For Luis Olmedo, environmental justice work must continue during a pandemic — especially in Imperial County.
The executive director of Comite Civico de Valle was on his way Tuesday morning to a county Air Pollution Control Board meeting, where he planned to watch on his phone outside and wait to enter the building until his organization’s agenda item came up. He was doing his part to help stop the spread of coronavirus by keeping his distance from others.
“Life has changed over the past 48 hours,” Olmedo said in a phone interview with inewsource before the meeting. “And it’s getting tighter and tighter when it comes to the ability to carry out normal duties and the way we’re able to carry them. Everything is changing.”
Why this matters
Imperial County has fewer than 300 hospital beds and long-standing community health challenges. Despite those challenges, county officials are working to protect the region’s 180,000 residents as the coronavirus pandemic worsens.
Imperial County, one of the poorest counties in California and with one of the highest rates for people with asthma, has had two residents test positive for COVID-19 as of Wednesday night, when the latest figures were released. The husband and wife contracted the novel coronavirus while traveling in Florida, officials said.
They were initially treated at the El Centro Regional Medical Center, with one later being quarantined at home. Both were moved to a San Diego hospital to recover.
No additional county cases have been reported since those two on March 11. Thirty-nine people have been tested as of Wednesday night, according to the county Public Health Department. Twenty-nine have tested negative, with eight results pending.
There is no evidence that coronavirus is spreading in the county, but officials have warned the numbers may grow.
That worries Olmedo, who’s concerned about the spread of coronavirus among some of Imperial County’s most vulnerable populations — including those who already suffer from respiratory illnesses.
About 12% of the county’s residents have asthma, compared to nearly 9% statewide. The county ranked among the highest in California for children’s visits to emergency rooms for asthma-related issues. And while air quality has improved in the region, some parts still fail to meet federal standards.
“And then you add another layer to the already scarred and vulnerable lungs — it is going to take a toll on our healthcare system,” said Olmedo, whose organization works on asthma-related issues.
Imperial County’s two hospitals have fewer than 300 beds. In a 2016 state application, El Centro Regional Medical Center said that in fiscal 2013 there was one primary care doctor for every 4,170 county residents. That’s compared to one for every 1,341 residents statewide.
The El Centro hospital’s patients face health care disparities, and access to care “has long proven to be a major challenge,” according to the application.
Even so, the county’s health care leaders say they’re prepared to handle the spread of coronavirus in their community.
Dr. Stephen Munday, the county’s health officer, announced an order Tuesday that bans gatherings of 50 or more people and placed restrictions on restaurants and other businesses beginning Friday. He also advised hospitals to “preserve resources, including delaying non-emergent or elective surgeries or procedures when feasible.”
Munday’s order will continue through March 31.
“Many of my fellow health officers around the state have chosen to take action to try to protect the public. Many of them chose to do so because there was significant community spread going on around them,” he said at a Tuesday news conference. “I have given my recommendations to the Board of Supervisors that rather than wait for community spread to occur (locally), we should take action to prevent community spread.”
RELATED: Tracking the Spread of coronavirus in San Diego County
The county Office of Education closed the region’s public schools on Tuesday until at least April 17, reversing an earlier decision. San Diego County school districts made the decision last week to close schools on Monday.
At Imperial County schools, breakfasts and lunches are still being served on weekdays at more than 30 sites.
Alvaro Ramirez, safety and emergency preparedness coordinator at the county Office of Education, said superintendents and public health officials decided to close schools “as a precautionary measure in the best interest of our community.”
“While the health trends in our area remained relatively stable over the weekend, those at our neighboring areas did not,” Ramirez told inewsource in an email. “The Imperial Valley is a closely knit, interconnected community, with strong ties to our neighboring areas.”
The Imperial Irrigation District, which provides electricity to 155,000 residential and commercial customers, announced Tuesday it will not disconnect electricity for non-payment until further notice. It also is temporarily waiving late fees. Spokesman Robert Schettler said no changes have been made to the district’s water services, which are not offered within city limits. About 97% of the water it delivers goes to agricultural customers, he said.
At the El Centro Regional Medical Center, CEO Adolphe Edward told inewsource the hospital has focused on infection prevention, including the use of an ultraviolet system for disinfecting. He pointed to the hospital’s affiliation with the UC San Diego Health System, saying the medical center will continue to rely on UCSD’s expertise.
