Schools in many states still use corporal punishment; state-by-state numbers are available

It's still not uncommon for school officials, especially in the South, to get out the paddle and discipline a student with corporal punishment. The practice is legal in 19 states, almost all of them states with large rural populations, according to the Center for Effective Discipline, a nonprofit based in Columbus, Ohio, that provides educational information on corporal punishment and alternatives to its use, Alyssa Morones reports for Education Week.

In 2006, the last year data was available from a survey by the U.S. Department of Education, 223,190 school children were subjected to physical punishment, most of them boys, and a high percentage African American. Overall, 119,339 were white and 79,613 were black. In many if not most of the 19 states, individual districts have adopted policies against corporal punishment; for example, 99 districts in North Carolina don't use it. (Center for Effective Discipline graphic)

The 2006 survey looked at 60,000 schools, finding that 35.6 percent of the students paddled were African American but only 17.1 of students in the survey were, Morones writes. Overall, 78.3 percent of the punishments involved boys. The U.S. Supreme Court has left the decision about corporal punishment up to states, and the number that allow paddling has continually decreased, down from 22 in 2004. "North Carolina schools used corporal punishment 891 times during the 2010-11 school year, according to Action for Children North Carolina. By the following school year, that number was down to 404."

During the 2005-06 school year, according to the Center for Effective Discipline, 7.5 percent of students in Mississippi, 38,124, were paddled. In Alabama, it was 34,097, or 4.6 percent. The next closest state, Arkansas, had 22,575, or 4.7 percent. The only state where practice was legal but no paddlings were reported was Wyoming. Information from each state is here.

While many districts are shying away from the practice, Marion County, in Central Florida near the Gulf coast, recently reinstated it. "The code now allows corporal punishment, administered with a paddle, to be used, though only at the elementary level and only for a 'level two' offense, such as hitting or hurting another child or other aggressive behavior like throwing a desk," Morones writes. "Parents also can opt their children out of the punishment and are called before it is administered." Carol Ely, a school board member who voted in favor of corporal punishment, told Morones, "When students receive out-of-school suspension, they miss out on instruction time, and the teacher is not obligated in any way to help that student catch up. In elementary school, that's like a vacation. That's not a punishment." (Read more)

Fracking-driven energy boom means oil and gas wells are becoming the norm in some neighborhoods

The oil and gas boom from horizontal hydraulic fracturing has led to more and more wells popping up in neighborhoods, which means extra money for landowners, but also eyesores, loud noises, and increased vehicular traffic for neighbors, Russell Gold and Tom McGinty report for The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper "analyzed well location and census data for more than 700 counties in 11 major energy-producing states. At least 15.3 million Americans lived within a mile of a well that has been drilled since 2000. That is more people than live in Michigan or New York City."

In some areas, such as Johnson County, Texas, just south of Fort Worth, the energy boom has really taken off. In 2000, the county had 18 oil and gas wells; today there are 3,914, and 99.5 percent of the 150,000 residents live within a mile of a well, Gold and McGinty write. Much the same has happened in North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Colorado. Mountrail County, N.D., has gone from 460 wells in 2000 to 1,808 today. Bradford County, Pa., has gone from 17 wells to 752, and Weld County, Colo., Westmoreland County, Pa. and McMullen County, Tex., have also seen big increases. (WSJ graphic)

"Nationwide some 23 counties, with more than four million residents, each had more than three new wells per square mile, according to the 2010 Census and well-location information from DrillingInfo, a data provider to the oil industry," Gold and McGinty write. "But the energy isn't coming from a small number of immense wells in some distant oil field. It is coming from hundreds of thousands of small wells that now blanket entire counties. Nationwide, the drilling shows little sign of letting up. There are more than five wells, on average, per square mile of Johnson County. In Pennsylvania, home to the Marcellus Shale, the average is a little less than one well per square mile. Parts of the commonwealth, including counties near Pittsburgh, have more than four per square mile." (Read more)

Bipartisan group starts planning effort to boost economy of hard-hit Appalachian Kentucky

By Al Cross
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

Eastern Kentucky's Republican congressman and the state's Democratic governor announced Monday they are starting an effort to stimulate the economy of Appalachian Kentucky, which includes some of the nation's poorest counties.

