Did rurality and remoteness of the Alabama hostage crisis limit its coverage?

Did the remote location of the Alabama town where a child with autism was held hostage diminish coverage of the crisis? The answer, some say, is yes. Others say that competing news, not regional or rural bias or remoteness, was the reason the hostage crisis in Midland City, Ala., failed to get more coverage. The resulting discussion presents interesting questions about the national coverage of rural events.

 Sperling's Best Places map

Chicago Sun-Times Digital Editor and Alabama native Marcus Gilme expressed his opinion that the reason the dramatic story that unfolded in the last week -- when a child was kidnapped from a school bus and held in an underground bunker for six days -- had to do with geography.

"Had it happened in a large city --  New York, Dallas, even, God forbid, Chicago -- the coverage would be constant, a 24-hour surveillance with every media outlet descending on the city," Gilme said, pointing out that the story involved the major hot topics of "gun control, safety of school children, and mental health" that would typically command national attention in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., shooting.

Midland City officials asked that coverage be limited, since the kidnapper had a television in his bunker, but Gilme said that wasn't the whole reason the story wasn't bigger: He argues that since it unfolded in a small town of 2,500 people, it was more easily dismissed as "a typical redneck incident" by those in more urban communities. "This is larger than any regional bias," he wrote. "This is a national issue and we have to be willing to look past stereotypes, to be willing to accept both the smaller hyperlocal context as well as the larger, national one."

Andrew Beaujon of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies responded to Gilme's piece with his own, noting that the hostage situation "competed for media oxygen" with the Super Bowl, immigration reform and, in Chicago, gun violence. Furthermore, those who did offer coverage had few updates for readers on a situation that changed little day-to-day.

Addressing Gilme's argument about wider importance, Beaujon said plenty of stories since Newtown have spurred related debate. "The Alabama story, though, bizarre, sadly has plenty of competition for a national conversation-starter on guns," Beaujon said, citing a Slate compilation of gun deaths in the U.S. since the Newtown shooting. "At the time I write this, it records 23 kids as having been killed by gun violence after that incident."

Superweeds surging, survey of farmers finds

Cutting pigweed in Arkansas. Photo from
The Commercial Appeal by Brad Luttrell

The problem of herbicide-resistant "superweeds" continues to grow, with almost half of farmers in a 31-state survey saying their land has weeds resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, agriculture's main weed killer.

The survey was done by Stratus, an agri-marketing research consultancy. It found that glyphosate-resistant weeds are spreading in just about every way: New regions, more farms and more weed species are involved, Stratus's Kent Fraser reported. Farmers might need to use new crop seeds that are resistant to more powerful herbicides that can kill superweeds, but that will take time for government approval.

Stratus said it surveyed thousands of farmers in 31 states over three years. Its finding that almost half reported glyphosate-resistant weeds on their farms in 2012 was a 34 percent increase from 2011. The South has the biggest problem, with 92 percent of Georgia farmers surveyed reporting glyphosate resistance on their farms. Uther regions are "catching up," Fraser wrote. In Nebraska and Indiana, the number of estimated acres with resistant weeds nearly doubled from 2011 to 2012.

Plants commonly known as horseweed and pigweed were the most commonly reported as resistant, but Fraser said "the problem is getting more complicated" since more farms are reporting having two or more resistant species. Tom Philpott of Mother Jones speculated that companies like Monsanto, which created Roundup and makes "Roundup ready" seeds that allow fields to be sprayed with the herbicide without killing the crops, might encourage farmers to "try out 'next generation' herbicide-resistant seeds—that is, crops engineered to resist not just Roundup, but also other, more toxic herbicides, like 2,4-D and Dicamba," but new seeds would probably not be approved by the Department of Agriculture until at least next year. In the meantime, farmers will likely use more herbicide to curb weeds, Philpott wrote, though another crop to their yearly rotations could decrease superweed growth. (Read more)

USPS says it will end Sat. home delivery of letters and newspapers in Aug.; ball in Congress's court

UPDATE, Feb. 7: The service's "bold, risky move" is stirring support and "fury," The Washington Post reports.

