: Native American issues in the Coachella Valley.
• The Mendocino Voice in Booneville, Calif.: The effect of environmental regulation on salmon runs, wildfires, the economy and other issues.
• Ouray County Plaindealer, a weekly in Ridgway, Colo.: North-central Ouray County.
• KIVI-TV, Nampa, Idaho: Agriculture and rural issues, including immigration and effects of climate change.
• Post Register in Idaho Falls, Idaho: Rural health care.
• Herald and News in Klamath Falls, Oregon: Endangered species, water rights and issues associated with a dam removal.
• Malheur Enterprise, a weekly in Vale, Oregon: Latino communities in eastern Oregon (filled by current corps member).
• South Dakota Public Broadcasting in Vermillion, S.D.: Ethnic communities, including Native Americans.
• Casper Star-Tribune in Wyoming: Native American Issues on the Wind River Reservation (filled by current corps member).

Webinars next week on rural suicide prevention, increasing rural household access to community solar power programs

At 2 p.m. ET Tuesday, Dec. 10, the American Public Power Association will host a free one-hour webinar about cost-effective ways to increase rural households' access to public utilties' community solar programs. Such programs are helpful to rural residents where there are logistical, legal or financial barriers to individually ownership of solar panels. Find more information or register here.

On Dec. 11 at 1 p.m. ET, the Rural Health Information Hub and the University of Minnesota's Rural Health Research Center will hold a free one-hour webinar about their new Rural Suicide Prevention Toolkit, which supports organizations implementing suicide-prevention programs in rural communities. The webinar will offer an overview of rural suicide and effective strategies to overcome challenges specific to rural communities. Find more information about the webinar or register here.

You can find the Rural Suicide Prevention Toolkit here. It includes:

• An overview of suicide in the U.S. and the unique challenges rural communities face
• Models for suicide prevention programs
• Examples of promising rural suicide prevention programs
• Important issues to consider when implementing a rural suicide prevention program
• Tools that can help with evaluating a suicide prevention program
• Resources to help plan a sustainable suicide prevention program
• Ideas and resources for disseminating findings from a suicide prevention program

It's Giving Tuesday, and helping rural journalism helps democracy. Please give to the Institute for Rural Journalism!

When a rural newspaper publishes its last edition, a part of democracy dies with it. Local officials aren't held accountable, and that's just the beginning. Studies show that when a paper dies, fewer people run for office, fewer people vote, and more people vote along party lines because most news they see is on cable TV. That deepens the rural-urban political divide—a gap that grows as rural coverage shrivels. More than 500 rural weeklies have closed in the last 15 years, and metro papers do much less rural coverage.

But you can help bridge the gap by donating to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog. We work hard all year to help rural journalists all over the U.S. with training sessions, news aggregation, resources and recognition.

Laurie Ezzell Brown

Laurie Ezzell Brown, editor of Texas weekly The Canadian Record, writes: "The Rural Blog is that thing that I look for first each day, sifting through the mountain of too often meaningless mail that populates my inbox, knowing there is a treasure there waiting. It is my clipping service, my fire-starter, my kick in the butt reminder to pay attention to the real stories that affect rural communities like mine. Dig deeper, it always tells me, and so I try."

Please support the Institute for Rural Journalism today. Your tax-deductible gift helps us continue creating a community of rural journalists nationwide.

Community pharmacies could be a key to getting more rural teens vaccinated for virus that causes sex-related cancers

Alabama Department of Public Health

There's a vaccine for a virus that causes sex-related cancer, but rural teens are less likely to get it or know about it. Rural pharmacies could help improve vaccination rates, writes Casey Daniel, a Ph.D. pharmacist who teaches in the family medicine department at the University of South Alabama.

"Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection, with 80 million Americans currently infected and 14 million new cases of infection each year," Daniel notes, but only about two-thirds of 13-to-17-year-olds start the HPV vaccine series, and fewer than half have up-to-date vaccinations. Rural HPV vaccination rates are 11 percent lower than urban rates, partly because rural areas have fewer health-care providers, Daniel writes in the Journal of Rural Health.

He says that gap could be filled by pharmacies, which are more widespread than doctors' offices and open longer hours. "In the 2018 President's Cancer Panel report on HPV vaccination for cancer prevention, pharmacies were specifically recommended as a way to increase vaccine accessibility," he writes. "Most pharmacies are also ideally suited for immunizations because of their inherent infrastructure and storage capacity for various medications. Many pharmacies offer vaccines such as flu, pneumonia, and shingles, and therefore, they have established immunization protocols that can be easily adapted to HPV."

Convenience is important for HPV immunization "because this vaccination is a multi-dose series requiring subsequent visits," Daniel writes. "While large chain pharmacies have a broad, mass market appeal, there is a considerable case to be made for collaborating with 'community pharmacies' as alternative settings for HPV vaccination, particularly in rural and small-town settings. In these areas, independent community pharmacies are often an established part of the community. Community pharmacists frequently have personal relationships with their patients, knowing them both within and outside the bounds of the pharmacy, and have a unique, established trust. They are trusted providers within the community, acting as the first line of health care and consultation for many patients."