Appalachian Regional Commission map
shows distressed counties in red.

Gov. Steve Beshear and Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers announced in Hazard that they had hired the Rural Policy Research Institute to coordinate a strategic planning process that will go public Dec. 9 in Pikeville, with a "summit" that they hope will attract hundreds of people from Eastern and Southern Kentucky, the regions with almost all of the state's Appalachian counties.

The impetus for the effort is the recent loss of 6,000 jobs in East Kentucky's coal industry, which has dominated the region for a century but is suffering from depletion of easily mined coal, competition with natural gas, and new environmental regulations.

"With the difficulties in the coal industry . . . a lot of people are saying there's no hope for Appalachia," said Rogers, chair of the House Appropriations Committee. "They're saying the region's best days are over. Well, I say, hogwash." He said the region must "think outside the box." Only about half of Kentucky's Appalachian counties produce coal; Rogers once represented many of the non-coal Southern Kentucky counties and still looks after them in his powerful post.

Beshear said the region needs new strategies partly because "How we produce and consume energy is shifting, and the availability of government money has been sharply curtailed." However, the effort is being helped by the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Rural Development branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The effort has been dubbed Shaping our Appalachian Region, with a logo showing an eagle soaring. Beshear said it began with a planning team of three dozen regional leaders, primarily from the private sector, including coal operator Jim Booth, this year's Kentucky Chamber of Commerce chairman. Booth said his company has survived by diversifying beyond coal, and the region needs to do likewise.

Front row: Booth, Stumbo, Beshear, Rogers

"This is the beginning of a process," Beshear said of the Dec. 9 summit. "It's not a one-time event designed to produce a magic formula, because there are no magic formulas. . . . what will come of this, to be honest with you, we're not sure. . . . To be successful, the people of Appalachia, the people of Appalachia, must step up and take ownership and responsibility for their own future." (The registration page for the summit is here.)

Rogers agreed, saying, "The solution to our problem must come from within. . . . It cannot come from Washington or Frankfort or your county seat. It's got to come from us the people, we the people." He said the region must commit to innovation and technology. State legislative leaders from the region agreed.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, a Democrat from Prestonsburg, said, "The target has to be a better trained, better educated workforce here in the mountains." Senate President Robert Stivers, a Republican from Manchester, said he could not "tell you we will succeed, but if we do not try, we will be doomed to failure in Eastern Kentucky."

Chuck Fluharty, CEO of the Rural Policy Research Institute, said "I have never begun to work with a region in deeper need of very serious assessment for its future," but "I've never started with a region that has greater commitment to its purpose and greater political leadership."

UPDATE, Nov. 4: This effort and one to increase tourism in the region will depend largely on the efforts of people in individual communities, Al Cross, director of the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog, writes in his fortnightly column for The Courier-Journal of Louisville.

Maine has statewide program for emergency workers to train residents about preventive health care

Maine's emergency workers are using time between emergency calls to educate state residents about health and preventative health care "as part of a statewide effort to reduce hospital and doctor visits for emergencies," Kaitlin Schroeder reports for the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, 56 miles southwest of Bangor. "The NorthStar Ambulance house call program, which will start next month, is part of a state initiative to redefine paramedics and emergency medical technicians as not only emergency responders but also medical emergency preventers." The program is one of nine state pilot programs, and expenses for most programs will only consist of fuel for travel. (Daily Bulldog photo)

Maine, which has the highest percentage of rural population in the country, "has been developing the project for the past decade to use the long waiting periods that rural emergency service workers sometimes sit through while waiting for a call," according to Jay Bradshaw, director of Maine Emergency Medical Services, Schroeder writes. Bradshaw told Schroeder, “In some places they might get a call or two a day, but there still needs to be paramedics there 24 hours a day.” While other states have similar programs, "Bradshaw said Maine will be the first state to have not just individual paramedic projects, but a coordinated state effort." Schroeder writes.

