Owatonna, MN Correspondent — I taught music for years, so let me say the uncomfortable thing first, because nobody at these tables who isn't a musician is going to. The singing evidence is real. In March a choir rehearsed in Washington state — sixty-one people, one infected, and fifty-three of them caught it and two … Continue reading Did the closure of houses of worship raise constitutional questions the courts have handled well, or has judicial deference to emergency public-health authority gone further than it should?
Weekly Correspondents’ Forum 2020
Did the closure of houses of worship raise constitutional questions the courts have handled well, or has judicial deference to emergency public-health authority gone further than it should?
Las Vegas, Nevada Correspondent — I'm the wrong person to be neutral here, because the case that made this national was about my industry. Nevada capped worship attendance at fifty people. Not fifty percent — fifty people, in a building of any size. A casino floor operated at half capacity, which in this town is … Continue reading Did the closure of houses of worship raise constitutional questions the courts have handled well, or has judicial deference to emergency public-health authority gone further than it should?
Did the disruption of the 2020 census produce a count the country can rely on for the next decade?
Owatonna, MN Correspondent — Minnesota is the state with the most direct stake in this and most people here know it. In 2010 we kept our eighth congressional seat by fewer than nine thousand people. That was the last seat apportioned in the entire country. Had the count gone slightly differently, it would have gone … Continue reading Did the disruption of the 2020 census produce a count the country can rely on for the next decade?
Did the disruption of the 2020 census produce a count the country can rely on for the next decade?
Bismarck, North Dakota Correspondent — I'd say we won't know for some time, and that not knowing is itself the problem. The count was suspended in the spring, the schedule was compressed, the end date moved more than once and finally landed in mid-October after the Supreme Court allowed the shortened deadline. Then last month … Continue reading Did the disruption of the 2020 census produce a count the country can rely on for the next decade?
Is local journalism going to survive this year, and does it matter if it doesn’t?
Las Vegas, Nevada Correspondent — This town has a specific and instructive version of the problem. Our daily paper was bought a few years ago through a holding company that initially wouldn't say who owned it. The newsroom found out who its own owner was by reporting the story, which is either the best or … Continue reading Is local journalism going to survive this year, and does it matter if it doesn’t?
Is local journalism going to survive this year, and does it matter if it doesn’t?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — This is my trade, so I'll take some length and then be quiet on it for a while. The short answer is that a great deal of it isn't surviving, and that the pandemic finished something that was already most of the way finished. The chain that owned a large share … Continue reading Is local journalism going to survive this year, and does it matter if it doesn’t?
Has the year changed what Americans count as essential work, and will the change survive the recovery?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — I've held about six of the jobs on the essential list, which gives me an unusual vantage on the word. I've been a chef, a dispatcher, a farm worker, and a few other things before I ended up editing copy. Every one of those was essential this year. The job I … Continue reading Has the year changed what Americans count as essential work, and will the change survive the recovery?
Has the year changed what Americans count as essential work, and will the change survive the recovery?
Cheyenne, Wyoming Correspondent — The word arrived in March and meant one thing: you don't get to stay home. It came with no wage, no benefit, and no protection. It was a permission slip pointed the wrong direction. I keep books for a freight and energy firm and our drivers never stopped. Nobody sent them … Continue reading Has the year changed what Americans count as essential work, and will the change survive the recovery?
Has the rapid expansion of telemedicine been a durable improvement in access, or a temporary accommodation that will be rolled back once the emergency ends?
Wheeling, West Virginia Correspondent — I want to talk about one specific change, because in my part of the country it's the whole story. In late March the DEA allowed a physician to start a patient on buprenorphine without an in-person examination. That had been prohibited for twenty years under a statute written to stop … Continue reading Has the rapid expansion of telemedicine been a durable improvement in access, or a temporary accommodation that will be rolled back once the emergency ends?
Has the rapid expansion of telemedicine been a durable improvement in access, or a temporary accommodation that will be rolled back once the emergency ends?
Knoxville, Tennessee Correspondent — Improvement, and I say that as somebody who is usually the person in the room complaining that a new system won't work in a rural county. Our situation before March was that a patient in one of the outlying counties drove ninety minutes to see a specialist for a fifteen-minute appointment. … Continue reading Has the rapid expansion of telemedicine been a durable improvement in access, or a temporary accommodation that will be rolled back once the emergency ends?