That's also important for HPV immunization because research has shown that rural parents are less likely to be aware of HPV and the vaccine. Community pharmacists "frequently have personal relationships with many local individuals," Daniel writes. "Therefore, they can function in both education and reinforcement regarding the importance of HPV vaccination. . . . In the exploration of alternative settings to increase HPV vaccination, community pharmacies have been significantly overlooked. Particularly in rural settings, these pharmacies have vast potential to reach under-served, disparate populations and serve crucial roles in addressing community health care needs and filling resource gaps."

Rural HIV infection rates rise as urban rates fall; crisis 'can't be ignored any longer,' journalism professor writes

HIV infection rates are falling in many large U.S. cities, but rates are rising in much of rural America.

"There have of course always been cases of HIV in sparsely populated parts of the country, but in these places far from cities, the conditions that lead to HIV transmission are now intensifying — and rural America is not ready for the coming crisis," Northwestern University journalism professor Steven Thrasher writes for The New York Times. "Unlike large urban areas that have dealt with similar health and substance crises in the past, and that have networks of service providers and consumers in place, small rural health jurisdictions often lack the infrastructure to confront the crisis and have little history of dealing with comparable health issues."

The opioid epidemic is a major factor in the explosion of rural HIV infections, since opioid users are more likely to engage in risky behavior such as having unprotected sex while high or sharing needles. (Prescription opioid abusers often turn to higher-octane intravenous opioids like heroin.) In West Virginia's Cabell County and Huntington, for example, where there is a massive prescription opioid addiction problem, 80 new HIV infections have been diagnosed over the past year. "This avoidable crisis has been exacerbated by unemployment, declining coal mining production and economic pressures on regional press to act as effectively as a watchdog," Thrasher writes.

Most frustratingly, the rise in rural HIV infection rates was predictable, Thrasher writes: "After a hepatitis C and HIV outbreak in Scott County, Ind., in 2014 and 2015 that was fueled by deindustrialization and opioids, the CDC released a list of 220 counties similarly vulnerable to such outbreaks among people who use intravenous drugs. The densest concentration of those counties is along the Appalachian Trail, with 28 of them in West Virginia — more than half of the state’s 55 counties."

However, many rural areas are ill-equipped to prevent or deal with an HIV outbreak because they frequently refuse to effective policies such as needle-exchange programs, more comprehensive sex education, and LGBTQ+ public health efforts, Thrasher writes. Rural HIV patients also may be reluctant to admit they're infected or seek treatment because of the stigma associated with it. That leads to worse health outcomes and more infections. Thrasher says the problem "can't be ignored any longer."

Farm income predicted to be up, mainly due to trade-war bailout, estimated at 24% of total income, USDA says

Net farm income in 2019 is expected to be 10.2 percent higher than in 2018, mostly because of government payments to compensate farmers for the trade war with China, according to the latest Farm Income Forecast report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In inflation-adjusted dollars, it's a $7 billion increase, or 8.2%, from last year. Here are some highlights from the report by the USDA's Economic Research Service:

• In inflation-adjusted 2019 dollars, net farm income (a broad measure of profits) is forecast to hit $92.5 billion this year.
• If the forecast is correct, 2019 net farm income would be 2.8% above the 2000-2018 average of $90.1 billion, but 32.3% below its $136.6 billion peak in 2013.
• Net cash farm income (a more precise measurement of profits) is predicted to increase 15% from last year ($15.5 billion), to a total of $119 billion.
• Inflation-adjusted net cash farm income is predicted to increase 12.9%, or $13.6 billion, from 2018. That would put 2019 farm income 10% higher than the 2000-18 average, $108.2 billion.
• Direct payments to farms from the government are expected to total $22.4 billion, which is $8.8 billion higher than in 2018—a 64% increase. If correct, government payments would account for about 24% of all farm income, the largest share in more than a decade.
• Farm debt is predicted to grow by $13.5 billion in 2019, or 3.4%.
• Farmers' financial stability is predicted to decrease slightly in the past year as the debt-to-asset ratio, a key measure of financial stability, is expected to increase slightly from 13.28% in 2018 to 13.42%.
• Total receipts for animals and animal products are expected to be largely unchanged as increases in milk and hog sales are almost offset by poultry and egg sale declines.
• Adjusted for inflation, total cash receipts are expected to decline $4.6 billion, or 1.2%, because of a $3 billion drop in animal/animal product receipts and a $1.7 billion decline in crop receipts.