"The workers also will help patients list and compare all the medicines they are taking and make sure the combination won’t cause unwanted reactions from mixing prescription drugs," Schroeder writes. "The paramedics will offer other services such as checking vital signs, wound care, hypertension monitoring, diabetes management, ear and nose complaints, flu vaccinations and potential fall assessments. Primary-care doctors will refer patients to the program. Those patients generally will be people who are newly released from the hospital, have had a recent surgery, have multiple chronic conditions or live in a home where safety is a concern." (Read more)

Amtrak's long-distance routes are in jeopardy, threatening loss of service to many rural areas

Interstates with speed limits that keep inching higher, and airplanes that keep getting faster, have made long-distance trains a novelty for most Americans, who don't have the time or interest to travel long distances at a slower pace. As a result, Amtrak, the federally sponsored corporation that has received more than $40 billion in taxpayer money over than 40 years, is struggling to stay afloat, with its long-distance routes losing a combined $600 million in 2012. That's a fact that has not gone unnoticed by House Republicans, who have repeatedly tried to stop giving the company subsidies, "which would basically pull the plug on the long-distance trains," Curtis Tate reports for McClatchy Newspapers. (Wikipedia photo)

But there's more at stake than long-distance routes. Stopping federal money could put an end to daily stops in rural towns that rely heavily on trains, Tate writes. "Passenger trains have been stopping in Hutchinson, Kan., since the early 1870s. But the agricultural center of 42,000 is in danger of losing the one that still stops there every day." One route at question is the Southwest Chief, "which clicks off 2,265 miles between Chicago and Los Angeles. With the exception of Kansas City, Mo., Topeka, Kan., and Albuquerque, N.M., the backdrop is mostly prairie, mountains and desert. But the train also serves dozens of small towns, including several in western Kansas."

To view all routes, number of riders, and costs and earnings of each route, click here or here. Travels and Trains and Other Things map (click it for larger version) shows long-distance routes; the most heavily subsidized are the Cardinal, which runs through Cincinnati, and the Sunset Limited, which runs through Houston)

"The train travels a historic route across western Kansas that needs millions of dollars in repairs," Tate writes. "BNSF Railway, one of North America’s largest freight rail companies, owns the line but uses it sparingly. If Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico can’t come up with roughly $100 million in the next few years, the train will have to find another track." Other state are also facing big costs to keep the lines running through their states.

Many towns have already lost Amtrak service, and many more are in danger or losing it, because states are being asked to take on costs, Tate writes. Earlier this month, "Indiana became the last of 18 states to agree to pick up most of the cost to operate trains on routes of 750 miles or fewer, as required by a law Congress passed in 2008. The states consider those routes essential transportation service, from heavily Democratic California to Republican-dominated North Carolina. But states are increasingly taking on infrastructure costs they once counted on Washington to cover, whether it’s funding for highway construction or port improvements. They might not have much more room in their budgets." (Read more)

Mississippi pastor bans fried chicken at church, promotes Obamacare in a state hostile to it

The Rev. Michael Minor, pastor of Oak Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Hernando, Miss., started encouraging his community to be healthy when he banned friend chicken at pot-luck dinners and installed a walking track around the church. Now he's volunteered for a much more daunting undertaking: trying to get "the state's nearly 275,000 uninsured people to sign up for health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act," Julie Steenhuysen reports for Reuters.

When Minor became Oak Hill's pastor in 1996, he found that many in the community were obese, and people were dying young as a result. Since he took action, people have become healthier. "You can see the difference," Minor told Steenhuysen. "People are much better sized, way better. And once they get it off, they want to keep it off."

Minor and his church are one of two organizations that received a federal "navigator" grant challenge with the task of helping people sign up for coverage under Obamacare. "That man is essentially heading up outreach enrollment of the ACA for Mississippi. It's staggering," Roy Mitchell, executive director of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, told Steenhuysen.

People like Minor will be key in determining whether the law will succeed or fail, Steenhuysen writes, citing a 2012 study about the health of the states revealed that Mississippi is tied for last with Louisiana and suffers from high rates of obesity and diabetes. Minor said, "I'm a firm believer that people are limited because someone tells them they are limited. I tell my members we can do whatever we want to do. Let's just go for it."

Republican-led Mississippi has one of the governments most opposed to Obamacare. It refused federal funds for an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor, and it was left to use the faulty federal exchange when Washington rejected its application for a state-based exchange, Steenhuysen reports.