The hospital has enough surgical masks, ventilators and other supplies to continue to serve patients if coronavirus cases increase, he said. Officials also have asked the county Public Health Department for more surgical masks and hand sanitizers.
“We are told that we’re going to receive additional shipments,” Edward said. “We’re not worried at all about the actual level of equipment that we have.”
He said if people take the advice of experts and practice social distancing, the county’s system will be able to respond to the crisis.
“We know what to do to protect the public,” Edward said. “We are doing everything we can to protect them. Because ‘them’ is us. We are the community. We’re doing this because we are from the community.”
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Daniela Flores, a 28-year-old Imperial Valley native and a public health professional, said it took several days to persuade her parents that for now they should close their 30-year-old floral business in Calexico. They were the first business in their neighborhood to close, Flores said.
The county is a “word-of-mouth community,” she said, and not all residents are accustomed to interacting with local officials. Flores hopes neighbors and relatives will use their networks to spread information rapidly, especially to those who are not regularly online.
“My hope is that we take a community approach at this and not leave it all up to the local officials because, frankly, they have a lot on their hands,” Flores said.
Olmedo said he’s seeking ways for his organization to help. And while he’s also concerned for other vulnerable parts of the state, he’s optimistic, too.
“It takes time,” he said. “Things don’t happen overnight. And even in understanding that, I feel very confident of the fact that we live in California, in a state that is taking care of its citizens and residents.”
Do you have information that could further inewsource’s mission of holding officials and institutions accountable in the COVID-19 pandemic? Help make sure our journalism is responsible and focused on the right issues. Reach out at contact@inewsource.org
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Editorial Standards Page
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Our Mission
inewsource is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to improving lives in the San Diego region and beyond through impactful, data-based investigative and accountability journalism.
Our Vision
Betrayals of the public trust are revealed and rectified, wrongdoing is deterred, and inequities are illuminated thanks to inewsource’s deep, dogged, fact-based reporting.
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Truth: Above all else, we value the importance of a free and credible press. Truth is the cornerstone of democracy and the core value for inewsource.
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Community: Our reporting serves the San Diego region, and we strive to build relationships with our audience by getting out into the community to listen and engage.
Ethics Policy
inewsource will conduct its business with the highest standards of decency, fairness and accuracy. These standards shall apply equally to inewsource employees, freelancers and all others engaged in gathering information on behalf of inewsource. All receive a copy of these ethical standards.
In the course of our reporting, we will consistently:
● Identify our organization and ourselves fully and avoid false representations of any kind to any source.
● Obtain consent from all parties before electronically recording any interview or conversation except in extraordinary cases authorized by the Managing Editor and Editor. If a source refuses to be taped, that must be honored; no recordings are to be made without consent.
● Respect the individual’s right to privacy. inewsource will never manipulate or barter private, personal, health, financial or other extraneous information in the course of preparing its reports.
● Any source we describe or write about in any significant manner must be contacted. The employee should document all efforts to contact the source, and if unsuccessful, should summarize these efforts at contact in the body of his/her writing.
In addition, inewsource follows the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists. The latest version, revised in 2014, can be found here.
Editorial Independence Policy
We subscribe to standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) as follows:
Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We will maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. Our organization also may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.
Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $1,000 or more. We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards.
Diversity
Diverse Voices
Inclusiveness is at the heart of thinking and acting as journalists, and it supports the educational mandate of inewsource. Race, class, generation, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and geography all affect point of view. inewsource believes that reflecting societal differences in reporting leads to better, more nuanced stories and a better-informed community.
inewsource is committed to employment equity and diversity.
Diverse Staffing Report
Below is a breakdown of staffing data at inewsource. We determine the composition of our staff by asking them to self-identify. It is based on a newsroom of 11 and a total staff of 15 as of August 2020. Percentages are based on 15 total survey responses. The numbers include full-time and part-time staff, full-time fellows and full-time and part-time interns.