Helping rural journalism helps democracy

When a rural newspaper publishes its last edition, a part of democracy dies with it. Local officials aren't held accountable, and that's just the beginning. Studies show that when a paper dies, fewer people run for office, fewer people vote, and more people vote along party lines because most news they see is on cable TV. That deepens the rural-urban political divide—a gap that grows as rural coverage shrivels. More than 500 rural weeklies have closed in the last 15 years, and metro papers do much less rural coverage.

But you can help bridge the gap by donating to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog. We work hard all year to help rural journalists all over the U.S. with training sessions, news aggregation, resources and recognition.

Sharon Burton

Sharon Burton, editor and publisher of the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky., is a longtime ally of the Institute. She writes: "While listening to speakers during a recent workshop co-hosted by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, I thought about how much we rural journalists need each other. We learn from one another; we realize we are not alone when we share with one another. The Institute does many things for rural journalists, but perhaps its most important role is helping us help one another."

Please support the Institute for Rural Journalism today. Your tax-deductible gift helps us continue creating a community of rural journalists nationwide.

Bank branches are getting scarcer, especially in rural counties that are poor or have high minority populations

Branch banks are getting scarcer, especially in poor, rural places. According to new Federal Reserve research, 51 percent of the nation’s 3,114 counties had fewer bank branches in 2017 than in 2012, and rural counties with higher poverty rates or higher minority populations were disproportionately affected. The report attributed the reductions to banks consolidating after the Great Recession.

“The closing of local banks could mean for some communities the loss of a source of financial advice and civic leadership, the authors said,” Yuka Hayashi writes for The Wall Street Journal. “The drop was much greater than the 9% drop in the country’s 802 urban communities that also saw a decline.”

The Fed  found that 794 rural counties lost a total 1,553 bank branches during the period, "representing a decline of 14% in the number of institutions," Hayashi reports. The decline likely left many rural residents without an easy, inexpensive way to get financial services. In rural counties, seniors, small-business owners, and those without transportation appear to be the hardest hit, she writes. Lack of reliable broadband internet access has exacerbated the problem, since many rural residents haven’t been able to take advantage of online banking services.

Hayashi reports, “The impact could be particularly significant for small businesses, which could face reduced access to credit needed to maintain and expand their operations, the authors wrote. The Fed researchers pointed out that loan interest rates increase as the distance between a business and the local branch of its lender grows—a potential reason why most small businesses borrow from institutions with a local presence.”

The report’s authors urged lawmakers, banks and other stakeholders to consider solutions for affected counties, saying that without easy access to financial services, it’s difficult to build wealth, run a business, and achieve long-term financial stability, Hayashi notes.

Commentary says rural hospitals should regionalize adult care, like they do with maternity and infant care

As rural hospitals seek new ways to survive, a commentary in The Journal of Rural Health suggests that one new model could regionalize adult health care in much the same way it has been regionalized for perinatal care, the care given before and after the birth of a child.

Image from WFPL

"Regionalization of health care is not a new approach," note the authors of the commentary, which could spark debate about ways to save rural hospitals.

The survival of rural hospitals is a real concern. Since 2010, at least 113 rural hospitals in the U.S. have closed, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina.

Mosby's Medical Dictionary defines health-care regionalization as "the organization of a system for the delivery of health care within a region to avoid costly duplication of services and to ensure the availability of essential services."

"It may be a critical tool for the survival of rural community hospitals," write the commentary authors, Catherine Clary and Dr. William Kanto of Augusta University in Georgia, and Nikki King and and Tim Putnam of Margaret Mary Health in Batesville, Ind., 40 miles west of Cincinnati.

They explain that perinatal regionalization, which designates hospitals according to their ability to care for mothers and infants and uses those levels to determine where they should be best cared for, has resulted in "the decline of neonatal mortality and improving other perinatal statistics."

"Just as not all perinatal services could be provided in every community hospital, today there are specialized life-saving services (such as stroke, cardiovascular and trauma) available that cannot be fully supported by every rural hospital," they write. "However in an organized system of care, treatment can be initiated in the rural hospital and patients appropriately transferred, insuring universal access to these services and improved patient outcomes."

They also argue that specialized regionalization of adult care could free rural hospitals to expand some services, allow "vibrant telehealth" consultations that could allow patients to stay in their home facility with continuing support; and, if the partnership is with an academic medical center, provide opportunities for strong continuing-education programs.

They say such a model would include systems and protocols developed by the hospitals, and a strong telemedicine component; result in a growing respect and trust among the providers in the region that would lead to improved care and patient satisfaction; and make sure transferred patients would be returned back to their local hospital as soon as medically possible. That way, "The patient’s family incurs less expense and travel time," they write.

Also, prompt transfer demonstrates the specialty hospital's confidence in the rural hospital and providers, increases the patient and clinical volume of the rural hospital, and allows for post-discharge care to be conducted by local providers, they write:"The local hospital is the nexus for the continuing care for the patient; local providers are available to answer questions about medications, rehabilitation, and follow-up care, reducing the chance for error and confusion."