Free workshop on covering local elections to be held at Missouri School of Journalism Jan. 30 to Feb. 1

"Down Home Democracy," a free workshop Jan. 30 to Feb. 1 at the University of Missouri, is designed to encourage journalists from newspapers with circulation of 50,000 or less "to embrace elections as critically important news events and to give them the practical tools and strategies they need to cover campaigns thoroughly and constructively," says the sponsor, the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Helping voters make informed decisions in elections is one of the most important jobs a journalist can do; elections for city and town councils, boards of aldermen, county commissions, school boards and local ballot issues probably have more influence on readers’ lives than state and federal elections, the Reynolds Institute says: "Yet, too often, newspapers lack the insight it takes to truly cover municipal elections well, or they fail to invest adequate resources toward reporting on local campaigns."

Registration is free, but required. For a schedule of sessions, click here. Speakers will include Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (publisher of The Rural Blog) and political columnist and former political writer for The Courier-Journal in Louisville; Chad Day, investigative projects editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Mark Horvit, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors; Jim Pumarlo of Community Newspaper Success Strategies in Red Wing, Minn., former editor of the Red Wing Republican Eagle and author of Votes and Quotes: A Guide to Outstanding Election Campaign Coverage.
For speaker biographies, go here.

The institute offers some arguments to use to justify your attendance:

It’s a workshop, not a conference. Participants will be equipped with practical strategies, tools, skills and tip sheets that will allow them to take their reporting on local elections to new levels.

Helping voters make informed decisions is one of the best ways journalists can contribute to local democracy. This workshop is targeted at community newspapers and websites, and it features a slate of expert speakers with extensive experience working for them.

Strong election coverage can be profitable. Newspapers and websites that establish themselves as go-to sources of election information put themselves in strong position to compete with other media for campaigns’ advertising dollars.

The workshop is free.

Alabama paper, university students to compile cases of denied open-records requests in state

Here's a good idea: Collect information about officials' denials of requests for government records in a state, then compile them in a way that will give journalists and other citizens a clearer understanding of the law and how it's being used and abused. That's what The Anniston Star and students at the University of Alabama plan to do. For details, see Page 3 of the October issue of AlaPressa, the newsletter of the Alabama Press Association.

The project follows on the heels of one in which students in the university's master's degree program in community journalism "collected and analyzed more than 1,000 pages of documents detailing spending on 2012 political ads from five television stations in the Birmingham market and published a special report on their findings," the Star reported this summer. The newspaper has a continuing relationship with the degree program.

Mine-safety agency targets three habitual violators for stricter scrutiny, may pick more

UPDATE, Nov. 26: Coal River Mining LLC's Fork Creek No. 1 mine in Lincoln County, West Virginia, was added to the list for failing to report a series of worker injuries, MSHA says.

Two underground coal mines in West Virginia and one in Kentucky will come under stricter scrutiny because they have a pattern of violating health and safety laws, the Mine Safety and Health Administration announced Friday. More may be added, MSHA said.

The mines targeted are Tram Energy’s No. 1 in Floyd County, Kentucky; Brody Mining’s No. 1 in Boone County, W.Va.; and Pocahontas Coal Co.’s Affinity Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va. "The agency is still reviewing the injury records of several mines to determine if they should be considered for a POV notice based on this screening," MSHA said in a news release.

Federal law has long allowed MSHA to target repeat violators, but agency policy required "disagreements with companies over violations and fines to be resolved before the agency can take such matters into account," Manuel Quiñones of Environment & Energy News notes. That policy has been changed.

The Tram mine, which started production last year, received 120 "serious and substantial" violation notices and 40 closure orders from MSHA during the period that the agency reviewed to find patterns of violation. No mine received more closure orders, and Tram has racked up about $169,000 in unpaid penalties.

Okla. geologists issue warning about earthquakes, but the state's news media seem to ignore it

"Federal and Oklahoma authorities are warning that people in and around Oklahoma City are at much greater risk from earthquakes than they were four years ago, possibly because of oil and gas drilling-related activities," Mike Soraghan of EnergyWire reports.

"These don't look like normal earthquake sequences," seismologist Bill Leith, senior science adviser for earthquake and geologic hazards at the U.S. Geological Survey, told Soraghan. (USGS seismic hazard map of Oklahoma; click on image for larger version)

The Oklahoma Geological Survey joined USGS in issuing an "earthquake swarm" warning this week, which Soraghan calls "the closest any state official has come to saying earthquakes have been 'induced' by deep injection of wastewater from drilling," a major industry in the state. The agencies said "disposal" wells could be a contributing factor.

