#ThisIsAppalachia:Rural News

By Tim Maremba, Daily Yonder EditorMedia matters. Before industrialists hauled off the first trainload of coal from Central Appalachia, local-color journalists were already mining the region for tropes about feuds, moonshine, and barefoot mountaineers. The same broad brush that has smudged Appalachia so frequently also gets used to create caricatures and stereotypes about rural communities around the country.To produce journalism that paints a more accurate portrait of rural America, the nonprofit Center for Rural Strategies began publishing the Daily Yonder in 2007. Although the news platform has a national focus, the publisher and editor are from Central Appalachia, and the Center for Rural Strategies grew directly from experience producing images and stories in the Southern mountains. What we’ve learned here in Appalachia about the role of media in building stronger communities led directly to our approach to the Daily Yonder.Our goal is to produce and publish articles that show rural America’s unique challenges and opportunities. We want rural communities and small towns to know that when they face hardships, they aren’t alone. There are other places in the same boat, and frequently what we find behind these challenges is that a failure of public and corporate policy is a major factor. Understanding the impact of these policies is the first step in improving them.We also want to create a deeper understanding of who calls rural America home. Rural communities are more diverse culturally, ethnically, and politically than is commonly acknowledged. It’s impossible to understand the history and current status of social-justice movements in America without exploring the role of diverse cultures that are firmly rooted in rural regions. And we use hard data to refute common wisdom about the politics of rural America. (Did you know that more people on Long Island voted for Donald Trump in 2020 than in all of West Virginia, for example?)More recently, we’ve expanded our work to include a weekly commercial radio newscast called the Yonder Report, a podcast called Everywhere Radio produced by our sister organization, the Rural Assembly, and a growing number of national production partnerships.The Daily Yonder is edited and produced by a professional staff, assisted by journalists, researchers, and rural residents around the country. We reach a growing national audience of rural residents, local and national journalists, elected officials, nonprofit leaders, and state and federal policymakers. We have readers from the county courthouse to the White House.Our goal is to be the place people turn to understand what’s happening in rural America and why.Cover graphic from "The Unexpected, Radical Roots of 'Redneck'" Daily Yonder, December 10, 2020To contact Daily Yonder - go to https://dailyyonder.com/contact-us/Contact Walter Davis, walter@appalachiancommunityfund if you have a positive story about people, places, and things in Central Appalachia.