They add that being able to return a patient to their home facility is easier if the rural hospital has a "swing bed program," which allows a hospital bed to be used as an acute-care bed or a skilled-nursing bed, like in an advanced nursing home.

The authors conclude, "The survival of rural hospitals is an essential component in providing health care to a rural community, and rural hospitals are integral to the economic development and future growth of the community. With adult regionalization, patients receive required tertiary care, but the community hospital is supported through its use for rehabilitation and continued wellness."

Subscribe Sunday is a social media campaign encouraging citizens to subscribe to their local newspaper; let's join it!

By Al Cross

Director and Professor

Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

Today is Black Friday. Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday. Next week come Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday. There's a gap, and you can fill it with Subscribe Sunday on Dec. 1.

Unbranded GIF is free for anyone to use

#SubscribeSunday is a social media campaign encouraging citizens to subscribe to their local newspaper or its digital equivalent. The Boston Globe came up with the idea, the New England Newspaper and Press Association is promoting it, and so is The Rural Blog and its publisher, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Subscriptions are becoming the lifeblood of journalism because so much advertising has moved to the digital space. That phenomenon has finally reached rural newspapers, which have been slow to get into the digital space. But that is where the audience is going, and #SubscribeSunday could be a good way to make citizens think about where they get their information.

I keep saying "citizens" because a target audience for such appeals should be people who have a sense of civic responsibility but don't fully appreciate the role of newspapers in democracy: the chief fact-finders, the independent watchdogs, those who speak truth to power, and help a community have a conversation with itself and set the public agenda.

It's also an opportunity to remind citizens who prefer to get their news from social media that they need to consider the sources of their information. The readership of news stories is driven mainly by social-media referrals, and such readers may not appreciate the difference in those secondary and primary sources.

They need to understand the three major types of information media. News media pay for journalism, which practices a discipline of verification; we determine facts and tell you how we know them. Social media have no discipline and no verification, and are mainly about opinion, not fact. Strategic media (advertising, public relations and marketing) use the other types and sometimes masquerade as news media when they try to sell you something: a good, a service, an idea, a cause, a politician, etc.

If citizens understand these basics, they should be more likely to subscribe to their local newspaper or its digital equivalent. One pitch of #SubscribeSunday is this: "As you plan your purchases for the big holiday shopping weekend, please consider investing in a strong democracy. Support independent local journalism and subscribe to your local news organization or give a subscription as a gift. Share your purchase on social media using hashtag #SubscribeSunday."

For more information on Subscribe Sunday contact Janelle.Nanos@globe.com or Heather.Ciras@globe.com.

Retired editor says saving local news means jettisoning nostalgia, focusing on three core values of journalism

In order to save local journalism, we have to let go of nostalgia and focus on three core values, writes retired editor and newspaper-association manager Dennis Hetzel.

The first, and most important, he writes, is that you shouldn't try to choose between quality and quantity of local news; you have to have both. "Here's my hypothesis: Outlets with 'lots of local news' do better with audience growth and retention and probably financially," Hetzel writes. "Alisa Cromer of Local Media Insider has been examining the traits of successful papers. Beyond geographic and demographic advantages, she found this commonality: 'For the super-healthy newspapers, exclusive local news is more than a product; it is their superpower.'"

Dennis Hetzel

Hetzel believes publications should put a higher priority on finding the best ways to harness artificial intelligence, social media, reader submissions, staff structures, partnerships with other organizations or publications, and other strategies that generate more local content but leave reporters time to report in-depth stories.

The second core value is mentoring and training new journalists, Hetzel writes. Young reporters have a harder time finding mentors these days because reporters and editors are often stretched thin and don't have the time. Also, publications generally have smaller training and travel budgets for professional development. Young reporters are passionate about what they do, but they can be lured to other professions with higher pay and better support. So news outlets, universities, press associations and news nonprofits must do a better job of nurturing young talent.

The third core value: great visuals and smart storytelling. Audiences love great photography and multimedia, but photography budget cuts have shifted the task to reporters with smartphones. "Sometimes that's good enough, but certainly not always," Hetzel writes.

Hetzel has been a reporter, editor, general manager and publisher at newspapers in Madison, Wis.; York, Pa.; and Cincinnati. In his 13 years as editor and publisher of the York Daily Record, the paper won awards from the Scripps Howard Foundation a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

Louisville newspaper tracks huge, powerful and violent drug cartel's invasion of small towns and rural areas across U.S.

The tentacles of a huge, powerful and violent drug cartel reach from Mexico into small cities and towns, the Louisville Courier Journal reports after a nine-month investigation in several states.

The "New Generation Jalisco Cartel," known by its Spanish name Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación and acronym CJNG, is headed by Rubén "Nemesio" Oseguera Cervantes, or "El Mencho," for whom the Drug Enforcement Administration is offering a $10 million reward.