"If the idea was to get the word out in Oklahoma, it does not appear to have worked," Soraghan writes. "A search did not show that the statement was covered by general-circulation newspapers in Oklahoma or the state's television news outlets."

Injection wells have become more common with the advent of horizontal hydraulic fracturing, which uses high volumes of chemically-laced water that requires deep disposal. "More than 200 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or larger have rattled central Oklahoma since 2009, according to USGS," Soraghan reports. "That's about 40 a year. Before that, there were usually one to three a year." (Read more)

Some Nov. 5 elections could have major rural impact

Election Day, Nov. 5, will not be a busy one in the U.S., but some rural Americans have a chance to vote on major issues affecting them. Lou Jacobson of Governing magazine included some in his guide to state and local elections on Nov. 5, and we have others.

Texans can vote on Proposition 6, which would create funds for water projects in the state, which has been hard hit by recent droughts. In an editorial, The Dallas Morning News writes: "Texans can stand pat, wait and hope we have enough water to survive the next killer drought and the one after that. Or we Texans can get ahead of these conditions and provide the supplies the state will need alongside a fast-growing population." The proposition "would ratify the decision legislators made during their 2013 session to use $2 billion from the state’s rainy-day fund, put that money in a new water-funding bank, and use the investment to help communities finance their projects." (Read more) (DMN photo: Drought- dried lake in Texas)

Colorado voters have two important issues. Amendment 66, backed by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, "asks for nearly $1 billion in tax increases to support school reform and changes in how the state distributes money to school districts," Jacobson writes. "The money would support early-childhood education, at-risk students, English-language learners, charter schools and locally determined innovations such as longer school days and years." Also in Colorado, residents from 11 rural counties will vote whether or not they want to secede, in response to state legislators passing laws that are unpopular in rural areas, requiring background checks for private gun sales and a certain amount of renewable energy in the portfolio of rural electric cooperatives, now dependent on relatively cheap coal. The referendum would not be binding. (Wall Street Journal map)

The Whatcom County Council in northwest Washington state is having an election, with two incumbents and two challengers seeking seats. This rural election could have major implications on the coal industry. The council will vote on permits that would allow construction of a proposed $600 million port in Bellingham that would ship 48 million tons of coal per year to Asia from Wyoming and Montana, enough to power between 15 to 20 power plants. Environmentalists oppose the permits, which the coal industry desperately wants, needing exports to make up for its loss of domestic market share to natural gas.

In another election, the Detroit suburb of Novi will let voters decide whether it will put official notices on its website instead of the local newspaper, stirring fears among community papers that other governments will do likewise and increase momentum for the state legislature to follow suit. Such battles are being fought in several legislatures.

FDA recommends tighter rules on hydrocodone, key element of prescription-pill abuse epidemic

"The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday recommended tighter controls on how doctors prescribe the most commonly used narcotic painkillers, changes that are expected to take place as early as next year," Barry Meier reports for The New York Times. "Drugs at issue contain a combination of hydrocodone and an over-the-counter painkiller like acetaminophen or aspirin and are sold either as generics or under brand names like Vicodin or Lortab." (Associated Press photo by Toby Talbot)

"Doctors use the medications to treat pain from injuries, arthritis, dental extractions and other problems," Meier writes. "The change would reduce the number of refills patients could get before going back to see their doctor. Patients would also be required to take a prescription to a pharmacy, rather than have a doctor call it in. The new regulations would reduce by half, to 90 days, the supply of the drug a patient could obtain without a new prescription."

In 2011, about 131 million prescriptions for 47 million patients, or about five billion pills, were written for medications containing hydrocdone, Meier writes. "Prescription drugs account for about three-quarters of all drug overdose deaths in the United States, with the number of deaths from narcotic painkillers, or opioids, quadrupling since 1999, according to federal data." (Read more)

More than 6.1 million Americans abuse prescription pills, and last year there were 22,133 prescription drug deaths. The problem is most rampant in Central Appalachia, especially West Virginia, which leads the country in overdose deaths from prescription drug abuse with 28.9 deaths per every 100,000 people—a 605 percent increase since 1999. A pair of documentaries were recently released depicting prescription drug abuse in West Virginia.

