I absolutely love our print edition—but I am often frustrated by its limitations.
In an ideal world, each issue would be about 50 percent larger. We’d be able to run more stories (that can already be found on our website), and we could better supplement our articles with more photos and illustrations.
But, alas, that’s just not possible. Printing and distributing these newspapers costs more than it ever has—about 35 percent more than it did at the start of 2022—and there’s not enough money coming in to afford 48 or 56 pages (except for very rare occasions). Heck, there’s barely enough to pay for the 32 or 40 pages and 16,000 copies we’re doing now.
As we put together our April issue, I was especially frustrated, as there’s a pretty significant news story that we didn’t have the space to run (in part because it’s 4,600 words long)—so instead, I’ll mention it here, and point you to it here.
The piece, by Kevin Fitzgerald, tells the story of former Riverside County Sheriff’s Lt. Sam Flores. He has been indicted—with colleagues Sgt. Robert Christolon and Deputy Kevin Carpenter, and Cody Close, the owner of a towing company—on charges including bribery, conspiracy to commit a crime and unlawful computer-network access.
As staff writer Kevin Fitzgerald writes: “Flores has been vilified, terminated and driven toward financial ruin—and he claims that not only is he wrongly accused; he says he is being framed.”
For the piece, Kevin talked extensively to Flores, his legal team, and honorably retired RCSD Capt. John Morin—who backs up Flores’ claim. The story is too complex to properly summarize in the space we have here, but trust me, it’s worth a read.
As of this writing, Flores’ criminal trial was scheduled to begin any day now, so we’ll know more about this story very soon. We’ll definitely be providing updates at CVIndependent.com … and hopefully in print, too.
As for the April print edition, there’s all sorts of great journalism—including Matt King’s preview coverage of those music festivals happening in Indio. He interviewed eight Coachella artists and one Stagecoach band; you can find all of that in the issue, and in the coming days here at CVIndependent.com.
In our news section, you’ll find stories about the contentious Palm Desert city-election redistricting process; the epidemic of isolation and loneliness among Coachella Valley seniors; and Maria Sestito’s piece explaining how medical residencies are helping with the Coachella Valley’s severe doctor shortage—even though a lot more needs to be done.
I’ve just scratched the surface of what is in the April print edition. Even though we couldn’t fit in everything we wanted, we managed to get a lot of great coverage into these 40 pages.
This is a slightly edited version of the editor’s note for the April 2023 print edition of the Coachella Valley Independent.