"CJNG’s increased distribution of fentanyl across the country has helped the synthetic opioid unseat heroin as the nation’s No. 1 killer," Beth Warren writes. "The billion-dollar criminal organization has a large and disciplined army, control of extensive drug routes throughout the U.S., sophisticated money-laundering techniques and an elaborate digital terror campaign, federal drug agents say."

CJNG’s network reaches into "the mountains of Virginia, small farming towns in Iowa and Nebraska, and across the Bluegrass State" of Kentucky, Warren reports. "A cartel member even worked at Kentucky's famed Calumet Farm, home to eight Kentucky Derby and three Triple Crown winners. . . . CJNG even established a cell in south-central Virginia, buying or renting a cluster of modest homes in Axton — an unincorporated community of roughly 6,500. CJNG members have followed relatives or friends who left Mexico for the U.S. to find jobs. The cartel exploits its connections with otherwise hard-working immigrants, said Dan Dodds, who leads DEA operations in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia."

Warren writes, "The cartel's expansion into smaller, unexpected communities began to mushroom about five years ago as U.S. intelligence analysts tracked its movements far beyond border towns and major hubs. Smaller towns. Smaller police forces. More unchecked opportunities. . . . In Hickory, North Carolina: CJNG used local drug dealers to move meth into the poor, addicted mountain region."

Jaeson Jones, a former Texas Department of Public Safety captain who tracked drug cartels for years, "said CJNG and other cartels often use unlikely rural areas near cities for storing and distributing drugs, away from heavy policing and nosy neighbors," Warren writes. "Houses are cheap. Backroads, plentiful. Cartels often maintain several houses in such areas: One for the local boss and his family, and another where the drugs come in and get cut up and distributed, there's another to deal with the money, and another where cartel associates live, he said."

Andrew Nester, the state prosecutor in Henry County, Virginia, told the CJ, "It’s very rural, it’s very remote. Maybe that’s the draw. Once you’re established, no one talks." But Chris Kenning reports that after "a drug task force got an informant inside in the Axton area . . .investigators saw links stretching to Winchester" in northern Virginia. The package also includes reporting from Kala Kachmar in Hickory and Lenoir, N.C.

Quick hits: Congress revives surprise billing legislation; rural and urban Dems differ on Trump impeachment

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

Rural and urban Democrats show starkly different opinions on a possible Trump impeachment. An interesting read before Thanksgiving dinner political conversations. Read more here.

Volunteer firefighters want to spend Thanksgiving with their families too, so here are some tips on how not to burn your house down if you deep-fry your turkey. Read more here.

After months of inaction, House and Senate committees are once again negotiating on bills to address surprise medical billing. High air ambulance bills make this particularly germane in rural areas. Read more here.

Want a dirt-cheap live Christmas tree? All you need is a hacksaw and a Bureau of Land Management Permit. Read more here. Read more here.

Federal prosecutors launch criminal investigation against manufacturers and distributors of opioid painkillers

"Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into whether pharmaceutical companies intentionally allowed opioid painkillers to flood communities, employing laws normally used to go after drug dealers, according to people familiar with the matter," Corinne Ramey reports for The Wall Street Journal. "Prosecutors are examining whether the companies violated the federal Controlled Substances Act, a statute that federal prosecutors have begun using against opioid makers and distributors this year." Under that law, companies must monitor commonly abused drugs and report suspicious orders.

The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York has sent grand-jury subpoenas to at least six companies: drugmakers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Mallinckrodt PLC, Johnson & Johnson and Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and distributors AmerisourceBergen Corp. and McKesson Corp. All the companies have denied responsibility and said they followed all laws concerning manufacture and distribution of prescription opioids, Ramey reports.

But according to recently released Drug Enforcement Administration databases, billions of pills were distributed across the country between 2006 and 2012, with disproportionate numbers sent to rural areas struggling with opioid addiction. More than 2,600 communities, counties, and Native American tribes have alleged in federal lawsuits that the companies didn't report suspicious orders, in order to maximize profits. Most of the suits were consolidated into a few large cases, and most companies have settled out of court.

If the probe results in charges, the case could become the biggest criminal prosecution to date of drug companies for the opioid epidemic. "Executives and companies can face civil charges under the Controlled Substances Act for not reporting signs, like suspicious orders, that could indicate drugs are being used for nonmedical purposes," Ramey reports. "Criminal charges require prosecutors to prove an effort to willfully and intentionally avoid such requirements, legal experts said."

Humility key to peaceful holiday talk, policy advocate writes

As we head into Thanksgiving, Richard Nelson of Kentucky's Commonwealth Policy Center offers suggestions for peaceful conversations among "family members of differing political persuasions." The center says it advocates "values of life, marriage and fiscal responsibility," so Nelson has a religious focus, but also some thoughtful and practical advice:

"Insulating ourselves and our thoughts on important, even controversial subjects, may avoid tough conversations, but hardly garners understanding that brings us closer to our families and loved ones. . . . So how do we rise above our unhealthy tribalism that's reduced us to the sum of our political opinions?