The U.S. Postal Service announced today that it would no longer deliver first-class mail, newspapers and magazines starting in early August, in an effort to stanch multi-billion-dollar deficits, but would continue regular parcel deliveries. The move, which could still be blocked by Congress or court action, is likely to affect rural Americans more than others. Their post offices could also be open less often.

Post offices will remain open for item drop-off, stamp purchase and box access, "but hours likely would be reduced at thousands of smaller locations," Ed O'Keefe reports for The Washington Post. Rural post offices especially have felt the sting of a closures and reduced hours in recent years as USPS losses have mounted. "Opposition to significant changes rests mostly with lawmakers from far-flung rural communities, who fear that a change in schedules could jeopardize low-cost delivery of medicines and medical supplies to  elderly customers," O'Keefe writes. The continuation of parcel delivery could blunt that argument.

Newspaper groups have fought efforts to stop Saturday delivery; some small daily newspapers, many of which publish on Saturdays, have moved to mail delivery to eliminate carrier costs. Max Heath, postal consultant to the National Newspaper Association, said the move was a bad business decision: "This move will only speed up the loss of business mail volume due to lack of delivery for Saturday newspapers and shoppers, and slower overall delivery of Periodicals and Standard Mail used by newspapers, with resultant loss of subscribers and advertisers. USPS fails to properly calculate or consider the lost revenue that will accompany the overly-rosy cost-saving projections."

Congress has repeatedly passed legislation to guarantee six-day delivery, but Heath (right) said the service's legal position is that because the latest measure, the continuing resolution to fund the government, expires March 27, it can plan to stop six-day delivery after that "Postmaster General Donahoe explicity challenged the Congress by saying they could makes changes in the law to give relief," Heath told the Kentucky Press News Service. "That begs the question as to whether legislation requiring six-day, if passed or renewed, could not stop this unfortunate decision." (Read more)

"Some in Congress say the Postal Service has exceeded its authority," NPR reports. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said, "The Postal Service’s decision to eliminate Saturday delivery is inconsistent with current law and threatens to further jeopardize its customer base."

Last year the Senate passed a broad postal-reform bill that would have helped USPS financially and guaranteed six-day delivery for two more years, but the House did not act on it. "With postal legislation at an impasse, it’s certainly not a given that Congress would even approve a move to five-day delivery," says Save the Post Office. "The Obama administration has expressed its approval, and the House bill under consideration last year would have permitted the Postal Service to cut Saturdays as soon as six months after passage of new legislation."

Officials predict the Saturday cutbacks will save $2 billion a year, an amount that Save the Post Office doubts. Last year the Postal Service ran a deficit of almost $16 billion, Although new communication technology has decreased the amount of mail delivered, employee benefits are the primary source of its woes. The benefits Congress has required it to pay since 2006 accounted for nearly 70 percent of last year's deficit.

Ohio's Kasich 5th GOP governor to OK Medicaid expansion; he, others cite rural hospitals' need

Several Republican governors have decided to expand Medicaid under federal health-care reform, saying their conservative principles were outweighed by a need to protect their state's rural hospitals and low-income people. Yesterday, the governor of one of the biggest states got on the bandwagon.

John Kasich of Ohio joined Jan Brewer of Arizona, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota in saying they will take heavy federal subsidies to expand the program to households with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty threshold.

UPDATE, Feb. 8: "Each of those seemed special cases: North Dakota is flush from its oil and gas boom, and Nevada and New Mexico are increasingly blue-leaning states with Democratic-controlled legislatures. Arizona is different," Ron Brownstein writes in the National Journal. He notes that Brewer said taking the federal money will “protect rural and safety-net hospitals” from excessive costs for uncompensated care; create “thousands of jobs” and cover many people now uninsured.

While Kasich is not an "Obamacare" supporter, he said expanding Medicaid “makes great sense for Ohio” because it would save $235 million over the next two years and free about $100 million in local funds for mental-health and addiction services, reports The Columbus Dispatch.

