On the road again. The Holler goes to California with Pulitzer Prize winner Art Cullen.
On the road again. The Holler goes to California with Pulitzer Prize winner Art Cullen.
There ain't enough water in cattle country. We're going to talk about that.
John’s Journal
This is where I hastily scribble about what’s going on. May include righteous anger and typos.
Welcome to the shittiest newsletter known to man. I have a lot of updates and not much time!
By the time you read this, my wheels will be rolling over the first miles of a cross-country “working” road trip with prairie sage and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Cullen. Art is the beating heart of prairie populism, headquartered in Storm Lake, Iowa. The story of his family paper hit the silver screen in 2021 with the PBS documentary “Storm Lake”.
We’re going to California, like the song says, travelling through cattle country and the bone dry plains, asking about food, climate, and water the whole way. In case you haven’t heard, we’re cooking ourselves and turning up the heat with every newly approved fossil fuel project.
I’m leaving as soon as I press send. You can expect some updates here, and heck, maybe even some kind of video we throw together. I might even get Art to do a TikTok, if his soul doesn’t immediately evaporate at the prospect.
East Palestine Continues
It’s been about a month and a half since the Norfolk Southern disaster in East Palestine. I’ve gone on a lot of other shows for that. Probably close to twenty. I’ll link to a few of them below.
The mini documentary that we co-produced with More Perfect Union is up at 2.3 million views now. The only thing that makes me more proud than the reach was being stopped at a gas station in East Palestine a few days ago by a burly farmer who teared up while thanking everyone who made this piece possible.
The East Palestine story continues to unfold. It’ll keep unfolding over years. I interviewed a high level source in a major rail union recently who had a lot of important things to say about the state of the rail industry. A friend is helping me edit that since I ran out of time. Stay tuned for that. I’ll probably drop it from somewhere on the road.
In the meantime, here’s an incomplete list of shows that I went on to talk about what we found in East Palestine:
Brian Tyler Cohen (clip pending)
I’ve been on a half dozen more shows where I’ve lost or failed to track down the show link. Special shout out to Joe Sudbay and the Michelangelo Signorile Show on Sirius XM. Ditto for Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang. Whenever something goes down, you can usually find me on those shows.
Thank you paid subscribers! None of this is possible without you.
I started this newsletter to sustain working-class-focused political media that’s based in Rust Belt Appalachia. The goal is to inject that (missing) perspective into mainstream media. I think the East Palestine story is a perfect example of the idea in action. We were able to contribute to the framing of this story on a shoe string budget, and that’s all because of you. Now we have a story with a major source in production, continuing coverage of East Palestine, and a new project about agriculture and climate change with a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. The only way this continues is with a little bit of support from a lot of you.
Become a sustaining member today for $5/mo ($60/yr) and help us keep going.
Oh! And we’re giving YouTube a try. Go subscribe to the chanel to get us over 1,000 subs please.
I’m thirty minutes past when I’m supposed to leave on this trip, so this will be quick.
Who knows, TikTok may be banned by the time I get back. I’ve wanted to branch out into longer form coverage anyway, so we’re going to give more attention to my much neglected YouTube presence.
This would be greatly helped by passing the 1,000 subscribers on the channel, so please go subscribe to The Holler’s YouTube channel if you haven’t already.
CLICK HERE AND SUBSCRIBE TO HELP THE HOLLER REACH 1,000 SUBS.
The next installment of the East Palestine story will drop there.
Ta Ta,
JR
Where in California are you going? If you pass thru the Bay Area, I will feed you.