Please Enjoy This Newsletter
A penny for your thoughts.
APOLOGIES FOR MY RECENT QUIETNESS. My email address somehow found itself on the receiving end of a whole bunch of weirdness over the last month and a half (as it turns out, I wasn’t the only one — several other local editors, journalists, photographers, PR people and nonprofits have also received similar spear-phishing emails), and most of my free time has been spent either panicking or changing the passwords to all of my accounts. Or both. Over and over again.
It’s been surprisingly time-consuming. And extremely boring.
That said, I’m ready to focus my mind on more inspiring things — which means I have some questions for all of you.
What are you curious about?
I’m proud to have a well-educated and ideologically diverse list of subscribers. The people who read my newsletter range from progressive leftists to centrists, political nomads, conservatives and even apolitical creatives who just want to vibe on photography and messages of unity — and I adore every single one of you for your curiosity, tolerance and unique perspectives. I’ve learned a lot from my readers, and I think it’s great.
With such a diverse audience, though, it can be difficult to gauge what everyone wants to read or learn about. One thing everyone here seems to enjoy is public records (I mean, who doesn’t?). I have plans to FOIA some interesting stuff related to Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert soon, along with some questions about the California wildfires (I still need to research the specifics about who to ask), but I want to know — what do you want me to file new FOIA requests about this spring?
Are there any public policies you’re curious about? Any data you want to review? Maybe there are some trees you’d like to save from a developer in your community? Or maybe you have questions about how that statue at the town library cost your city over a million dollars. Or why that pothole hasn’t been fixed in five years, even after it devoured your neighbor’s whole truck. Or maybe you’ve been wondering about something worthy of the plotline for the movie Conspiracy Theory? I’m here for all of it.
Let me know by hitting reply and writing me an email, or leave an idea in the comments for me to check out.
What do you want to read about?
I’m not the best at keeping up with writing here, and I think we all know it by now. Still, I’d like to get better at writing on a schedule. But after five years of endless stress and enough cortisol to match, my mental energy is zapped and the pitch generator in my head isn’t humming along as well as it used to lately.
To help me get inspired again, I’d love if you could let me know what subject(s) you’re most interested in reading about here:
The poll only allows one choice, so please feel free to follow up with a comment (or hit reply to this email) if you have any thoughts to add, or if you’d like to elaborate on your choice.
As always, thank you!
— EMM