Coronavirus in rural America (Part XXXVII): more on the media and California

Plumas County Courthouse, Quincy, 2013
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt

I've already written a lot of posts in this coronavirus era about both California (read more here, here, here, and here) and, separately, about the impact the coronavirus shelter-in-place rules are having on media outlets, mostly due to lost advertising revenue (see more here).  This post is going to bring those two together, in a story by Hailey Branson-Potts of the Los Angeles Times, out of Plumas County, California, population 20,007.  (Oh, and by the way, those 20,000 people live in a county the size of the State of Delaware, and they are divided by the mountains and the flow of the Feather River into four communities or valleys).  The headline is "In rural Northern California, pandemic crushes newspapers that delivered news and warmth during winter cold," and the lede follows:

Eight days after the first case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed in rural Plumas County, something happened that sent shock waves through the small health department trying to keep people updated during the pandemic. 

The publisher of all four of the Northern California county’s newspapers stopped the presses. 

The Plumas County Public Health Agency had relied on them to provide residents with information about COVID-19. 

Branson-Potts quotes Lori Beatly, spokesperson for the county health agency: 

It’s been difficult trying to provide information about the pandemic ... Unfortunately, not having a newspaper makes a difference. 

In this case, after the four Plumas County newspapers stopped publishing, the health agency sent postcards to every county resident "detailing COVID019 symptoms and stay-at-home orders."  Beatly comments: 

It was very expensive and time-consuming.

This illustrates just one more important way that local media outlets matters, including in rural areas.  Among the challenges facing the public health department:  the fact that online notices are not very effective because so many Plumas County residents don't have access to computers or broadband at home.   Plus, the population is especially vulnerable: 28% are elderly, twice the state average.

Main Street, Quincy, February 2013
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2013

Branson-Potts quotes Mike Taborski who, with his wife Keri, runs Feather Publishing, which also published neighboring Lassen County's newspaper.  They now are simply publishing/updating both counties' news websites. 

We’re primarily the only game in town; that just made the decision that much more difficult. It was extremely painful, both for the impact it was going to have on the community, to shutter their only means of getting local, reliable news, and the impact it was going to have on our family of employees.

Branson-Potts also quotes Debra Moore, managing editor of the Plumas County papers:

You get people upset about the content, and you get the people who worry about how they’re going to start their fires.  It’s a big, big deal. We’ve had people come in to stock up in case we don’t start printing again.

The "how they're going to start their fires" apparently refers to this bit of additional context from the LA Times story:

In this region where winter can be brutal, the papers published by family-owned Feather Publishing did more than deliver the news — they literally kept people warm. Sold in bundles, they crackled aflame in wood-burning stoves.

I'm not sure how to feel about that, but I guess if it sells papers and funds journalism, I can live with burning a few newspapers.  Certainly, during the winter months, I use my old Sacramento Bee and New York Times print editions to start fires in my fireplace.

But consider the rural economics of what has just happened in Plumas County--the local economic implications:

With some 75 employees, Feather Publishing is one of Plumas County’s largest employers. The publisher laid off all but two.

That is a stunning data point and one that surprises me. I'd never have anticipated that newspapers serving such a spatially dispersed population across two relatively poor counties would employ 75 people.

In the past decade and a half, 25% of newspapers, 2100 total, have closed.  Many of these have served rural counties and with disproportionately high poverty rates.  Here's some information about national trends re: newspaper closures, including those serving rural areas and those serving poor places.  A quote from Prof. Penny Muse Abernathy of the University of North Carolina follows:

The tragic part about that is these are the very communities that need the kind of information that a local newspaper provides. If you lose your local newspaper, and you’re in a small or mid-sized community, nobody’s showing up at the local school board meeting. Nobody is covering local team sports. Nobody is covering everyday life.

I have written previously of rural newspaper closures.  This post collects media coverage of the phenomenon; this story is about the "near miss" (closure) of the newspaper in Sierra County, California, to the south of Plumas County, and here's the first post of a series I started last summer about what nonmetro newspapers are writing about. 

This blog's prior coverage of Plumas County is here.   This post from last year mentions both Plumas and Lassen County, and it relates to this one, about California's state legislature and assembly representation from that region, which remains persistently Republican.  Indeed, the Republican being discussed in those posts, Brian Dahle, is a seed farmer in northern Lassen County who previously served several terms on that county's Board of Supervisors.  Interestingly, Dahle is now my State Senator, representing what I believe is the state's senate largest district in land area, stretching from Modoc and Siskiyou counties bordering Oregon, through Lassen and Plumas counties, to north Lake Tahoe, to the eastern suburbs of Sacramento where I live.

This post from 2018 also mentions Lassen County, along with a number of other counties now in the news for protesting Governor Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order.

In 2012 and 2013, I spent several weeks off and on in Plumas County with students in a course I created called "Practicum in Rural Community Advocacy."  We were working with Legal Services of Northern California to help educate community members--working with as many stakeholders as we could engage--about early opportunities for enrollment in the Affordable Care Act.  I say "as many stakeholders as we could engage" because after an initial meeting, the Plumas County Health Office stopped returning our phone calls.  They were not interested in collaborating with outsiders.

At that time, I visited all four population centers in the county, including the county seat, Quincy; the only incorporated entity/municipality, Portola; and tertiary communities of Greenville and Chester.  The latter is on Lake Almanor, a site of some rural gentrification--at least it has many homes that are second homes to Californians whose primary residence is elsewhere.  Neighboring Lassen County is the home of several state and federal prisons, and it was the subject of the 2007 documentary "Prison Town USA."

Here's a link to a "Small Business Marketing Grant" program being run by the owners of my hometown newspaper, The Newton County Times, which is one of 10 papers owned by the Phillips Media Group in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.  It's described thusly:

All 10 Phillips Media Group publications are participating in this program, jointly allocating up to $250,000 in matching advertising credits to assist local businesses. Local businesses are an important part of a community’s identity. Whether it is the jobs they create, the uniqueness they add, or the services they provide, they truly are the heartbeat of our towns. As the local leader in news and advertising, we want to be there for you during these uncertain times. Our Local Marketing Grant Program is another way we are looking to strengthen our communities, one business at a time.

I hope it helps small businesses in the region continue to advertise so that the newspapers are able to stay in business.  Will be interesting to see.