"Start with recognizing that the crazy Republican or discontented Democrat sitting next to you is first and foremost a person endowed with dignity by the Creator. They're a person made in God's image. Believing this tempers your opinions with great humility, which drives away arrogance in a heartbeat.

"Realize that your opinions aren't everything. If you're around long enough you'll find that they change over time. Gasp! You might even be wrong! Cast away unhealthy suspicions and build your conversation upon goodwill and charity toward opponents, even if they're sitting right next to you. Especially if they're sitting right next to you.

"Adopt an attitude of gratefulness. It drives away discontent. We may be creatures with different experiences, persuasions, and markedly differing political opinions but we are creatures made to live in community. We need each other and we need to figure out how to dialogue with one another civilly and respectfully.

"This means we ought to listen carefully. Not simply thinking about the logical flaws or how to dismantle Uncle Bob's political theories. But try to understand their life experiences and worldview. Doing these things may help us to recapture the lost art of conversation."

One week out from Giving Tuesday, here are some reminders of why supporting rural journalism matters

We'll get straight to the point: the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues needs your support. We work hard all year to help rural journalists all over the United States, but as a non-profit organization we rely on donations. With Giving Tuesday a week away, we ask you to begin considering how much you would like to donate to IRJCI so we can continue providing vital services to rural journalists. It's not just us asking, though:

Bill Ketter, senior vice president for news at Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., writes for us: "One of the great dangers to our democratic system is the erosion of local news sources to connect the people’s interests and concerns with the community’s welfare. The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues combats this peril through its advocacy for news outlets in America’s small towns and cities. I say that from experience of working with the Institute and what it has meant to my company’s group of community newspapers."

Sheila Hagar, education reporter and columnist for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, writes: “We all know being a journalist in a rural area is a challenge, and not just being unable to shop for groceries incognito. Resources are limited, beats are measured by many square miles. The trainings that helps us stay current and connected are often out of reach geographically and — increasingly — financially. While there are plenty of places to see global news, The Rural Blog aggregates stories from areas like the one I report in. Not only have I gained numerous story ideas and found resources I could use, but our newspaper has benefited from reading about how similarly-sized news organizations are doing things. To have a publication that pulls in rural news every day makes me feel supported.”

Thanks for those kind words. If you value our work, please donate here.

Court bars meat industry from blocking California law that mandates better living conditions for food animals

"A federal judge in Los Angeles refused to stop California from enforcing a voter-approved measure requiring farmers to provide more space for animals being raised for food," Jonathan Stempel reports for Reuters. "U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder ruled on Friday that the North American Meat Institute, whose members include processors such as Tyson Foods and retailers including Walmart, did not deserve a preliminary injunction against enforcing the measure known as Proposition 12."

Voters approved Prop. 12 last November. The law mandates minimum amounts of living space for calves raised for veal, breeding pigs and egg-laying hens. It also bars the sale of raw veal, pork, or eggs from animals raised in spaces that don't meet that minimum requirement.

"The Meat Institute had argued that enforcement would hurt producers and consumers by increasing food costs, and violated the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause by requiring out-of-state producers to comply or face the sales ban," Stempel reports. But the judge said there was no evidence the law substantially burdened interstate commerce, even if it meant less profit for producers. A Meat Institute spokesperson said the group may appeal the decision.

Acting chief of BLM says it will defer to local law officers

William Perry Pendley, acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, wrote in a recent Las Vegas Review-Journal op-ed that the agency's law enforcement personnel will defer to local law enforcement officials, Jennifer Yachnin reports for Energy & Environment News.

The op-ed is all the more relevant after President Trump recently expanded a pilot program that sends national park rangers to the U.S.-Mexico border to help stop drug trafficking and illegal immigration. The move sparked concerns that visiting park rangers might step on the toes of local law enforcement. Pendley's op-ed appears to be an attempt to allay such fears.

"The bureau is reaching out to local sheriffs to ensure that rangers recognize that, although local law enforcement bears primary responsibility for enforcing state and federal law, Rangers are there to assist — lending their expertise to better local communities," Pendley wrote. "Rangers, therefore, partner with local law enforcement, while recognizing that counties are a governmental arm of sovereign states. Maintaining that deference is essential to making BLM a truly productive and valued partner to Western communities."

Interior Department spokesperson Melissa Brown said Pendley's remarks don't signal a change in policy, but rather as a reminder of current policy. She also said the Interior is considering an overhaul of BLM's law enforcement, which now includes about 200 uniformed officers and 70 special agents who patrol 245 million acres of public lands, Yachnin reports. The scope of BLM rangers' authority has been controversial in Congress; several lawmakers have sought to overhaul or eliminate it, Yachnin reports.

Tune in today for webinar on USDA farm income forecast

Tune in at 1 p.m. ET today for a free webinar discussing the latest Farm Income Forecast, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service will release tomorrow. The forecast will be published here.