Kasich said the decision could extend health coverage to as many as 578,000 uninsured Ohio residents, and could keep everyone else’s health insurance premiums down because there won’t be so many uninsured people going to emergency rooms for their medical care, reports David Nather of Politico.

Kasich emphasized that he would like to see the 2010 law repealed, but the federal money it would pump into the state — about $13 billion over the next seven years — was too much to pass up, reports Stateline. The federal government will pay the full cost of expansion through 2016; then  states will have to pitch in, rising to a limit of 10 percent by 2020.

Brewer likewise said it doesn't make sense for Arizona to pass up federal dollars, reports Howard Fischer of the Arizona Daily Sun. "We will protect rural and safety-net hospitals from being pushed to the brink by growing their cost in caring for the uninsured," Brewer said. She also said the expansion will create enormous economic benefit, inject $2 billion into the Arizona economy, save and create thousands of jobs and provide health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income individuals, reports Fischer.

Brewer said going along with expansion will save Arizona money because the costs of providing care to the uninsured are not simply absorbed by hospitals but passed along through increased insurance premiums. Supporters of the expansion hope the five Republicans' decisions will prompt more GOP governors to follow suit. Twenty governors from both political parties are still undecided. (Read more)

Every 65½ minutes, a veteran commits suicide

UPDATE, Feb. 8: ProPublica has aggregated what it says is the best reporting on mental trauma and the military, here.

Almost every hour in this country, on average, a veteran commits suicide. The Department of Veterans Affairs reported that 22 veterans per day took their own lives in 2010, up four a day from the 2007 rate. Perhaps contrary to public perception, the report said most suicides occurred among veterans over 50. It recognized Vietnam-era veterans as a risk group, as well as female veterans.

Military service members come disproportionately from rural areas, which usually lack the types of mental-health services available in urban areas.

(Among active service members in 2012, more died from suicide than in combat, we reported here. The Army said Friday that 325 soldiers committed suicides last year; if the tentative number is confirmed, it would be a historical high. "If that bleak total remains at 325, the toll in 2012 would have risen by 15 percent over 2011 when the Army sustained 283 suicides," NBC News reported.)

Reactions to the report about veterans' suicides ranged from encouragement to outrage. The VA pointed out that the daily veteran suicide rate has "remained relatively stable over the past 12 years," but the percentage of the overall national suicide rate accounted for by veteran suicide has actually decreased.  Veteran suicides accounted for about one-fifth of American suicides in 2010, down from one-fourth of suicides in 1999.

The VA said that showed its programs are working, but promised to take "immediate actions." NBC reported that "the top strategy" on the VA's agenda was an already-established task force that could help suicide screening identify warning signs earlier.

Some groups were dismayed by the VA report and demanded more action. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America called for more research and collaboration. "The country should be outraged that we are allowing this tragedy to continue," IAVA found and CEO Paul Rieckhoff told NBC.

On Feb. 13, the U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs will hold a hearing on veterans and mental health care. The Veterans Crisis Line -- 800-273-TALK -- is available for veterans who are concerned about their mental health. (Read more)

S. Calif. paper's investment inspires rural journalist to wave the flag of print journalism

By Al Cross
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

The Orange County Register's recent recommitment to print journalism, under a new owner who might even buy the neighboring Los Angeles Times, is encouraging news to rural journalists like Rita Dukes Smith, who recently returned to the reporting staff of The Messenger in Madisonville, Ky., Hopkins County's daily newspaper, after 10 years editing The Leader-News in adjoining Muhlenberg County.

Community newspapers have been the healthiest part of the industry for several years, but are beginning to encounter online competition. Madisonville is also the home of SurfKy.com, an online-only news operation aimed at several counties, mostly in Western Kentucky. It came to mind as I read Rita's editorial in today's Messenger, titled "Print journalists are backbone of news industry." (Amen.)

Rita notes that the Register has "hired dozens of reporters to cover high school sporting events and meetings," as well as investigative reporters (and, as luck would have it, feature writer Amy Wilson, who is returning to the paper after stints at our Institute and the Lexington Herald-Leader). "Investment is being made in good, old-fashioned reporting," she writes. "The paper is bolstering its print quality while not abandoning its digital presence, according to a story by the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard." (That story, by Ken Doctor, is here.)

