The short and long of it
Reader: Since the paper’s sale, I have observed that The Californian seems to print less news stories, but of longer length. Personally, I liked the more stories of shorter length.
Question — I have not seen any results of March’s election. Did our leaders delay the count? If so, this delay is an argument against either voting by mail and/or prevention of counting absentee ballots before the election. — Blessings, Jon Crawford Peterson: Thanks for writing with some good questions, Jon. And blessings? I’ll take any of those I can get during this tough time for our entire world. So thank you!
I was curious to delve into your question of whether we’re printing fewer news stories. I thought I would come up with a quick way to answer that by looking at a few days worth of papers from March 2019 and the same month this year. Not so fast, Christine! Am I comparing the same day of the week, when certain sections appear (for example, our robust Eye Street section on Thursday) or the date, no matter what day it falls? Am I looking at only staff-produced stories, briefs packages and photographs, or also ones from our wire services? And to make it a little more complex, am I properly reviewing pages when we previously had a tab format Monday through Friday, versus the seven-day-a-week broadsheet papers we have now?
So much for a quick answer. Without an indepth study, here’s what I have: It depends. Some days we had more stories before the paper’s sale on July 1. But many times we have more now.
Then we have the story length issue, which I think is your main point, Jon. My answer: We need a mix of short and long. The content of the story and how much space it takes to tell it thoroughly, accurately and fairly should dictate its length, not how much we think we need to fill a hole. That’s on me to make sure we do a good job on that.
However many stories we have, at whatever length, my goal remains to provide important news and information to our communities.
Regarding your election question, the Kern County Elections Division met the initial April 3 deadline to complete its count of ballots cast in the March election. We posted an election results story online that Friday, and published
a story in print the next morning. You can find it online if you missed it. It wasn’t a big, in-depth story as nothing substantive changed from our previous reporting.
Additionally, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended the official canvass period for the election until April 24. The California secretary of state has until May 1 to certify the results.
I was curious to learn how many counties still had ballots remaining to be counted. It turns out the secretary of state’s office has that information on its website. As of Friday, three counties still had ballots to count: Humboldt (870 ballots listed as conditional voter registration provisional); Riverside (500 voteby-mail and 2,500 provisional); and Santa Clara (1,000 conditional voter registration provisional). That’s less than 5,000 ballots remaining to be counted statewide.
None of those will impact election results in Kern County, of course. ••• Reader: I’m sure I’m not the only person to write regarding the ungloved and unmasked St. Vincent de Paul worker, pictured on the front page of Thursday’s paper, dishing out food for the homeless during this time of COVID-19 outbreak.
I am flabbergasted this worker is pictured unadorned in protective gear much less not even wearing a hair net. Also, this person’s thumb is shown in close proximity to the food that’s being handled. At least the picture of the worker handing out food is outfitted appropriately.
How can this organization feel that this level of sanitation is appropriate? It seems that the health department needs to pay them a visit and that basic food handling training is surely and sorely needed. — A concerned subscriber, K.S. Peterson: Thank you for writing and expressing your concern. It turns out, K.S., you’re the only person who has written about this topic.
I truly don’t know all the rules for food handling in a nonresidence setting. But maybe your letter will raise awareness as many goodhearted people work to supply meals to those in need and front-line workers during this pandemic.
Executive Editor Christine L. Peterson answers your questions and takes your complaints about our news coverage in this weekly feedback forum. To offer your input by phone, call 661-395-7649 or email us at soundoff@bakersfield.com.