UPDATE, Oct. 28: "The story behind the FDA’s turnaround . . . involved a rare victory by lawmakers from states hard hit by prescription drug abuse over well-financed lobbyists for business and patient groups, one that came during a continuing public health crisis," Meier and Eric Lipton report for the Times. Cited are Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, whose district borders West Virginia. (Read more)

Researchers in Spain say genetically modified tobacco could be used to produce biofuels

Researchers in Spain believe genetically modified tobacco plants could be used as raw material for producing biofuels, Salon reports. Ruth Sanz-Barrio, an agricultural engineer at the Public University of Navarre, said tobacco proteins called thioredoxins are biotechnological tools that can be used to make plants better producers of biofuels. Sanz-Barrio said she has increased the amount of starch produced in the tobacco leaves by 700 percent and fermentable sugars by 500 percent.

“With these sugars, according to the theoretical calculation provided by the National Centre for Renewable Energies, one could obtain up to 40 litres of bioethanol per tonnes of fresh leaves.”Sanz-Barrio told reporters. “We believe these genetically modified plants could be a good alternative for producing biofuels.” Tobacco is among the plants that is easiest to modify genetically. (Read more)

Journalist doing podcasts with people who share positive views of rural America; seeks guests

Journalist Becky McCray of Small Biz Survival has started what she hopes will be a regular podcast segment entitled "Positive View of Rural." Her first effort is with Luther Snow, who "shares his work with North Slope Alaska villages, and how what he found could apply to most any rural area," she writes. Three more podcasts have  been recorded, but McCray is looking for suggestions for future shows. She reports that her three recorded subjects are: "Mike Knutson, an experienced rural leader now working in rural housing; Scott Meyer, a young startup guy with such a soft spot for rural that his blog is called Digital Homesteading; Caleb Pollard, a rural leader turned brewer with a strong sense of creating a legacy." To hear the podcast with Snow, read more, or contact McCray, click here.

Worldwide campaign promotes U.S.; states like Louisiana reporting record tourism dollars

Buses driving around London advertise vacations to the Louisiana bayou, while shoppers in stores can see videos of what it's like on the beaches of South Carolina. It's all part of a U.S. tourism campaign by a company called Brand USA, "a nonprofit, public-private partnership created by legislation President Barack Obama signed in 2010" to promote all 50 states to world travelers, Pamela Prah reports for Stateline. "The program is funded by the private sector, mostly the tourism-related industry, with matching federal funds of up to $100 million a year from a $10 fee that international travelers pay when they visit the U.S. Last year, the first full year of operation, Brand USA received $60 million in private-sector funding. That more than doubled to $130 million this year." (Brand USA photo)

One of the first states to work with Brand USA was Louisiana, which reports shatter tourism records, with 26.3 million visitors in 2012 resulting in $10.7 billion, and $665 million in state tax revenue generated through domestic and international visitors. That represents a more than 26-to-1 return on investment of state funding, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne said in a news release. The state has created promotional videos in German, French and Spanish for the company's website, Prah reports.

The website Discover America has links to each state, promoting tourist attractions, state facts, outdoor adventures, the state's history, and fun suggestions for travelers, such as ordering grits and saying y'all in Alabama, where to get the best desserts in Nebraska, and to order a Moxie soda in Maine.

Lack of insurance providers and hospitals in rural areas lead to higher premiums under Obamacare

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was designed to make it easier for uninsured Americans to buy insurance at an affordable rate. But the exact opposite is happening in rural areas, where a lack of insurance providers has eliminated competition between insurance companies, leading to higher prices, Reed Abelson, Katie Thomas and Jo Craven McGinty report for The New York Times. In the roughly 2,500 rural counties served by the federal exchange, 58 percent have plans offered by only one or two providers, and people in 530 counties only have one choice for a provider. A state-by-state interactive map is available by clicking here.

