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A News Cafe’s 2020-2022 Wrap-up: Fame, Thanks, Threats, Awards, Pulitzer Attempt & ANC’s Future

Posted on by Doni Chamberlain

Illustration by Phil Fountain.

Before we wrap up 2022 and unveil 2023, please join me in recognizing a significant milestone for A News Cafe: It’s now 15 years old. Happy birthday, A News Cafe!! Look how much you’ve grown!

In the beginning, I really played up A News Cafe’s birthdays. Phil Fountain created illustrations to commemorate those years, way back when I was still a brunette.

For A News Cafe’s 10th birthday, we actually threw a party, with cake, appetizers, wine and everything.

After that, I didn’t make a big deal out of A News Cafe’s birthday, until now, because 15 is pretty special, and worth celebrating.

A look back

A News Cafe came to be 15 years ago because I was a freaked-out suddenly unemployed journalist in a one-newspaper city. Enter son Joe Domke, who created my first baby blog, and sent me a link to get things started. That little blog grew and grew until thousands of readers found it. (Maybe you were among them.) Next came IT/programming genius/friend Jim Gore, who built an actual website.

Behold, A News Cafe was born. Just like any baby, A News Cafe learned to crawl, walk and run, with many trials, errors and mis-steps along the way. So many stumbles, so many falls. Not even an owner’s manual to consult. Not a clue what we were doing.

Once, during an especially challenging time when ANC was nearly destitute after losing its three main advertisers (nothing to do with ANC), it seemed the only revenue choice for survival was to implement a paywall with pop-up messages. And so we did. I hated them. You hated them. Everyone hated them. But once I explained the fiscal reason behind the paywall and popups, many of you responded with resuscitating subscriptions; enough to bring A News Cafe back to life again. We promptly ditched the paywall and popups and vowed to never use either again. After all, what’s the good of a free press if it’s not free, not to mention annoying?

A News Cafe’s next near-death experience was March of 2020. It’s an easy memory-reference point because it was in the early stages of something called the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. People joked about 20-second hand-washes, elbow bumps for handshakes, knuckle bumps for hugs. This was before toilet-paper hoarding. Before Shasta County bore the humiliation of literally worldwide wonder and ridicule. Before the North State became the poster child for ignorance and civil unrest. Before COVID killed more than 700 Shasta County citizens.

It was during that time when I was on the verge of giving up on A News Cafe. I felt overwhelmed. I rarely wrote, because I spent most of my time editing others’ work. I made a difficult decision: Rather than dump the entire site, I’d first try a greatly pared-down version. So I said sad goodbyes to all the wonderful contributors, and returned to my writing roots: features, food stories, people stories and investigative stories.

That decision came with a promise to myself: If the majority of paid subscribers hated the new carefree A News Cafe enough to jump ship, then I’d accept that as a message from readers. I’d shut the site down, and do something else with my life.

What peace. What luxury. Sometimes I’d leave stories up for multiple consecutive days. For the first time in 15 years I could relate to people’s exclamations of TGIF! Meanwhile, I waited with bated breath for the exodus of departing subscribers. To my shock and awe, my worst fears were not realized.

Alas, it was a brief, carefree vacation. Just as I was getting the hang of a more laid-back A News Cafe, the initially smoldering COVID-19 news picked up speed and turned into a fire-nado of news, panic, misinformation, conspiracies and uncertainty. In the following days, weeks and months Shasta County was sucked up into the eye of a messy tornado that carried with it not just COVID-19 news and anger, but racial inequality protests, militia awareness, ugly political divides, Proud Boys sightings, mask protests, the State of Jefferson, and Bethel Church controversies, to name a sample.

I needed help. So I welcomed back award-winning journalist R.V. Scheide, who’d been with A News Cafe since 2015.

As 2020 progressed, tension increased. A News Cafe churned out one story after another that documented the beginnings of Shasta County’s political unrest, as well as the players and characters involved. Because thank God ANC is independently owned and operated, R.V. and I were free to cover – without input or censorship – whatever stories as we wished, as frankly, graphically and bluntly as we wanted.

At one point R.V. referred to what was happening in Shasta County as a “shitnado”. I identified the key troublemakers as the “Shastaliban” – which was artfully illustrated in a custom cartoon by a bashful artist.

All that controversy and all that racket about Shasta County shenanigans went viral and worldwide. Apparently, A News Cafe’s stories had wandered far, far from home. We began to receive coast-to-coast media attention (plus France, and even from The Guardian in the UK).

