The Independent Turns 10; R.I.P., Leslie Jordan–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Oct. 24, 2022

Indy Digest: Oct. 24, 2022

On Oct. 25, 2012, I posted four pieces on a new website I was building. One was a brief on a band playing at The Show at Agua Caliente. Another was Bob Grimm’s review of Paranormal Activity 4. There was a brief about an art walk on El Paseo, and a short piece I’d written about interviewing journalism-intern candidates.

With the hubby’s help, we’d just soft-launched a website we were in the process of building, using Joomla and an inexpensive newspaper template we’d purchased. I posted those pieces for testing purposes more than anything—but we wanted to make sure it was real content in case someone, somehow, stumbled across CVIndependent.com.

With that, the Coachella Valley Independent was born.

Part of me can’t believe that a decade has passed since those first four posts. For any business, let alone a startup newspaper in this century, 10 years is a long time—and that part of me is kind of shocked the Independent survived all those years, to be honest with you.

At several points in time, we almost didn’t survive. I’ll never forget several trips to the Independent’s mailbox where I was silently praying that enough checks would be there for me to make payroll or pay the print bill. There was the time when our bank, out of the blue, called due a $25,000 line of credit we’d used up. Then, of course, there was March 2020, when 80 percent of our advertising went away overnight, and I turned off our events calendar, because there were no events.

Another part of me can definitely believe it’s been 10 years, because so much has happened, both with this newspaper and in the world, since Oct. 25, 2012—deaths, awards, triumphs, scares, you name it.

Tomorrow night, a couple friends will join Garrett and me at a restaurant (a loyal advertiser, of course) to toast the Independent’s first 10 years. And then Wednesday morning, we’ll get to work on the next 10.

Thank you to everyone out there who’s read us, who’s advertised with us, who’s supported us, who’s shared a story we’ve done, and so on. You’re why we’ve survived and, at times, thrived since Oct. 25, 2012.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• The state released student test results for the first time since the pandemic arrived—and, as our partners at CalMatters point out, the news was pretty bad: “California’s Education Department today released student test scores showing a statewide decline that nearly wiped out the academic progress made since the state overhauled how it funds education in 2014. The gist of the scores, the most extensive measure so far of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on student achievement: The percentage of California students meeting state math standards plummeted 7 percentage points to 33%, and the percentage meeting English language standards dropped 4 percentage points, to 47%. Some scores for students of color and those from low-income households dropped less dramatically than their counterparts, an indication that the state’s funding formula, which sends more money to high-needs districts, worked to soften the blow of two years of disrupted learning.”

• The piece also includes an interactive search where you can see the test scores for every school and school district in the state. The Coachella Valley’s school districts were down across the board. See CalMatters’ charts below, showing the percentage of students that met or exceeded the standard in 2022 (top line) and 2019 (bottom line).

• The latest Palm Springs wastewater test results for SARS-CoV-2 levels are somewhat concerning. The report states: “The average number of copies (per liter) recorded at the city’s wastewater treatment plant increased. The average of 210,433 copies/L from the previous week went up to an average of 390,081 copies/L for October 17 and 18.” It’s worth noting that the Oct. 17 reading was significantly higher (587,264) than the Oct. 18 reading (192,898), so fingers crossed the Oct. 17 reading was a fluke.

• Related is this disconcerting Time magazine headline: “Our Third COVID Winter Is Coming. America Isn’t Ready.” Authors Martha Lincoln and Nate Holdren write: “With the experience of last year’s record-breaking Omicron wave, American leaders should now—at least, in theory—be very well equipped to deal with what’s ahead. Health agencies should be preparing clear, actionable messages on COVID measures for the holiday season. Masks, COVID tests, and treatments should be plentiful and accessible to all Americans. And indoor air quality should be improved by upgraded ventilation in schools, workplaces, and other public settings. Yet these essential steps are not in place. The CDC has issued no updated guidelines to the public. Though new bivalent boosters are available, uptake so far has been shockingly low. Even more seriously, recent federal funding cuts have ended programs providing free COVID tests, vaccines, and treatments—all crucial for protecting American communities and, particularly, vulnerable groups. Because of these cuts, COVID testing labs and manufacturers are reducing their operations. In mid-October, with little warning, the CDC announced the end of its program providing free N95 masks to the public.”

• Election polls in recent years have been, well, off. Will this year be any different? A professor of communications studies, writing for The Conversation, is not convinced it will be: “Polling is neither easy nor cheap if done well, and the field’s persistent troubles have even prompted the question whether election surveys are worth the bother. Monmouth (Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick) Murray spoke to that sentiment, stating: ‘If we cannot be certain that these polling misses are anomalies then we have a responsibility to consider whether releasing horse race numbers in close proximity to an election is making a positive or negative contribution to the political discourse.’ He noted that prominent survey organizations such as Pew Research and Gallup quit election polls several years ago to focus on issue-oriented survey research. ‘Perhaps,’ Murray wrote, ‘that is a wise move.’”

• If you’re confused about the way in which a prime minister is selected in Great Britain, The Associated Press offers up this handy explainer. A taste: “While the opposition Labour Party is demanding an election, the governing Conservatives have just chosen another leader from within their own ranks—Rishi Sunak, the third prime minister since September. They have the right to do so because of the way Britain’s parliamentary democracy works. Britain is divided into 650 local constituencies, and during an election voters tick a box for the representative they want to become their local member of Parliament. In most cases, this will be a member of one of the country’s major political parties: the Conservatives, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. The party that wins the majority of seats in the House of Commons gets to form a government, and that party’s leader automatically becomes the prime minister. While coalitions are possible, Britain’s voting system favors the two largest parties—the Conservatives or Labour. In most cases a single party will take an absolute majority of seats, as is the case for the Conservatives in the current Parliament.”

• And finally … Leslie Jordan, the actor and comedian who was a regular face in Palm Springs, died this morning at the age of 67. The outpouring of sadness about his sudden death on social media shows how beloved Jordan was. Here’s the Los Angeles Times’ article (which contains links to other pieces from the paper about Jordan). One of those other pieces discusses the fact that Jordan had recently mentioned on Instagram that he just bought a condo: “In the reel, the ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘American Horror Story’ star spun along with the camera around the empty condo, showing a balcony view of several units behind it, while singing the theme to ‘The Jeffersons’ sitcom in his signature Southern drawl. ’Movin’ on up to the East Side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Movin’ on up, to the East Side, we finally got a piece of the pie,’ Jordan sang. … Weeks later, when he was practicing a tap-dance number, Jordan quipped that he would ‘hate to be the people living below me in my new condo building.’” Life is precious, folks. Make the most of it.

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