"Reading about the Register’s strategies is encouraging for those of us who make our living in the newspaper industry," Rita writes. "Print media has a higher standard to get the news right the first time. With clear, black print on white paper, a newspaper story becomes historical record. If we get it wrong, we can’t pretend we didn’t by striking the delete key on a web template like an online-only news source."

Rita says print reporters provide "an experienced ear and desire to find and report the truth. We go to meetings that you cannot always attend, unraveling the information you need to know and putting it in your morning paper in black and white, easy to understand language. It is then placed on our website for your convenience. The content is an extension or enhancement of our journalists’ hard work, experience and ethics. It is not a dot/dash, copy/paste replacement for real news." (Read more)

Rita's column has an epigram from the PressThink blog of Jay Rosen of New York University: “It’s absurd to claim that ‘anyone’ can be a journalist if we mean by that someone who knows how to find the right sources and ask the right questions, dig for information, counter the spin, produce a fair, accurate and unflinching account without libeling anybody — and do it all on deadline.” (Read more)

The Messenger, a Paxton Media paper, recently won the small-daily category of the Kentucky Press Association contest. And one thing about the Register: In a sense, it may be the largest community newspaper in America. Orange County has 4 million people, but is only a fourth of the L.A. metropolitan area and gets little coverage from the L.A. television stations that dominate the area. Like good community newspapers, it still owns the local news franchise, and it has several weeklies that help maintain it.

Smaller congregations mean collaboration, even across denominations, in eastern Dakotas

Rev. Tim Koch has two churches.

Shrinking congregations in some rural communities are looking more like pioneer days, when circuit-riding preachers traveled from one church to another. A series of stories from Dakotafire, a cooperative of rural newspapers in the eastern Dakotas, described how some churches are sharing pastors. In a package of three articles, area reporters examined how congregations and their leadership are adapting to changing times.

As small congregations increasingly struggle to support a full-time pastor's salary and benefits, sharing is become more common. The increasing costs of seminary debt and health benefits have had a grim impact on small congregations. According to one of the Dakotafire articles, it takes roughly 90 to 100 people to support the estimated expense of $70,000 for a seminary-trained pastor. For many churches, that's is too much.

Collaboration -- sometimes across denominations -- has helped some churches survive. Another article told the story of  Rev. Tim Blackman, a Baptist minister who became licensed by the United Church of Christ so he could pastor two small churches in Gackle: Grace Baptist and the Gackle United Church of Christ. In another case, three United Methodist churches about 22 miles apart share the services of Rev. Nancy Manning, and all three have had to alter their service times. This intercity and interdenominational cooperation could be a trend in areas with declining population.

“It’s really good to put our heads together with our full ecumenical partners, those that we have a relationship with where we can share pastors back and forth,” Rev. Keith Zeh, a regional mission director for in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, told Dakotafire. “Sometimes when we take a look outside our own denomination, and vice versa, that’s also very helpful.” (Read more)

Federal oil and gas leasing draws ire, support in rural Colorado

President Obama's "all of the above" energy policy, which calls for oil and gas drilling on thousands of acres of public land, is meeting opposition from concerned organic farmers and residents in the rural North Fork Valley of western Colorado.

In March, leases for 114,932 acres of Colorado land will be auctioned, "a tiny piece of what Mr. Obama lauded during last year’s campaign as a historic effort to increase domestic natural-gas production," Jack Healy reports for The New York Times, adding that the reactions of Colorado's citizens are mixed.

Many Paonia residents oppose the leasing, fearing its impact on organic farming and tourism, while many residents of more Republican communities support it because of the jobs and and tax revenues they hope it will bring. Some have also voiced concern about oil spills. The opponents apparently include the weekly Delta County Independent, which described a heated meeting of Bureau of Land Management officials and about 200 Paonia residents in a recent article by asking,"Does anyone in the BLM care about the people and land in the North Fork Valley for anything other than making money from oil and gas leasing?"

