www.montereycountynow.com october 17-23, 2024 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 27 INSIDER Impact Report Last week, in our Oct. 10 issue, we published a cover story with our election endorsements. This week, in this insert, we’re taking a moment to look inward as opposed to outward. Welcome to our annual report to Weekly Insiders, the group of readers who have voluntarily signed up as donors to help support the journalism produced in Monterey County Weekly and Monterey County Now. It’s an opportunity to look back at some of the things we’ve been up to in the past 12 months, and report some measurable impact our journalism is having in the community. As part of the research into our endorsement edition, the editorial board (myself, Founder & CEO Bradley Zeve and Publisher Erik Cushman) conducted interviews with 51 candidates in 15 races, and emailed with 18 candidates in seven others. We also read voters guides and lots of other journalists’ input to offer insight on 10 state ballot propositions. Then we argued among ourselves to reach consensus. As we write today we are uncertain of what effect our selections will have throughout the community, but we sometimes hear from readers, like Ulises L., who wrote in last year: “I’d like to start by saying I’ve been reading the Weekly since I was 14 (I’m 41). The Weekly has been a bible to me. Every election I cut out the endorsements and take them with me. I don’t always agree but I appreciate the work that goes into endorsing candidates. I’ve shaped my politics by reading the Weekly.” On a much more lighthearted voting note, on Oct. 3, we published the Best of Monterey County® Readers’ Poll, sharing the results of our readers’ votes for the best in a huge range of categories from barbershop to Thai restaurant to the best place to watch the sunset. It is the biggest issue of the newspaper we publish every year, and you have likely seen that many of the winners proudly display Best Of award plaques in their place of business. They tell our salespeople that the impact of being voted the best is a real boon for them. It validates the hard work they do day in and day out, and it is a public acknowledgment that their achievements are recognized in the community. (And if you need to get your car smogged or get your nails done, I suggest it as a resource; it’s served me well as a consumer guide.) This week’s cover story chronicles the first-ever Media Literacy Week in Monterey County. As a member of the newly formed Media Literacy Coalition, we are hopeful that this new initiative will have lasting impact on readers—especially young readers—as they learn to sniff out misinformation and outright lies that show up in abundance on social media. Community Impact The three examples above are large-scale projects intended to have an impact on voters, local businesses and future leaders. They help us live our mission to inspire independent thinking and conscious action, etc. We also sometimes hear from readers about everyday changes and developments that occur as a result of our reporting and storytelling. Last October, I wrote about the Big Sur Health Center’s struggle to recruit a physician as the nonprofit’s one MD on staff prepared to retire. (Even though many patients see a nurse practitioner or a nurse, the doctor is a licensing requirement.) A reader, whose parents had received care at the Big Sur Health Center, was moved by the story and learned about the issue. They donated $33,000 to support the new physician’s salary, and a hire was made just in time—impacting the ability to deliver health care to its rural patients. In August, Staff Writer Celia Jiménez profiled a local software engineer in Greenfield who developed an app called Nurbli that is a sort of digital bulletin board, providing school district and local government information in English and Spanish, and also in Mixteco de San Martín Peras or Triqui, Indigenous Oaxacan languages. Users can read or listen to notices. After the story ran, we heard from the Behavioral Health Director for San Benito County asking Jiménez to connect that agency to the Nurbli team: “I just read the article about the app that can help provide information in indigenous languages to community members…I was interested in learning more to see if our county could utilize this app for behavioral health information.” Big and Small Sometimes reading leads to action in smaller, but still consequential, ways. Look back to January, when the Alliance on Aging was collecting handmade Valentine cards to distribute to 1,200 local people living in care facilities, nursing homes, assisted living centers and hospitals. After we published a story about the Valentine campaign, Linda S. emailed to say: insider.montereycountynow.com impact report continued next page An update from the Monterey County Weekly newsroom.
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