Joe Moore

With claims of fake news and alternative facts dominating social media and news headlines, it’s probably no surprise that public trust in media has taken a big hit in recent years. A new effort at Fresno State hopes to help reverse that trend. The university’s new Institute for Media and Public Trust, led by former Fresno Bee editor Jim Boren aims to close the credibility gap between news producers and consumers, and address the issue of media literacy.

Recent arrests of undocumented immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials inside Central Valley courthouses from Fresno to Sacramento have sparked controversy. But as Valley Public Radio's Monica Velez reports, such arrests aren't new.

Acclaimed biographer Miriam Pawel's newest work tells the story of the most influential family in California political history. In The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Helped Shape a Nation, she traces the rise of Governor Pat Brown and his son Governor Jerry Brown, and examines how they both shaped the state in their own unique and unconventional ways.

This week on Valley Edition - we look back to when the U.S. government tried to replace migrant farmworkers with high schoolers in a conversation with journalist Gustavo Arellano. We also chat with journalist Alexandra Jaffe from Vice News Tonight on HBO, and get new insights into the war of words between Congressman Devin Nunes and The Fresno Bee, and how to restore the public’s trust in media. Plus, we continue our series on workplace violence in healthcare and learn what’s being done to make one of the jobs most plagued by violent encounters safer.

A new survey released last week by the Poynter Institute suggests that Americans trust their local media more than many national news outlets. But charges of "fake news" aren't the exclusive domain of President Donald Trump. In fact, attacks on news coverage are becoming more common at the local level.

California is often at odds with the Trump administration, and the latest battleground could be in the issue of managing the state's precious water supply. At the same time the state's water board is considering major cuts to water sent to farms and cities, the Trump administration is taking its own actions. Last week the Trump administration served notice that it wants to renegotiate a 32-year-old agreement that governs how the state and federal projects operate and cooperate.

Brian Turner is perhaps best known in Central California, and across the country as a poet whose art has been fused in a time of war. Author of the acclaimed collection Here, Bullet, Turner is one of the many literary giants to come from the San Joaquin Valley. Yet with his new project, he has turned his focus in two different directions: first in pursuing his musical visions, and second to showcasing the poetry of his late wife Ilyse Kusnetz.

The San Joaquin Valley’s farm workers are some of the hardest working people in the world. They toil for long hours in the fields to pick the food that feeds the world. While we all eat their produce, for many Americans farm workers don’t inspire admiration, but instead resentment and hostility. Anti-immigrant sentiment often revolves around the notion that undocumented workers are taking jobs that legal residents would otherwise be happy to do.

The Fresno Philharmonic has launched its new season of concerts, the second under music director Rei Hotoda. Now Hotoda is also receiving another honor - an award from the Fresno League of Women Voters for her work leading the orchestra into a new era. She joined us to talk about the new season and the award on Valley Edition. 

This week on Valley Edition, we begin a new series on the issue of workplace violence enountered by doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. We also hear a report about how local immigration attorneys are raising concerns about changes to the U Visa program, which helps undocumented immigrants who are victims of crimes. And Kerry Klein brings us a special report about an African drum camp in the Sierra foothills. Later in the show we learn how the community of Stratford is recovering after both of the wells that serve residents there failed earlier this month.

Mount Whitney is the tallest peak in the lower 48 states. But at over 14,000 feet, hiking the mountain is anything but routine, especially in early summer. In a new piece on the website Outdoor Online, journalist Megan Michelson writes about her own close call on the mountain thanks to climbers who were unprepared. She also talks about a growing culture of selfie-induced "summit fever" which she says is making it unsafe for others on the mountain.

Update: 8/22/18 Officials lifted the "Do not drink" water order in Stratford on Wednesday afternoon August 22nd. However, according to Martín Chávez, only one pump is operational at this time. 

This week on Valley Edition, we learn about how the rural Fresno County community of Del Rey is working to clean up its drinking water, which is now contaminated by an agricultural chemical. We also learn about the lawsuit over Monsanto’s popular herbicide Roundup, and about new efforts to expand mental health care for children in Fresno County. Later in the show, we learn how college students are spending their summer working on voter registration in rural valley communities, and we talk with disability rights advocate Jocelyn Dettloff, author of the book “It Rained In the Desert.”

We’re at the start of another school year. And that means more than just a focus on basic academic skills. In Fresno County there’s a new push to address mental health and wellbeing. It’s part of a five year, $111 million dollar campaign that’s called “All 4 Youth” that’s bringing together the county’s office of education and the behavioral health department.

A jury last week awarded a California man with terminal cancer $289 million dollars in a lawsuit against agri-chemical giant Monsanto. The jury agreed with plaintiff Dewayne Johnson’s claim that his exposure to the popular herbicide Roundup on the job (and its main component known as glyphosate) resulted in his non-Hodgkins lymphoma. With over $250 million in punitive damages in this one case alone, the stakes are high for Monsanto’s owner Bayer. So where does the legal fight go from here, and how does the courtroom differ from the scientific lab when determining the truth?

On April 13th 1997, Jocelyn Dettloff’s life changed forever. On a camping trip in Sub-Saharan Africa, an accident left her paralyzed. It also put her life on a new path, inspiring others, as she describes in her book “It Rained in the Desert: One Woman's Story of Spirit and Resilience”

On today’s Valley Edition, we explore the effort to save a rare species in Kern County that until the 1990’s was thought to be extinct. We also learn about an unfortunate side effect of the drug used to treat valley fever patients, and why it’s helping them forge a bond with cancer patients. We also explore California’s recent wave of extreme heat and extreme fire behavior with Sean Boyd.

Last month the Carr Fire near Redding exploded overnight in what some people have called a "fire-nado" - with extreme rotating winds that toppled high tension power lines and wrapped metal posts around trees. It was the most extreme case of extreme fire behavior people have seen in California in recent times. But with a record-setting stretch of triple digit temperatures, skies filled with smoke, and fires creating their own weather, 2018 has proven to be anything but normal.