| All Staff Percentages are based on 15 total survey responses. The numbers include full-time and part-time staff, full-time fellows and full-time and part-time interns. | Newsroom Percentages are based on 15 completed survey responses to this question. | Business Percentages are based on 15 completed survey responses to this question. | |||
| Gender Identity | Gender Identity | Gender Identity | |||
| Women | 80% | Women | 82% | Women | 75% |
| Men | 20% | Men | 18% | Men | 25% |
| Sexual Orientation | Sexual Orientation | Sexual Orientation | |||
| Straight | 87% | Straight | 82% | Straight | 100% |
| LGBTQ-identifying | 7% | LGBTQ-identifying | 7% | ||
| Not specified | 7% | Not specified | 7% | ||
| Speak a language beyond English at home | 33% | Speak a language beyond English at home | 18% | Speak a language beyond English at home | 75% |
| Race/Ethnicity | Race/Ethnicity | Race/Ethnicity | |||
| White | 67% | White | 73% | White | 50% |
| Hispanic or Latinx | 20% | Two or more races | 18% | Hispanic or Latinx | 50% |
| Two or more races | 13% | Hispanic or Latinx | 9% | ||
| Age | Age | Age | |||
| 20-29 | 40% | 20-29 | 45% | 20-29 | 25% |
| 30-39 | 47% | 30-39 | 45% | 30-39 | 50% |
| 60 or older | 13% | 60 or older | 9% | 60 or older | 25% |
* The percentages in the charts have been rounded and may not add up to 100.
Ownership Structure, Funding and Grants
inewsource is a nonprofit organization, whose legal name is Investigative Newsource. It does business as inewsource. The business was incorporated on Aug. 4, 2009 in the state of California. Tax-exempt status as a 501c3 was granted by the IRS on Sept. 15, 2010. inewsource is funded primarily by individual contributions and foundation grants. We are guided by a board of directors.
Editorial independence: Journalists employed by inewsource take no editorial direction from donors whose contributions may support the organization. inewsource will not hesitate to report on its donors when events warrant. Our Editorial Independence Policy details the firewall between journalism and revenue.
To be transparent with the public, inewsource lists its donors on its website. In cases where a donor is the subject of an inewsource story, additional disclosure will be made.
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We do our due diligence to earn your trust in our reporting, as well as in our governance and financial sustainability. All of our financial documents are made available to view so that our supporters can trust we are sound stewards of your philanthropy. Review our IRS Form 990s, audited financial statements and annual reports:
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Fact-checking and Verification Standards
Transparency is one of our core values. Today, there is a need to build trust with our audience because new media and ways of communicating spread lies and slanted news faster than “real” news. At the same time, this era of new technologies makes it easier than ever for news organizations to be transparent. People don’t just have to believe us, they can investigate our investigations with our source materials.
Transparency is key to building credibility.
inewsource reporters have primary responsibility for reporting, writing, and fact-checking their stories. But before a story is published, the reporter reviews all facts and sources with an editor or another reporter. Facts must be traced to a primary source.
In addition, we “transparify” certain investigative stories. This process involves publishing a version of the web story with hyperlinks to all the story’s facts. This is proof that all facts have been documented with primary evidence. We do this to build trust with our readers and to be as transparent as we hope the public figures and institutions that we hold accountable will be.
Unnamed Sources
Not all sources are created equal. Some sources cannot speak authoritatively, provide proper analysis or speak specifically to every inquiry placed before them. To maintain the integrity of our reporting, inewsource reporters must select sources who can speak with validity to the topic at hand, and avoid presenting unqualified or underqualified sources as experts.
If an interviewed source has a conflict of interest, or whose qualifications may be tangential or limited, reporters will note that within the context of the story.
It is incumbent upon reporters to fully background their sources to uncover conflicts of interest or slant prior to using them in a story.
Unless discussed prior to an interview, all subjects talking to inewsource journalists are on the record. Specifically, the source is identified by name and title, and their exact or paraphrased words are attributed to them for publication. If journalists speak with sources who are not politicians, public figures or those not commonly interviewed by journalists, staff should explain clearly that information discussed will be on the record and for publication.
There are times, however, when information may be critical for a story but cannot be found or verified by other means. For example, a source may be able to confirm specific information about a series of events they may have witnessed, but have legitimate concerns about using their name or title. The repercussions to the source could be legal, job-related retribution or personal safety. The source and journalist must discuss these potential dangers and terms of use should be agreed upon by both parties.
If inewsource publishes information from an anonymous source, inewsource will explain to readers, in as much detail as possible, why we agreed to anonymity.
Corrections and Clarifications
inewsource strives for accuracy in everything we do, which is why we are committed to fact checking our content. But sometimes we make errors. When that happens, we correct them. We also clarify stories when something we’ve written is confusing or could be misinterpreted.