Paonia Mayor Neal Schieterman argued that officials were using an outdated resource plan that did not take into consideration the valley's  tourism and organic farming, and said the lease sale should be postponed until a better plan could be developed, Healy reports.

Bruce Bertram, who monitors oil and gas for the county commissioners, as having a different perspective. Since only one of the 27 wells drilled in the county in the last 10 years was on federal land, Bertram argued that that "drilling was already at the doorstep to the valley," as Healy put it.

“Some of the folks aren’t making a good judgment about what’s good and bad,” Bertram told Healy. “There’s a built-in distrust of government and business. And that permeates through the whole area.” (Read more)

Smallest cattle herd in 61 years will affect farmers, meatpackers and consumers

The U.S. has fewer cattle than at any time in the last six decades, says the Department of Agriculture, which reports that a 2 percent decrease in 2012 made for the smallest herd in 61 years. The small herd size could mean lower profits for farmers and higher prices for consumers.

The causes? Severe drought in 2011 drove up the price of corn and hay feed for farmers in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. Ethanol production in other states, providing distillers' grains for feed, may have helped them weather the drought. Iowa is one of those. "Iowa’s cattle industry is gaining on other states,”  Gov. Terry Branstad told a biofuels conference, reports the Des Moines Register. “Iowa and Nebraska are becoming more attractive to cattle feeders than Texas and Oklahoma."

Losses in the industry are expected to impact consumers. Beef prices rose about 10 percent in 2012, according to the Register. The nation's largest meat processor, Tyson Foods, projected hardships but remained optimistic. "Tyson Chief Executive Officer Donnie Smith noted higher prices for feed grain and livestock production, but said continued strong demand for red meat has enabled Tyson to recover most of the costs at retail," the Register reported.

The financial impact on slaughterhouses remains to be seen. Cargill recently announced its plans to close a Texas plant and Tyson has considered closing one of its Iowa plants, the Register reports.

State incentives lure people to rural Kansas, but counties struggle to keep their end of the bargain

A Kansas program designed to encourage more people to move to rural parts of the state is experiencing both participant success and financial concerns.

Amy Bickel of The Hutchinson News reports that the Rural Opportunity Zones program rewards people who move to decreasing-population counties, with income-tax breaks and student-loan assistance. The program pays up to $15,000 of a successful applicant's student loans. Since the program began in 2011, 628 people have applied for the student-loan benefit. More than half of those applications have been approved, and 151 more are pending, according to the article.

However, the expectation that counties match the money put forward for loan payments up to $15,000 is placing a financial burden on the counties the program aims to benefit. Bickel writes, "The program's success is presenting the biggest challenge."

Big story on N.D. oil boom has lesson for reporters

"It’s hard to think of what oil hasn’t done to life in the small communities of western North Dakota, good and bad," Chip Brown writes in The New York Times Magazine. "It has minted millionaires, paid off mortgages, created businesses; it has raised rents, stressed roads, vexed planners and overwhelmed schools; it has polluted streams, spoiled fields and boosted crime." (NYT photo by Alec Soth, Magnum)

Brown's long story is a broad, deep look at what happens to a rural area where the economy was based on production agriculture but is now based on energy production. He starts with a look back at a glimpse of the boom's harbingers, the geologists and leasing agents "whose job was to dig through courthouse books for the often-tangled history of mineral title and surface rights. . . . Because the courthouse didn’t open until 7:30, the landmen would leave their briefcases outside the entrance, on the steps, in the order they arrived." (Read more)

The lesson of this story for journalists is to be alert for harbingers. When it comes to oil and natural gas, too many landowners have signed up for a poor deal because they didn't know how much demand there was for their mineral rights. Their news media should be telling them.

Report says veteran suicide rate is up from 2007

Almost every hour in this country, on average, a veteran commits suicide. The Department of Veterans Affairs reported that 22 veterans per day took their own lives in 2010, up four a day from the 2007 rate.  Perhaps contrary to public perception, the report said most suicides occurred among veterans over 50. It recognized Vietnam-era veterans as a risk group, as well as female veterans.

