A Note From the Editor: Here’s How We’re Different From Other Valley Publications

People who are unfamiliar with the Independent sometimes ask me how we’re different from other valley publications and information websites—and my response is always something to the effect of: “Well, we do journalism. And journalism is hard.”

The Desert Sun, the Palm Springs Post, the TV stations and, in some cases, Palm Springs Life all do journalism. Beyond that, most other local “news” outlets largely run press releases, or simpler stories—and that’s fine. There’s definite value in those press releases and simpler stories.

But we do journalism. And journalism is hard.

To clarify what I am talking about, I’ll refer you to two recent pieces. First is Haleemon Anderson’s piece on the Calexico recall election. While we almost always stick to coverage of the Coachella Valley and nearby high desert, we made an exception in this case, given the locally applicable themes of this important story unfolding just 90 miles from here—including California’s recall system, accusations of bigotry and anti-trans sentiments, and even downtown redevelopment and homelessness.

To pull off this piece, Halee had to do a bunch of research, talk to multiple sources, transcribe a lot of interviews—and then organize all of that into a well-written 2,000-word piece. This is not easy to do; it takes time, skill and expense.

We do journalism. And journalism is hard.

Next is Kevin Fitzgerald’s herculean effort for our first Candidate Q&A this election season, on the seven candidates who ran in the primary to replace Assembly District 36 Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, here’s how our Candidate Q&A series works: We develop a set of three to seven questions for candidates competing for a particular office; we then contact all of the candidates, set up interviews (almost always by phone), ask those questions, and publish the answers—in their entirety, edited only for style and clarity.

You’d think it’d be easy to at least track down and set up interviews with candidates … but that’s not always the case. Yet Kevin managed to do that for all of these candidates (even the one who doesn’t have a campaign website). He then had to do the interviews, transcribe their answers, edit those answers for style/clarity, and research/write the main intro and each candidate-interview intro.

Even though we asked these candidates just three questions, the resulting story was more than 13,000 words long.

Of course, these are just two of our recent stories. All of our coverage is researched, fact-checked, written and edited by our staff and contributors; with a few exceptions, they all required at least one phone interview.

Once Halee, Kevin and our other fantastic writers/reporters finish their work, I dedicate hours to editing, fact-checking, finding/editing photos and presenting/publishing the stories so you, our amazing readers, could properly be informed about these important issues.

How often do we simply copy and paste press releases? We don’t—because that’s not what we do here at the Independent. We do journalism—and journalism is hard.

Note: This is a slightly edited version of the editor’s note that appeared in the March 2024 print edition. Much of this column was originally published online in the Feb. 22 Indy Digest.