We Do Journalism Here; AT&T Has a Very Terrible Day–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Feb. 22, 2024

Indy Digest: Feb. 22, 2024

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 also 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 pieces we have published this week. 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 running 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. That is the equivalent of about seven pages of text—without photos—in our print version.

Of course, these are just two of the stories we have published recently. All of the others were also 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 finished their work, I then had to dedicate hours to editing, fact-checking, finding/editing photos and presenting/publishing the stories so you, our amazing readers, can properly be informed about these important issues.

How many press releases do we simply copy and paste? Zero. Because that’s not what we do here at the Independent. We do journalism—and journalism is hard.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• A nationwide outage for AT&T cellular customers today (Thursday) was caused by … a freaking software update? ABC News reports: “AT&T told ABC News in a statement … that the outage was not a cyberattack but caused by ‘the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network.’ ‘We are continuing our assessment of today’s outage to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve,’ the statement continued. The software update went wrong, according to preliminary information from two sources familiar with the situation. … Two sources briefed on the situation told ABC News that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), among other agencies, had been urgently investigating to determine whether the AT&T outage was the result of a cyberattack or a hack, or simply some sort of technical malfunction.” Good lord, AT&T!

• Meanwhile, there’s a measles outbreak in Florida, because science-denying schmucks are in charge there, and life is sometimes terrible. The Washington Post says: “As a Florida elementary school tries to contain a growing measles outbreak, the state’s top health official is giving advice that runs counter to science and may leave unvaccinated children at risk of contracting one of the most contagious pathogens on Earth, clinicians and public health experts said. Florida surgeon general Joseph A. Ladapo failed to urge parents to vaccinate their children or keep unvaccinated students home from school as a precaution in a letter to parents at the Fort Lauderdale-area school this week following six confirmed measles cases. Instead of following what he acknowledged was the ‘normal’ recommendation that parents keep unvaccinated children home for up to 21 days — the incubation period for measles—Ladapo said the state health department ‘is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.’”

• Closer to home, the Los Angeles Times reports on new findings that radioactive waste was dumped in the ocean just off the coast. Wait, what? An excerpt: “For decades, a graveyard of corroding barrels has littered the seafloor just off the coast of Los Angeles. It was out of sight, out of mind—a not-so-secret secret that haunted the marine environment until a team of researchers came across them with an advanced underwater camera. Speculation abounded as to what these mysterious barrels might contain. Startling amounts of DDT near the barrels pointed to a little-known history of toxic pollution from what was once the largest DDT manufacturer in the nation, but federal regulators recently determined that the manufacturer had not bothered with barrels. (Its acid waste was poured straight into the ocean instead.) Now, as part of an unprecedented reckoning with the legacy of ocean dumping in Southern California, scientists have concluded the barrels may actually contain low-level radioactive waste. Records show that from the 1940s through the 1960s, it was not uncommon for local hospitals, labs and other industrial operations to dispose barrels of tritium, carbon-14 and other similar waste at sea.” OMG.

• OK, we need a dose of good news after those three doozies. Here’s some: The Biden administration just eliminated a lot of student-loan debt. Yay! NPR says: “An email went out (yesterday) to some student loan borrowers basically saying, you’re debt free. On Wednesday, the federal Education Department zeroed out loan balances for nearly 153,000 borrowers. They are people who borrowed $12,000 or less, have been paying their student loans for at least 10 years, and enrolled in the Biden administration’s new repayment plan called SAVE launched last summer. ‘We’re providing debt relief to people who need it the most,’ said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Wednesday in an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition. ‘We’re also addressing the root cause of the issue, which is, the cost of college is out of control,’ Cardona said.” Fingers crossed this effort isn’t overturned in some court somewhere.

• Now, alas, we must return to the bad news: It seems California’s budget deficit is even worse than thought. Our partners at CalMatters report: “(On Tuesday), the Legislative Analyst’s Office projected the shortfall as $15 billion higher, or $73 billion. The analyst’s office had pegged the 2024-25 deficit at $58 billion in January, using Newsom’s revenue estimates when he presented his initial budget proposal of $292 billion. On Friday, Newsom’s Department of Finance reported that preliminary General Fund cash receipts in January were $5 billion below (or nearly 20%) the governor’s budget forecast. Unless state tax revenues pick up significantly, the bigger number will make it more difficult to balance the state budget just through dipping into reserves and targeted spending cuts.”

• And finally … it would not be a Digest without some recall news, and today’s involves … Toyotas! CNN says: “Toyota is recalling about 280,000 pickups and SUVs in the United States because the engine may not disengage entirely when in neutral. ‘Certain parts of the transmission may not immediately disengage when the vehicle is shifted to the neutral position,’ the Japanese manufacturer said in a statement Wednesday. This can allow some engine power to continue passing through to the wheels, it added. As a result, the vehicle could ‘inadvertently creep forward at a low speed when it is on a flat surface and no brakes are applied, leading to an increased risk of a crash,’ the carmaker said. The recall includes certain Toyota Tundra, Sequoia and Lexus LX 600 vehicles manufactured between 2022-2024.”

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