In March 2020, as the world began to shut down because of SARS-CoV-2, newspaper publishers faced an existential dilemma: One of the biggest news stories in a century was unfolding; misinformation was running rampant; and advertisers were cancelling buys in droves.
The owners of the Reno News & Review made the gut-wrenching decision to suspend publication. The RN&R at the time was more focused on print than its digital presence, and the owners didn’t see a path forward in a world where there were few advertisers—and the vast majority of the places where the print issue was normally available were closed, anyway. On March 19, 2020, copies of the final print weekly edition of the RN&R were distributed at the handful of places still open.
In Palm Springs, at the RN&R’s now-sister paper, the Coachella Valley Independent, we handled things differently. The Independent has always been as equally focused on digital as on the print edition, which was and is produced on a monthly basis. Even though 80-plus percent of our advertising had evaporated in a flash, we decided to keep publishing. What was slated to be our 40-page April Music Issue, with a 16,000 copy print run, became a 24-page paper, with a 10,000-copy print run … and an empty roll of toilet paper on the cover.
I’ll never forget how weird and unbelievable that time felt—and March 13, 2020, is the day that stands out the most in my mind. That was the day a national emergency was declared due to COVID-19, and it was the day I decided to turn the Independent’s simple weekly newsletter into a daily missive with links to reliable news and information, both local and national, as well as personal commentary. I called the newsletter the Daily Digest, and I did it five or six days a week for months. (Today, it’s called the Indy Digest, and it comes out twice a week.)
All of these memories were flooding into my mind this year on March 13, when I celebrated the anniversary … by going to a sold-out Madonna concert at the new Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, Calif. It was a packed house of screaming, excited people celebrating a pop and culture icon’s career.
The juxtaposition between these two March 13s, just four years apart, was somehow both startling and amusing. I couldn’t help but compare how much better things are now than they were at the pandemic’s start. But once I started digging a little deeper, I came to the realization that not everything is better—and, in fact, some things are much worse.
The New York Times marked the four-year anniversary of the national-emergency declaration with a piece headlined “Four Years On, COVID Has Reshaped Life for Many Americans.” This passage was particularly striking:
One common sentiment has emerged. The changes brought on by the pandemic now feel lasting, a shift that may have permanently reshaped American life.
Before the pandemic, Melody Condon, a marketing specialist in Vancouver, Wash., who is immunocompromised, said she had a stronger sense of confidence in other people.
“Unfounded or not, I believed that for the most part, others would take small actions to keep me and people like me safe,” Ms. Condon, 32, said.
But now she has encountered people who resist taking a Covid test or wearing a mask in some situations.
“What they’re communicating is that they don’t care about my health and my life,” Ms. Condon said. “I have lost so much trust in others.”
Frankly, I feel similarly. I sometimes ponder how much worse things would be if another pandemic arrived now. The growing number of anti-science and uber-privileged “personal rights” folks—riled up by powerful politicians on the right—would simply not take the precautions needed to protect themselves and, more importantly, those around them.
The lockdowns brought out some good in people, yes. But they also shined a light on some of the darkest traits in some people—like selfishness, a sense of privilege, anger and a disregard for the plight of others.
I am very, very happy we’re now in a time of Madonna concerts and being around one another. I’m also happy that the reports of the RN&R’s demise were exaggerated, and that we came back, first online, and later in print as a monthly, with a healthy 25,000 copies being distributed a month.
But I am heartbroken that my opinion of humanity today is lower—much lower, in fact—than it was in March 2020.