The USDA releases estimates each year in February, August and November, covering a wide range of data and predictions concerning the farming sector's economic health. ERS economist Carrie Litkowski will discuss updated data and forecasts on farm income and wealth, cash receipts, other sources of income such as government payments and insurance, production expenditures, off-farm income, and breakouts by major commodities and regions. Register here.

Feral hogs attack and kill rural Texas woman

States have become increasingly aggressive in the battle to cull feral hogs. Here’s a grim reminder why: A pack of feral hogs attacked and killed a rural Texas woman on her way to work this week, Kim Bellware reports for The Washington Post.

The victim, 59-year-old Christine Marie Rollings, was a caregiver for a senior couple in Anahuac, a town of 2,200 on the north end of Trinity Bay 50 miles east of Houston. She was scheduled to arrive at her clients' home at 6 a.m. but never showed up. One of the clients soon discovered Rollings' body between her car and the front door. The official cause of death was blood loss, Bellware reports. "In my 35 years, I will tell you it's one of the worst things I've ever seen," Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said at a press conference Monday.

Though feral hog populations have been booming in the U.S., deaths are rare; Hawthorne said there have been fewer than six reported nationwide, Bellware reports.

After its only grocery closes, Fla. town opens its own store

Mayor Sean Lynch in Baldwin Market. (Washington Post photo by Antonia Farzan)

Baldwin had a problem. In 2018, the community's only grocery store shut down, leaving the Florida town of about 1,600 in the same county as Jacksonville with few options for fresh, local groceries. The nearest grocery was 10 miles away, and the only local options were fast food from a nearby truck stop or canned goods from the Dollar General. Since the town has a significant population of seniors and the poor, many of whom don't drive or must share a car, leaving town for food isn't usually feasible, Antonia Farzan reports for The Washington Post.

Baldwin, in Duval County (Wikipedia)

So Sean Lynch, mayor of the staunchly Republican town, proposed opening a grocery store operated by the local government. "Abandoned by mainstream supermarkets whose business models don’t have room for low profit margins, both urban and rural communities nationwide have turned to resident-owned co-ops or nonprofits to fill the gap," Farzan reports. "But Baldwin is trying something different. At the Baldwin Market, which opened its doors on Sept. 20, all of the employees are on the municipal payroll, from the butcher to the cashiers. Workers from the town’s maintenance department take breaks from cutting grass to help unload deliveries, and residents flag down the mayor when they want to request a specific type of milk."

Lynch said the city isn't trying to make a profit, but if the market is profitable, the money will go back into improving the city. A few other towns have done the same thing, with good results. "Notably, these experiments in communal ownership are taking place in deep-red parts of the country where the word 'socialism' is anathema," Farzan reports. And a collectively owned, government-run operation like Baldwin Market is socialist by definition. "But in many rural, conservative communities struggling to hang on to their remaining residents, ideological arguments about the role of government tend to be cast aside as grocery stores shutter because of population decline and competition from superstores."

Many small towns are struggling to attract new residents, and not having a grocery store can be a deal-breaker. So "food access becomes almost like a utility that you have to have for the town to exist," said David Procter, director of the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University. Lynch thinks along the same lines. "We take the water out of the ground and we pump it to your house and charge you," Lynch told Farzan. "So what’s the difference with a grocery store?"

Trump orders national-park rangers to the Mexican border

President Trump is sending rangers from some of the country's largest national parks "to the U.S.-Mexico border to help stop drug traffickers and illegal immigration," the USA Today Network reports. "The orders have come as Congress has refused to fund Trump’s border wall, the signature promise of his presidential campaign."

Parks tapped for rangers include the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Rocky Mountain National Park, Zion National Park and Shenandoah National Park and others. "Most rangers have been detailed to one of two border sites: Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona and Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas," USA Today reports. The Great Smoky Mountains park "was asked to send two park rangers for two-week details at the border, but only sent one," according to a park spokeswoman.

The program began as a pilot in May 2018, "then expanded in October amid record numbers of border crossings," USA Today reports. "Park officials say they’ve been told they should continue sending rangers to the border through September 2020."

Just in time for Thanksgiving, op-ed explores the wedge politics has driven through the middle of many families

Teri Carter

Thanksgiving can be a political minefield for family members who hold vastly different opinions, but this op-ed from a rural Kentucky writer offers a note of hope about love overcoming politics.

Teri Carter, a self-described liberal feminist, hadn't spoken to her Trump-loving father in Missouri since about a month after Trump's inauguration. "He posted a Ku Klux Klan meme on his Facebook page. I demanded he take it down. He refused. I insisted. He unfriended me. Then he stopped calling. I stopped visiting. And that was that," Carter writes for The Washington Post.

But Carter drove to rural southeast Missouri earlier this month because her stepmother has late-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The visit forced Carter and her father to talk, and they were able to find common ground on many topics.