We endeavor to always be transparent about our commitment to correcting errors and clarifying misperceptions. When staffers see, hear or read about a possible issue with the accuracy of any inewsource content, they are expected to bring it to the attention of an editor and the web producer so it can be evaluated to determine how to proceed.
Including the web producer is key because inewsource is a multimedia news organization and shares its content with multiple partners on multiple platforms. The web producer must alert these partners about corrections and clarifications.
Corrections and clarifications should be included at the bottom of stories and dated.
Actionable Feedback and Newsroom Contacts
Our audiences know the region we cover and have a stake in maintaining and improving the quality of life in San Diego and Imperial counties. We know your knowledge and insights can help shape what we cover and how we cover it. We invite your comments and complaints on news stories, suggestions for issues to cover or sources to consult. We rely on you to tell us when we get it right and when we need to keep pushing.
Your comments, questions and suggestions can be sent to the team as a whole at contact@inewsource.org or you can contact a specific member of our staff.
Masthead
CEO, Editor and Founder: Lorie Hearn, loriehearn@inewsource.org
Lorie Hearn is the chief executive officer, editor and founder of inewsource. She founded inewsource in the summer of 2009, following a successful reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Hearn personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters. Hearn was a Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University in 1994-95. She focused on juvenile justice and drug control policy, a natural course to follow her years as a courts and legal affairs reporter at the San Diego Union and then the Union-Tribune.
Hearn became Metro Editor in 1999 and oversaw regional and city news coverage, which included the city of San Diego’s financial debacle and near bankruptcy. Reporters and editors on Metro during her tenure were part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that exposed Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and led to his imprisonment.
Hearn began her journalism career as a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, a small daily outside of Philadelphia, shortly after graduating from the University of Delaware. During the decades following, she moved through countless beats at five newspapers on both coasts.
High-profile coverage included the historic state Supreme Court election in 1986, when three sitting justices were ousted from the bench, and the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris. That gas chamber execution was the first time the death penalty was carried out in California in 25 years.
In her nine years as Metro Editor at the Union-Tribune, Hearn made watchdog reporting a priority. Her reporters produced award-winning investigations covering large and small local governments. The depth and breadth of their public service work was most evident in coverage of the wildfires of 2003 and then 2007, when more than half a million people were evacuated from their homes.
Managing Editor: Mark J. Rochester, markrochester@inewsource.org
Mark J. Rochester began as inewsource managing editor in April 2021, having served as editor in chief at Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative newsroom in Manhattan. He was previously senior news director for investigations at the Detroit Free Press. Both newsrooms, he notes, shared a commitment to diversity and inclusion, and their investigative journalism often received national recognition for exposing problems impacting communities of color.
His family looks forward to returning to California, having spent more than seven years in San Francisco where Rochester was a senior manager for the Associated Press. While with the news cooperative, he led computer-assisted reporting training efforts around the West, both inside and outside of AP, and conducted a widely used analysis of the $74 million in campaign contributions that went toward the California gay marriage ballot initiative in 2008. The AP analyzed who gave and why and then made the data available to member newspapers. The resulting series of stories based on the data was AP’s 2009 Pulitzer nomination for Local Reporting.
Rochester, who served as a Pulitzer Prize jurist in 2017, also has held senior leadership positions at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Denver Post, Newsday and The Indianapolis Star. Rochester is vice president of Investigative Reporters & Editors Inc., the 6,000+ member international organization dedicated to improving investigative journalism. He also serves on the national advisory board of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University in Washington, D.C.
Byline Policy
Most of our articles carry a byline to identify the author. In some cases, inewsource will use a brand byline such as “Staff” or “inewsource” for internal or editorial information about the newsroom. In these instances, inewsource‘s Editor and Managing Editor are responsible for content that uses a brand byline.
The Trust Project
inewsource is proud to be a member of The Trust Project and support efforts to increase transparency in journalism by displaying the 8 Trust Indicators on our stories. We launched the Trust Indicators on Sep. 16, 2020.
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Ethics Policy
This policy can be found on this page.
Diversity Statement
This policy can be found on this page.
Diversity Staffing Report
This policy can be found on this page.
Corrections Policy
This policy can be found on this page.
Ownership Structure, Funding
This policy can be found on this page.
Founding Date
2009-11-01
Masthead
This policy can be found on this page.
Mission Statement with Coverage Priorities
This policy can be found on this page.
Fact-checking Standards
This policy can be found on this page.
Unnamed Sources Policy
This policy can be found on this page.
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