"In rural regions, several factors combine to create a landscape that is inhospitable to newcomers," the Times writes. "Developing relationships with doctors and hospitals can be costly where cities and towns are widely scattered and the pool of potential customers is small." States such as Wyoming, with a population of 600,000, are in a difficult situation. Tom Hirsig, Wyoming’s insurance commissioner, told the Times, “I think the problem was that the Affordable Care Act was designed for where the majority of the people live, in the big cities where there’s a lot of competition among health care providers. You’ve got to have some bargaining chips, and we don’t have that much."

Many rural areas only have one hospital, "giving insurers little leverage when negotiating reimbursement rates," the Times writes. "Only one Wyoming county is served by more than one hospital, said Stephen K. Goldstone, the chief executive of WINHealth. In southwest Georgia, another rural region, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia is the dominant carrier, and it is the only insurer operating in 54 of the state’s 159 counties. Only one carrier, Highmark Blue Cross, is offering coverage in West Virginia, which has high rates of obesity and chronic diseases like diabetes." (Read more; NYT chart shows states on federal exchange)

As misinformation abounds, journalists at all levels need to offer facts and references on health law

By Al Cross, Director
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

The need for journalists at all levels to report the facts on health reform was freshly illustrated this week in a column by Washington Post writer Dana Milbank, in which he said bad information "is perhaps the biggest problem facing Obamacare."

"Because of all the noise and disinformation, President Obama and the Democrats don’t just own Obamacare as a political issue. They own health care," Milbank writes. "Anytime something bad happens — premiums rise, or employers change plans or pare coverage — Obamacare will be blamed, even if the new law had nothing to do with the change."

For example, opponents of the law blame it for rising insurance premiums. That's true in cases where people had bought cheap policies that didn't cover much, because the law requires policies to cover 10 specific areas of service. But "Premiums were up about 4 percent last year, a much slower growth rate than the average annual increase of 13.2 percent between 1999 and 2008, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation," Milbank writes. "But it’s easy to blame Obamacare for something that would have happened anyway."

We also hear of businesses dropping health coverage for their employees, but Obamacare isn't the only reason. "Long before Obamacare, as many as a quarter of all businesses each year made reductions in health-care coverage," Milbank writes. "The only difference is now businesses can blame Obamacare."

Sean Hannity of Fox News added to the misinformation by interviewing a North Carolina contractor who claimed that "he would have to provide health insurance to anybody working more than 30 hours a week," Milbank reports. "Salon’s Eric Stern called Cox, and he found that Cox’s business has only four employees — and therefore is not affected by the new requirement, which applies to businesses with 50 or more workers."

Obamacare's opponents call it "a job killer" because of the 30-hour rule, and point to "statistics showing the bulk of recent hiring has been for part-time jobs," Milbank writes. "In reality, according to an analysis by Moody’s, factors other than Obamacare were at work (most of the new jobs were in industries that always use more part-time workers). But the new law gets the blame." (Read more)

Such misinformation was the target of an editorial in The Sentinel-News, a twice-weekly newspaper in Shelbyville, Ky. It said "Misinformation and carefully constructed lies" abound, and many people have "fallen victim" to exaggerated individual experiences posted on social media and "even worse, the acceptance and delivery of similar items by otherwise responsible broadcast news outlets."

The editorial called on readers to find out the facts for themselves, and directed them to local sources of information. That's a message that would be worth repeating by every newspaper in the country, and worth the investment of some reporting time. That's especially true in rural areas, where people are more likely to be uninsured and benefit from the law.

D.C. and urban America are disconnected from the Farm Bill, which is more important than they know

David Rogers

"Farm Bill gets no respect," reads the Politico headline over a story by David Rogers, a veteran congressional reporter who is clearly taken aback at how an ever-urbanizing America fails to appreciate the importance of the legislation that guides production of its food, secures the nutrition of the poor and helps rural America keep up with the rest of the country.

"As quickly as the president mentioned the Farm Bill recently, Washington’s pundits dissed him for elevating something deemed unworthy," Rogers writes. "Maureen Dowd looked down her nose in Sunday’s New York Times. The scene at Fox News was almost comical. Brit Hume heaved one of his damning sighs. AP’s Julie Pace wrote off passing a farm bill as 'fairly easy' work. George Will said it’s all about welfare."