A News Cafe received media requests for everything from background information, quotes, recorded interviews and podcasts, to inquiries from journalists who represented some of the most prestigious publications and media companies in the world. Many outside media organizations added A News Cafe hyperlinks to their stories. We will never know how many A News Cafe hyperlinks are out there. We’re fine with that.

The first unexpected media person to contact A News Cafe was a reporter from The Wall Street Journal, but not about Shasta County’s upheavals. Rather she interviewed me for a print story and a follow-up podcast later regarding my August 2020 story about my failure as a pandemic gardener.

Wow. The Wall Street Journal. A News Cafe had arrived. At least that’s what I thought at the time. I never imagined that The Wall Street Journal’s gardening story would eventually pale in comparison to the collective attention A News Cafe would receive during the next 26 months. I never imagined that my silly, simple little pandemic tomato-garden feature would be one of the last light-hearted stories published on A News Cafe from the summer of 2020, until, well, now. Most of all, I never imagined that a profile about me and A News Cafe would appear on the front page of the LA Times, which was exactly what happened.

With the positive reactions came the negative. Before long, R.V. and I both received personal threats serious enough to report to the FBI.

There was a silver lining regarding one particularly violent email that landed in my inbox. It caught the attention of some federal agents’ previously cold trail on their quest to find the person who’d sent numerous death threats to Dr. Anthony Fauci, his colleagues, wife and children. The agents learned of the email after I’d published it as an example of the kinds of real fears that caused some readers to not use their real names in the comments section.

It turned out that federal agents had been on the internet-lookout for some key words favored by their evasive domestic terrorist, including baseball bat, gasoline, shots to the head and even the word “dog”. The lead agent contacted me and requested I send them the original email. I did. Sure enough, my demented emailer was the exact person they were looking for; the same man who’d threatened Dr. Fauci. The suspect, 57-year-old Thomas Patrick Connally, Jr., was caught and is now in prison.

Return on your investment

I’ve never felt comfortable bragging, or drawing attention to myself, or pointing out my accomplishments. (Except when my pastry-wrapped stuffed fig won first place in the Fig Fest cooking contest. Then, I boasted my head off.) Some might say I suffer from an inferiority complex. I say that I put a lot of stock in humility. I say that I don’t want to come across as braggadocios, or being too full of myself, or seeking to make myself look superior and others inferior.

But here’s what dawned upon me: A News Cafe isn’t just about me. It’s about A News Cafe’s team, and its generous readers and loyal advertisers who’ve supported A News Cafe; some for the entire 15 years. It is no exaggeration to say that without all of you, A News Cafe wouldn’t exist.

With that in mind, in this 2022 wrap-up column I present two years’ of some of A News Cafe’s greatest accomplishments. After all, A News Cafe supporters are stakeholders of sorts. I am here to assure you that your investment is paying off, because you’re with a winner.

Media is the message

In chronological order here’s a partial list of media outlets that contacted A News Cafe for information and interviews about our Shasta County coverage. (I say “partial” list, because, as R.V. would say, we don’t have all the receipts for every instance.) Unfortunately, many of these stories are behind paywalls, and there’s nothing we can do about that.

Side note: In the spring of 2021 A News Cafe was contacted out of the blue by Chico State professor Shawn Schwaller. He popped the question: Was A News Cafe interested in publishing a series he’d researched for three years about the State of Jefferson? We said absolutely yes, because the SOJ was one of ANC’s many areas of recent interest.

The media attention continued …

By the way, this list does not include two ongoing, yet-to-be revealed projects; one by a professional podcaster, and the other by a professional film-maker.

The CNPA award-winning A News Cafe

But wait, there’s more. In 2022 A News Cafe received a total of seven awards from the California News Publishers Association for 2021 stories in the following categories:

A News Cafe Journalist Doni Chamberlain – 2 awards

CNPA fifth place, Coverage of Local Government – Doni Chamberlain

Election Joys Dimmed by Local Threats: ‘We know where you live, we know who your family is, we know your dog’s name’.

Election Joys Dimmed by Local Threats: ‘We know where you live, we know who your family is, we know your dog’s name’

CNPA fourth place, Public Service Journalism – Doni Chamberlain

Election Joys Dimmed by Local Threats: ‘We know where you live, we know who your family is, we know your dog’s name’.