Military service members come disproportionately from rural areas, which usually lack the depth and breadth of mental-health services found in urban areas.

(Among active service members in 2012, more died from suicide than in combat, we reported here. The Army said Friday that 325 soldiers committed suicides last year; if the tentative number is confirmed, it would be a historical high. "If that bleak total remains at 325, the toll in 2012 would have risen by 15 percent over 2011 when the Army sustained 283 suicides," NBC News reported.)

Reactions to the VA report ranged from encouragement to outrage. The VA pointed out that the daily veteran suicide rate has "remained relatively stable over the past 12 years," but the percentage of the overall national suicide rate accounted for by veteran suicide has actually decreased.  Veteran suicides accounted for about one-fifth of American suicides in 2010, down from one-fourth of suicides in 1999.

The VA said that showed its programs are working, but promised to take "immediate actions." NBC reported that "the top strategy" on the VA's agenda was an already-established task force that could help suicide screening identify warning signs earlier.

Some groups were dismayed by the VA report and demanded more action. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America called for more research and collaboration. "The country should be outraged that we are allowing this tragedy to continue," IAVA found and CEO Paul Rieckhoff told NBC.

On Feb. 13, the U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs will hold a hearing on veterans and mental health care. The Veterans Crisis Line -- 800-273-TALK -- is available for veterans who are concerned about their mental health. (Read more)

At least one U.S. newspaper still does it the old way, the really old way: hot type

In an age where newspapers are increasingly read without the benefit of ink, there is at least one U.S. paper that still prints not only with ink, but solely with the metal type and hot lead that began disappearing in the 1960s. It's the weekly Saguache Crescent of southern Colorado's San Luis Valley, published by Dean Coombs, reports Jonathan Thompson of High Country News.

"The Crescent, now in its 134th year, perseveres, unsullied by the digital world: The office has no computer, no Internet. Coombs bangs out each edition on the keyboard of a 90-year-old Linotype (below; Thompson photo), which forges each line of text, or slug, from molten lead. He arranges the slugs, along with ads and graphics -- engraved into wood or metal -- in the chase, a rectangular metal frame. After they're secured into the press, the chase and type are inked, and the newsprint rolls over them," in "an ancient printing press that emanates a rhythmic whir-swoosh." (Read more)

Are your state's rural areas losing political influence like Minnesota's?

Population is concentrated around the Twin Cities.
(Minnesota Legislative Coordinating Commission)

Here's a story that could probably be replicated in many states: "Rural Minnesota has lost influence on the state’s public and private policy decisions, according to a report by a nonprofit research organization," Tim Marema of the Center for Rural Strategies writes for the center's online publication, the Daily Yonder.

The Center for Rural Policy and Development in St. Peter, Minn., didn't do a lot of fancy, detailed research to reach its conclusion. It simply interviewed about 50 interviews legislators, journalists and business, civic and policy leaders. "It also included an online questionnaire and a review of media coverage," Marema notes.

Here's what should make rural folks in other states worry: The rural share of Minnesota's population hasn't declined as fast as that of the nation as a whole, and was still 27 percent at the 2010 census, way more than the U.S. figure of 16 percent. "Rural advocates from other parts of the United States may be surprised to hear Minnesota leaders talking about rural’s declining influence there," Marema writes, "because the state has a tradition of rural advocacy and organizing." (Read more)

So, who will write up the next state?

Family farms need to be more businesslike, even with personnel, agricultural economist says

Family farms need to think and act more like businesses, hiring and keeping the best employees through modern methods, to survive in an increasingly competitive world, Bernie Erven, professor emeritus in the department of agricultural economics at The Ohio State University, told farmers at the Growing Michigan Agriculture Conference.

"The message may be a tough sell," reports Jessica Stoller-Conrad of NPR. "Family farms are an iconic American institution, and they make up nearly 96 percent of farms in America, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And it's hard for some folks to hear that the best hire might not be your sister's kid who needs a summer job baling hay."