"How happy I am to be with my dad after those three lost years. And lost over what? Yet I know I am not alone," Carter writes. "How many loved ones have you stopped calling, blocked, unfollowed or unfriended? How many friends and family members do you simply avoid these days, choosing to skip your niece’s wedding or make other plans for the holidays? How many of you, like me, just stopped going home?"

Gannett-GateHouse merger spawns analysis and comment

A lot of ink has been spilled over the newly approved merger of GateHouse Media into the new Gannett Co. Inc. Here's a roundup of some interesting articles, op-eds, editorials, and general think pieces on the topic.

The company's estimates of annual cost savings from the merger have increased from about $200 million in July to upwards of $400 billion. Ken Doctor at Harvard University's NiemanLab talks about what those cutbacks could look like in local newsrooms. Read more here.

The merger could deepen America's local news crisis, writes Clara Hendrickson for the Brookings Institution. Read more here.

Marc Tracy of The New York Times gives the nuts and bolts of the merger and a decent overview of the major questions surrounding it. Read more here.

Don Seiffert of the Boston Business Journal ominously notes that more than 80 percent of the 200 dailies in the company are losing circulation faster than the national average, and 10% are declining at twice that rate or faster. Those papers could be first in line for cuts, he speculates. Read more here.

The merger is a good thing because it's a cost-effective way to keep local news alive, writes the editorial board for The Record in Stockton, California. Read more here.

Publisher James Bennett of The Daily Herald in Columbia, Tennessee, near Gannett-dominated Nashville, tries to reassure readers that the paper's focus will remain local, even though the former GateHouse paper is now owned by Gannett. He says readers will benefit from having access to Gannett content. Read more here.

Report for America helps Associated Press fund statehouse reporters in 14 states, for 18 months starting in June

News coverage of state governments, which has been declining for two decades, will get a boost in 14 states next year and in 2021 with funding to The Associated Press from Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project.

Applications for the jobs will open Dec. 2 and the journalists will begin reporting in June. They will be in Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina and Utah. "A data journalist will support their efforts and work to bring policy journalism to all 50 states," AP reports.

“An investment in AP at the statehouse is an investment in the health of an entire state news ecosystem,” Noreen Gillespie, AP's deputy managing editor for U.S. news, said in the story. “We are pleased to be working with Report for America to ensure citizens have better and more access to information about their government at work, from budgets and policy issues to holding elected officials accountable.”

The journalists will also report on state and federal elections; issues related to voter access, vote suppression and vote security; and "break news on the impact of new administrations and changes of power at the state level," AP reports. Most states elect governors and legislators next year.

“One of the most important crises facing our democracy is the alarming shortage of local news coverage about state government, which determines much of the public policy affecting the lives of Americans,” Report for America President Steven Waldman said in the story. Charles Sennott, CEO of The GroundTruth Project, added: “Although Congress gets far more attention, state government has at least as much impact and garners far fewer headlines.”

The new reporters' work will be available to non-AP news organizations, such as nonprofit news outlets, public radio stations and independent online sites, and AP will distribute many stories produced by other Report for America journalists who are already covering statehouses.

Some rural counties can't get real local news via satellite TV

For about 870,000 American households, most of them rural, the local television news is anything but. Because they can't pick up broadcast signals from a TV station, they must rely on the network affiliate stations from their satellite TV providers, and sometimes those news stations are hundreds of miles away and have no interest in them, Grant Schulte reports for The Associated Press.

Dianne Johnson lives in western Nebraska, where the news stories on her satellite TV all come from Denver, over 200 miles away. That frustrates Johnson, who wants to know more about local and state politics, sports, and weather. "Johnson’s plight is part of a congressional dispute pitting local broadcasters against satellite television providers, who are frequently the only option for viewers in America’s most remote corners," Schulte reports.

There are two causes, AP notes: "The first is a federal law that lets satellite providers import distant broadcast signals to those 'neglected markets' at a steep discount, even though the local news subscribers see may not be relevant. The law was initially passed in 1988 to help small, fledgling satellite TV providers compete with cable companies that were viewed as monopolies at the time. It’s set to expire at the year’s end, but satellite providers are lobbying Congress to extend it for another five years."

If the law expires, satellite providers would no longer send distant news to rural viewers but would probably have to pay more to add local broadcast stations to their offerings. Local broadcasters could extend the reach of their signals to reach more rural viewers, but that would require federal approval, and the Federal Communications Commission has essentially not allowed broadcast stations to do so for nearly a decade, Schulte reports.

"The second challenge for rural viewers is a federal law that sets the boundaries for the nation’s media markets," Schulte reports. Media markets are based on a map drawn by Nielsen Media Research. Local leaders who feel their county is in the wrong media market can appeal to the FCC, but it's a complicated and time-consuming process. WYMT-TV in Hazard, Ky., has been fighting its battle for more than a decade.