Election Joys Dimmed by Local Threats: ‘We know where you live, we know who your family is, we know your dog’s name’

Journalist R.V. Scheide – 3 awards

CNPA fifth place, Investigative Reporting

RPD Investigator Faces Criminal Trial After Allegedly Using State Police Database to Harass Male Rival, by R.V. Scheide

RPD Investigator Faces Criminal Trial After Allegedly Using State Police Database to Harass Male Rival

CNPA third place, Columns -R.V. Scheide

Rep. Doug LaMalfa and the Big Lie

Rep. Doug LaMalfa and the Big Lie

CNPA fifth place, Writing – R.V. Scheide

Aaron Rodgers Won’t Make Lying Wrong Again

Aaron Rodgers Won’t Make Lying Wrong Again

Professor/Reporter Shawn Schwaller – 2 awards

CNPA fourth place, Enterprise News Story or Series – Shawn Schwaller

Series Examines Shasta County’s State of Jefferson Movement

In the Closet of Jefferson State – Part 1: Economic & Social Realities in California’s Pro-Trump Secessionist Far North

CNPA third place, Wildlife Feature Coverage -Shawn Schwaller

Two Plumas County Residents Work to Keep Dixie Fire Stories Alive

Plumas County Residents Work to Keep Dixie Fire Survival Stories Alive

Investigative change-makers

Although the outside media attention was a fleeting novelty and source of wonder, even more meaningful to A News Cafe’s team are the number of investigative stories we’ve published on this site. Many of those stories have resulted in meaningful changes; to right a wrong, or to bring attention to something that was previously unknown, but that the public had every right to know.

The short list of examples includes:

Team ANC

Fifteen years ago, when A News Cafe was an infant, a reader left a comment with a typo in which she accidentally referred to A News Cafe as a “we site”. Although everyone knew she meant website, I’ve always preferred we site, because that’s what A News Cafe is all about. The we site allowed A News Cafe to evolve from the tiny blog in 2007 into the beloved website it is today in 2022.

A News Cafe’s part of our “we site” consists an impressive collection of dedicated people. A News Cafe’s primary writers include two journalists, yours truly and R.V. Scheide, as well as reporter/Ph.d Chico State University professor Shawn Schwaller.

And here’s the rest of the crew:

Barbara Rice, A News Cafe’s longtime assistant/moderator whose biggest chore/responsibility is keeping the comments section as civilized as possible.

Alan Ernesto Phillips, videographer and photographer, who’s accompanied me to some extremely uncomfortable places where we were unwelcome.

Benjamin Nowain, who researches and produces brilliantly informative videos.

Liz Merry covers the Tehama County beat in an interesting style, with stories that lead with such seemingly unrelated topics as colonoscopies or hiking, but move on to county news.

Phil Fountain, one of the best cartoonists you’ll find anywhere, may have retired from newspapers, but we are delighted to announce that he’s returned to A News Cafe to create custom cartoon masterpieces.

Dan Greaney is on the nature beat, with his captivating columns about birds; a respite from the hard news and angst.

Dave Bogener, Joanne Snyder and Jim Dowling are a trio of talented photographers who post their stunning nature and wildlife photos in the Photo Cafe; reminders that even when the news is terrible, much of nature is wonderful.

For a consistently non-controversial popular column, Hal Johnson is the go-to guy for North State entertainment news.

Margaret Beck has kept us informed about everything related to health-insurance that we probably didn’t know.

Finally, there’s Doug Cushman, whose artwork appears during Christmas week, but he’s also an occasional correspondent reporting from France.

Pulitzer Prize?!!

In journalism parlance, what I’m doing here now is called “burying the lead” – meaning, I’ve buried what some might consider the more compelling information way down here, rather than place it way up there, higher in the story.

Here’s why it’s down here: No, A News Cafe did not win a Pulitzer Prize. Believe me, if A News Cafe had won, you’d have heard. However, a trio of highly respected movers and shakers (who wish to remain anonymous) believed so much in A News Cafe’s North State coverage that they were convinced that it deserved a Pulitzer Prize, so they set out to make it happen.

There’s no telling if this group of intelligent, optimist individuals knew what they’d taken on, because it turned out that the Pulitzer Prize application process is a totally taxing nightmare of an arduous, tedious, frustrating slog of tightly structured, highly precise requirements.

Part of that process included gathering letters of support and recommendation about A News Cafe. The content of those letters alone brought me to tears a few times. Another part of the process involved gathering all the selected stories and their accompanying links for submission. This was exceedingly time-consuming (again, for the local Pulitzer Prize team, not for A News Cafe). The application also required the inclusion of my then-non-existent professional photograph; not the head shot I’d used for years, taken by friend Debbie as I held a tiny three-tiered cake I’d made for her cousin, which is why I look so darn happy. It’s because of the Pulitzer Prize application that I now have a professional photo. It looks fantastic, but it’s not an accurate representation of what I look like. In fact, my professional photo depicts an image that appears about two decades younger than I really am. That would be great, if I were into online dating again (until my date met me in person). Obviously, I need a new, more authentic photo; easy on the Photoshop.