Erven told the farmers, "If you hire a family member who isn't qualified, who doesn't fit the position, and maybe doesn't even want the position, then it's . . . unlikely the person would succeed. Thus [it's] not helping the business and not helping the family." (Read more)

Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America has data and graphics for more than 60 indicators for your county

If you need fast, accurate, up-to-date information on your rural community's demographics and economics, one of the best places to get it is the Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America, published online by the Economic Research Service of the Department of Agriculture.

The atlas draws the latest data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, including age, race and ethnicity, migration and immigration, education, household size and family composition. ERS has added data about veterans, education, unemployment, income and other demographic characteristics.

It also draws fresh economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other sources, including information on employment trends, industrial composition, and household income, and from USDA's latest Census of Agriculture, including number and size of farms, operator characteristics, off-farm income, and government payments.

Users can see county-level maps for more than 60 socioeconomic indicators, and pop-up windows with all the indicators for a county; and download maps and other images for online and print publication. Here you can download a spreadsheet containing all the data for a selected county. Go for it!

Get ready for Sunshine Week, March 10-16

Sunshine Week, the annual observance to promote dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information, is set for March 10-16. It's always the week of March 16, the birthday of James Madison, father of the First Amendment.

Sunshine Week is driven by journalists, but it seeks to enlighten and empower all Americans to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger. Participants include news media, government officials, schools and universities, libraries and archives, non-profit and civic organizations, historians and individuals with an interest in open government.

The American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, chief sponsors of the event, have laid nationwide plans for events, special stories and release of freedom-of-information studies. With a continuing endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and a 2013 donation from Bloomberg LP, the groups produce useful materials for participants and keep the Sunshine Week website and social media sites engaged.

"Our ongoing mission is to ensure that government at all levels remains transparent for the public and for reporters in all platforms,"  said Reporters Committee Chair Tony Mauro, Supreme Court correspondent for the National Law Journal. "This is a great opportunity to engage many different partners in open government education and discussions."

The National Newspaper Association is one of several co-sponsors. “The importance of open government cannot be understated,” said Deb McCaslin, chair of NNA’s Government Relations Committee. “Community newspapers are on the front lines in their towns, covering their chambers of commerce and school board meetings and keeping their readers informed about what is going on at the local level. These publications make a very real difference in the lives of the people in their communities. Without these newspapers keeping their local governments accountable, democracy would falter.”

Other particpants include the American Library Association, The Associated Press, The Cato Institute; the Center for Effective Government (formerly OMB Watch); the Center for Responsive Politics; the Inland Press Association; the New England First Amendment Coalition; the Radio Television Digital News Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. (Read more)

Postal service is 'what binds us together,' reporter writes after traveling with a letter across the U.S.

The U.S. Postal Service is drowning in debt. Year after year it loses billions mostly because Congress requires it to pre-pay employee pensions, but also because mail is increasingly electronic. The USPS has bounced to and fro with plans to save money, including ending Saturday mail delivery and closing hundreds of rural post offices. Why should we save this seemingly failing enterprise? "It is a miracle of high technology and human touch," Jesse Lichtenstein writes for Esquire. "It's what binds us together as a country." (Esquire photos by Jake Stangel: Carrier Carrie Grabenhorst, top, and postal worker Paula Joneikis)

Lichtenstein writes a colorful story about how a letter mailed from Gold Hill, Ore., makes it to New York City, giving descriptions of each step along the way, from mail carriers to the postmaster general to the troubles the agency currently faces. He begins with rural mail carrier Carrie Grabenhorst, who has developed personal relationships with the people on her route over 18 years of service in the USPS. She knows who's out of town, who's sick and can't make it to the mailbox, and who's going to be waiting on her when she pulls up in her right-side-driving Jeep. Her route is just one of the 227,000 across America, Lichtenstein writes. And all those carriers are delivering mail for less than 50 cents a letter. "It's how the postal service works: The many short-distance deliveries down the block or across the city pay for the longer ones across the country," Lichtenstein writes.

