Nurses rally the public, new county administrator starts, Houghton city shifts remaining 2021 meetings

Front page for week of Oct. 16, 2021

Oct 16, 2021

Editor’s note: I’ve rolled out the Copper Beacon name and logo here on Substack! Next week at some point, CopperBeacon.org will start functioning as the new URL, too. I think I have a way to keep LateEdition.substack.com working as well, so no links or shared articles will be broken. I’ll also be rolling over the Facebook page soon.

In any case, I have your email and I’ll let you know how it goes!

Nurses draw a red line

UP Health System-Portage nurses rally to draw attention to staffing and retention issues

Around 90 people walked the Portage Lake Lift Bridge with signs while chanting to support nurses in their contract negotiations with UPHS-Portage on Thursday afternoon.

PHF-sponsored radio technology arrives in the Keweenaw Area to safeguard those who are prone to wander, and easily lost

At a press conference at the beginning of the week, local law enforcement and their partners announced a new program to help find people lost in the area, particularly those with a cognitive disability.

Houghton County Commissioners, Oct. 12, 2021

The most interesting thing in here is certainly the Secure MI Vote discussion.

I read the bill in question and share some excerpts, and a brief editorial explaining why I don’t think the contents of it really matter anyway. Normally that kind of writing goes into The Inside Scoop, but the Scoop is already full this week so I decided to sprinkle it around a little.

Houghton City Council, Oct. 13, 2021

I’m impressed with the police department for seeking accreditation. I’m less impressed with Houghton rescheduling meetings this late in the year. The schedule is set for the year in January, but it’s not like Thanksgiving or Christmas are in different places because of the pandemic.

I am admittedly biased about the move. It puts Houghton and Hancock’s meetings on the same nights for the rest of the year, so they’re making my job more difficult (read: impossible). But if this works for councilors and citizens, I’ll just have to find a different way to report on the city for a while.

It’s a shame, though. I had a good run going.

The Inside Scoop

There are other things inside The Scoop this week, but I wanted to address something here for all of the non-paid subscribers, too.

I wanted to make sure that you know that even though the comment section on these stories is closed, it doesn’t mean I’m not open to feedback. All you need to do to send me a comment is to reply to the Copper Beacon/Late Edition emails in your inbox or send one to me at me@joshuavissers.com.

I also wanted to briefly explain why I have it set up that way. I spent some time managing comments on Facebook for other institutions I’ve worked for, and I’ve found a fully public comment section very quickly devolves into namecalling, harassment, and worse. Part of that is because of its global nature. When anyone from Traverse City to Timbuktu can join the conversation, sooner or later people who don’t truly understand the issue, or even worse someone who just wants to cause distress, will join the conversation and derail it.

I’m happy to field questions from those people as much as anyone else, and that’s why I keep my email address as available as possible, but I only keep the comments open on The Inside Scoop. That way, at least the people in the conversation will be people who care enough about the area to pay regularly for news being made here.

I’m hoping that as the community of paying subscribers grows, we can have civilized, engaged, and lightly-moderated conversations about important issues that don’t inevitably end in rage and hurt feelings.

Anyway, The Inside Scoop this week is about the cost and return of the war in Afghanistan versus investing in American infrastructure. It also includes an adorable photo of my cat this week.

//Click on the headlines to read the full story.

Finlandia University president stepping down after 2021-2022 school year

Upper Michigan Source

The Daily Mining Gazette has also published a statement from President Philip Johnson, in which he highlights COVID-19 mitigation, upcoming events, and completely avoids the topic of his resignation.

NMU-AAUP continue working without contract

Dreyma Beronja, The North Wind

A good follow-up from NMU’s student paper. On top of that, TV6 broke the news yesterday that the union voted ‘no confidence’ in the Board of Trustees’ leadership, 141 to 20.

All the ways Michigan made the congressional report on Trump trying to overturn the election

Laina Stebbins, Michigan Advance

Within the article is also the complete 394-page report, so you can read it for yourself if you don’t believe their summary. This is a level of transparency I appreciate and strive to attain myself.

Merck asks US FDA to authorize promising anti-COVID pill

Matthew Perrone, The Associated Press

This pill has all sorts of possible ramifications, but first, it needs to be approved as safe and effective by the FDA. Early results look good.

Gaming the Lottery: An international investigation into the global lottery industry

Raymond Joseph, Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism

Raymond Joseph and I are both members of the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism (I help produce the podcasts), but Raymond is far more experienced, works in South Africa, and has undertaken this lengthy investigation in spite of credible threats against his safety. Working together following his lead, they’ve found a variety of corruption and lottery scams around the world. He made virtual appearances in more than one of my classes back in college. He’s a rockstar among reporters and was recently recognized by the Institute for Nonprofit News with an honorable mention in their Nonprofit News Awards’ biggest category, Best Investigative Journalism.

Another CCIJ project also won for Journalism Partnership of the Year.

I just wanted to take a minute to recognize these incredible investigations, their accomplishments, and celebrate that I’m loosely affiliated with them.

WSUP still “broadcasting” on schedule

Okay, it’s an online stream, but it’s hard to tell the difference from your desk, really.

Eric, the DJ and host, is working on getting some live interviews together, too. Looking forward to hearing his programming continue to develop.