For the record, although the Pulitzer Prize process was indeed an application to nominate A News Cafe, only esteemed “finalist nominees” can rightfully carry the rarified title of “Pulitzer Prize nominee”. Everyone else, all of those who lost, like A News Cafe? We are known simply as “entrants”.

Pulitzer Prize entrant. It has a nice ring to it. A News Cafe wears that title with honor and heartfelt gratitude for the Shasta County Pulitzer Prize team.

All we need is love

Occasionally I’m asked why A News Cafe isn’t more aggressive in its marketing and pursuit of financial support. I have three answers.

First, we don’t aggressively target prospective donors with pleas and shakedowns because that’s not A News Cafe’s style. Yes, there were times in A News Cafe’s early history when we briefly sampled that route, but we stopped. It felt weird as journalists to beg for money to keep the North State informed. We believed bright readers were well aware that it takes money to keep A News Cafe going. We trusted that regular readers would give what they could, when they could.

Second, aggressive money-making schemes and pushy, hard-sell campaigns require loads of time and energy that we’d rather spend working on A News Cafe’s stories.

Finally — and this is my favorite reason — I see the connection between A News Cafe and its readers similar to a committed love relationship. If the only way to entice love is through guilt trips, self-promotion, exaggeration, begging, chasing, charming, brow-beating or bravado, then that’s a pretty pathetic excuse of a relationship.

At A News Cafe we believe that love is its very best when it’s given freely, not strong-armed or coerced. The way we see it, free, genuine love will happily stick around when there’s mutual respect, value and appreciation; no grandiose promises or strings attached. True love is voluntary.

Having said all that, we’re not totally ignorant when it comes to fundraising. Here’s the most assertive extent of A News Cafe’s revenue-building campaign (which you’ve probably noticed): We post tiny-font words below selected stories to remind readers of a tangible way to show appreciation for A News Cafe’s work. Beyond that, we leave it to you to express love and gratitude for this site through subscriptions and contributions. But only because you truly want to.

OK, since it’s that time of the year, here’s my annual pitch: The more money A News Cafe receives, the more reporters, photographers, videographers and artists it can hire and pay a living wage. The more stories we can publish, then the more informed, enlightened and even entertained you will be.

And that’s all I’ll say about that. We can circle back to A News Cafe’s fundraising pitch again in December of 2023.

What now, my love?

On behalf of A News Cafe’s tiny-but-mighty team, thank you for being part of A News Cafe, whether you’ve just discovered us, or whether you’re among the few thousand people who’ve been with us from Day 1. We hope you’ve noticed A News Cafe’s last two years in particular, and that you value this site’s accomplishments and excellence in journalism.

Today, we’re proud to report that A News Cafe averages more than 100,000 monthly unique visitors, which is incredible. Sad to say, the only down side to our high number of unique visitors is that it puts us in competition with much bigger, better-staffed, more richly resourced media companies when we enter contests. Even so, that won’t stop us from doing the very best we can, with what we have.

Fifteen years. I can hardly believe it. What’s next? Well, you can count on A News Cafe to continue our independent, grassroots reporting, commentary and investigative journalism.

And, as always, we never take you for granted. We thank you for investing in and believing in us. We thank you for hanging in there with us during the best and worst of times. Together we can face 2023, and all it brings. (Ready or not.)

A News Cafe will be here for as long as there are important topics to cover and stories to tell … that’s assuming there are no break-ups, and as long as we’re still feeling the love.

Editor’s note: Two corrections were made to this story this  morning for clarity and accuracy. The first revision corrected the number of Shasta County COVID deaths. The second provided correct attribution to the Shastaliban cartoon creator. We apologize for any confusion. 

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As we leave 2022 and welcome 2023, A News Cafe’s entire team hopes you will consider contributing a generous subscription, a significant donation or even a snail-mailed check as a show of appreciation for journalist and publisher Doni Chamberlain’s work (and the absence of obnoxious fundraising campaigns), as well as your tangible expression of gratitude for everyone at A News Cafe. Thank you, and happy New Year!

Doni Chamberlain

Independent online journalist Doni Chamberlain founded A News Cafe in 2007 with her son, Joe Domke. Chamberlain holds a Bachelor's Degree in journalism from CSU, Chico. She's an award-winning newspaper opinion columnist, feature and food writer recognized by the Associated Press, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and E.W. Scripps. She's been featured and quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Washington Post, L.A. Times, Slate, Bloomberg News and on CNN, KQED and KPFA. She lives in Redding, California.

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