Rogers asks, "How did the nation’s capital become so disconnected from a farm and food debate that touches so much of America itself? A farm bill is about more than corn and cotton futures. Beyond the nation’s vast croplands, it impacts the federal forests and millions of acres of prairie lands held in conservation. It is perhaps the single most important piece of legislation that addresses rural economic development. Its trade and food aid titles are a reminder of how important America’s agricultural power can be overseas. Even the beleaguered honey bee has a stake in new research provisions."

From there, Rogers touches all the main bases: the fight over cuts in food stamps, ending direct payments to producers of commodity crops, new measures for organic and specialty crops, and limits on subsidies: "More of an effort is made to help only producers who have put seed in the ground, put themselves at risk and experienced a loss." Just how that loss is defined is up for debate in the conference committee that starts meeting next week.

Most importantly, perhaps, the hide-bound commodity lobbies are under pressure to show more flexibility themselves," Rogers writes, noting Farm Bureau's backing out of a deal to require conservation practices by people getting crop-insurance subsidies. "Fair or unfair, the disconnect surrounding the Farm Bill is real. And farm-bill advocates admit that new approaches are needed to expand their base of support in Congress." He notes, "

Just 34 House seats are judged more than 50 percent rural, according to Census numbers. Just 77 have a rural population of over 40 percent."

Rogers quotes Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition: “There is a huge interest in all things food-related among the public at large, probably more so than at any time in recent memory. On those local-food and public-health issues, as well as on soil, water, and wildlife conservation, rural jobs and business development, and support for young and beginning farmers …support is strong. Today’s Washington establishment tends to look right past those concerns as somehow unworthy of serious attention. But, to be fair, what they see so often is hard fought and very arcane debates between commodity interests and regions of the country over how best to divvy up subsidies to grain and cotton farmers and dairy producers.”

DirecTV ad pokes fun with Appalachian stereotypes; would any other minority group be so treated?

UPDATE, Oct. 25: DirectTV has pulled the commercial and in a statement wrote: "It certainly was not our intent to offend anyone and we apologize if there were customers that did not like the ad or found it offensive. The commercial ended its broadcast run on Monday and will no longer be airing." (Read more)

Perhaps you've seen the commercial with the dirty, creepy "mountain people" who have a goat in their kitchen and a man tied to a chair. It seems like you might have stumbled into the latest sequel to the film "Wrong Turn," in which inbred hillbillies find new and creative ways to kill city folks who have wandered off the main road. It's actually a commercial for DirecTV, which somehow makes the connection that if you had the company's new voice-control system, you won't end up being murdered by crazies in the mountains because, well, crazy killers don't quite have the listening capacity that DirecTV does.

Patrick Baker

Patrick Baker, an associate professor of law at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va., responds in an op-ed in The Courier-Journal. Baker writes for the Louisville newspaper: "Imagine the social and political backlash against DirecTV if they ran an ad that depicted and preyed upon African-American, Jewish or Native American stereotypes. The media would crucify them as a corporate entity. Mountain folk are the last acceptable bastion for those who would mock and degrade a people based on heritage and culture."

"The people who make their lives in these mountains are earnest, forward-thinking, hard-working individuals worthy of respect and admiration," Baker writes. "I live and work in Appalachia. My family hails from southeastern Kentucky, and I wear my families’ heritage like a badge of honor. By the second decade of the 21st Century, haven’t we learned to celebrate other cultures, viewpoints, ethnicities and diversity? . . . DirecTV’s ad clearly illustrates all that is still wrong in our society, and it should pull the ad and issue a formal apology. Too bad ,DirecTV, the mountain people didn’t do what you wanted: They boycotted your product and decided not to laugh." (Read more)
 

Families in 24 states worse off under child-care aid policies in 2013 than in 2012, advocates say

Families in 24 states were worse off under one or more key child care assistance policies in 2013 than in 2012, according to a report by the National Women’s Law Center. "Many families with incomes too low to afford child care on their own do not qualify for child care assistance because of states’ restrictive income criteria," the report says. "A family with an income above 150 percent of poverty ($29,295 per year for a family of three) could not qualify for assistance in 14 states. A family with an income above 200 percent of poverty ($39,060 per year for a family of three) could not qualify for assistance in 38 states. Approximately half of the states reduced their income limits or kept their income limits the same as a dollar amount, without any adjustment for inflation, between 2012 and 2013." (Read more) To read the full report click here. To view state coverage click here.