The postal service's mission was always to bind the country together, from the very first moment that the Contionental Congress named Benjamin Franklin our first postmaster general in 1775, Lichtenstein writes. "It was a way of unifying 13 disparate colonies so that the abolitionist in Philadelphia had access to the same information and newspapers as the slaveholder in Augusta, Georgia." Today, the agency has a network of 461 distribution centers, 32,000 post offices and 213,000 vehicles, making it the largest civilian fleet in the world. "The postal service handles almost half of the entire planet's mail," Lichtenstein writes. "It can physically connect any American to any other American in 3.7 million square miles of territory in a few days, often overnight: a vast lattice of veins and arteries and capillaries designed to circulate the American lifeblood of commerce and information and human contact."

But this fleet of "mail touchers" and carriers is facing a real dilemma. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe "all but begged Congress to take action" to save the postal service last November, Lichtenstein reports. The USPS lost $15.9 billion last year and reached its legal debt limit. Mail was down 5 percent from previous years, and wages, benefits and other worker-related costs were at an unsustainable 80 percent of the USPS's $81 billion budget. More than 70 percent of the agency's losses were for "extraordinary budget obligations mandated by Congress," Lichtenstein reports.

"That we're sending less mail is not debatable. Nor is it debatable that the post office as we've known it for the past 40 years, one built for speed and brute force in sorting and distributing an ever-surging flood of paper documents, is outdated in our digital world," Lichtenstein writes. "This isn't a story about whether we could live without the post office. It's about whether we'd want to." (Read more)

Study says America needs a vibrant rural America

The U.S. economy needs vibrant rural communities to help get it back on its feet, says an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development study. The report "also suggests that rural regions may not be struggling as mightily, and may have more potential, than previously thought," Agri-Pulse reports. The Washington, D.C., newsletter says the report may "give credence to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's most recent banner cry" that the country needs rural America's economy to be strong and politically relevant.

The study wasn't restricted to the U.S. It found that rural regions generally had faster growth than urban places from 1995 to 2007. That finding should make rural places a critical part of larger economic development, U.S. Department of Agriculture rural development undersecretary Doug O'Brien said while presenting the report to the National Association of Counties. The results "run counter to the conventional wisdom that urbanization is good for all countries," said Jose Enrique Garcilazo, O'Brien's co-presenter and OECD regional development policy director.

In fact, Garcilazo said that "there's something happening in cities to make them more inefficient" because "putting all the eggs in one basket is not good." Exurbs, places in metropolitan areas that are mostly rural in character, saw the most growth of all regions studied, Agri-Pulse notes. The report suggests specific approaches to policy that are fruitful for rural regions, including upgrading the low- skills human capital in local labor pools. The study also says that subsidies without incentives are ineffective in stimulating growth. Above all, the report noted that "successful rural regions come from cooperation and conversation between various rural stakeholders," Agri-Pulse reports.

Agri-Pulse is available by subscription only, but a free trial can be found here.

Warming is driving Southern butterflies further north; called 'canaries the coal mine of climate'

Butterflies from the Southern U.S. that were rare in the Northeast are now appearing there more frequently as a result of climate change, according to a Massachusetts Butterfly Club study published in the journal, Nature Climate Change. Subtropical and warm-climate butterflies showed the sharpest population shift. These species were rare or absent in the Northeast as recently as the 1980s, Julia Whitty of Mother Jones reports. (Wikipedia Commons photo by Thomas Bresson: Giant swallowtail butterfly)

While Southern butterflies are moving north, more than 75 percent of species north of Boston, are rapidly declining, the study found. Species that overwinter as eggs or larvae are disappearing fastest, which suggests warmer winters may be the cause, Whitty reports. "For most butterfly species, climate change seems to be a stronger change agent than habitat loss," lead study author Greg Breed said. Habitat protection is a major step in protecting butterflies, but Breed said that for many species, "Habitat protection will not mitigate the impacts of warming."

The Butterfly Club is a citizen scientist group that for the last 19 years has logged butterfly species and numbers during 20,000 expeditions through Massachusetts. "Their records fill a crucial gap in the scientific record," Whitty reports. "Butterflies are turning out to be the canaries in the coal mine of climate warming." (Read more)