Interview Transcript

Interview Date: 05 June 2020

Interviewer: Dr. Justin D Shanks

Interview Participant: Kristin Bieber

 

JS [00:00:01] So thank you again for joining me. And I would like to start uh by talking about background. So if you could. 

 

KB [00:00:09] Okay.

 

JS [00:00:09] Who are you? Um, where do you live? What do you do as a career? What do you do in your free time. How old are you? Basically a nice biographical sketch of who you are. 

 

KB [00:00:22] Okay. Uh my name is Kristin Bieber. I'm 34 years old. I live in the Brockway, Montana area. Me and my husband and our three children raise uh registered commercial sheep and grow uh hay for sale. Um I was home schooled K through twelve. I got my bachelors through MSU Billings with an extended history major and a minor in political science. Um and then I came back and raised sheep because that made sense. And um that's about it, really. I don't really have hobbies cuz there isn't much time with ranching. Um yeah, that's about it. 

 

JS [00:01:06] Great. Thanks for that intro. Have you always lived in Brockway or in that region? 

 

KB [00:01:13] I grew up 25 miles east of here in Jordan. Uh also on a sheep ranch, I'm actually I'm fourth generation sheep rancher in the US and 11th generation, as far as we know, for just raising sheep in my family. 

 

JS [00:01:31] Wow. So fourth, fourth generation in the US, where were the preceding generations? 

 

KB [00:01:36] Um, Scotland. 

 

JS [00:01:39] Oh, excellent. That's great. That um that connects nicely with this research is inspired by some of the writing of Ivan Doig and he uh himself wrote a lot about uh sheep ranching and wrote a lot about the transition from Scotland to Montana, actually. So you have a very nice parallel to that. 

 

KB [00:01:58] I'm so glad this is working perfectly [laughter]. 

 

JS [00:02:01] Yes, that's a nice, uh nice coincidence. 

 

JS [00:02:05] Um, so focusing on uh your experiences in Brockway, could you talk about um imagine for a second that, you know, I'm a friend, I'm thinking about moving to Brockway. Could you describe to me what it's what it's like? What's great about living there? What's challenging about living there and ultimately in your time that you have lived there. Uh, how has the community, if at all, uh changed? 

 

KB [00:02:28] I mean in the time and I've been here, the community has shrunk just, you know, as a rural community does it kinda has ebbs and flows. Uh, right now, we've got several of the older generation that are selling out to the younger generations and either isn't coming back or isn't ready to come back yet. So places are for lease. Um, the bright side about living out here, if you're like me and an introvert, there's not many people out here and you can avoid seeing people. Um, downside, if you're an extrovert, there's not very many people out here. Um, not a whole lot as far as, I guess, community activities outside of if you have small, younger children for school activities and 4H, unfortunately, most of the social activities happen at the bars. Um, as far as like the communication stuff um that's hit or miss. Sometimes we have incredible Internet and cell service and other times you have to stand up on the hill and jump. But it's a nice community. It's pretty low key um for the most part. You know, everybody. But as far as has it changed much since I came over here? I came over here 11 years ago. It hasn't changed greatly. And also with the fact I uh you know that grew up 25 miles away from here, it just really doesn't seem like much changes. So I guess that would be my outlook on it. 

 

JS [00:03:58] Nice yeah, the sort of the universal problem with rural communities right is aging and decreasing populations. Not a lot of younger people moving in.

 

KB [00:04:08] Yeah, well too, for better or for worse, the farming equipment and the livestock handling equipment have made it where you can do just as much stuff with fewer people. I mean, you look at the farming equipment that we have now, you can farm so many more acres in a shorter period of time with fewer people than you used. And livestock is the same way. We've got a piece of handling equipment that um talks to a smart scale, moves all of the weights from ewes and lambs on to a stock recorder, then sends it via Bluetooth to my cell phone. And what used to take five people takes one and a half because of technology. And just what you can do now, which I mean is a bright side of the community is getting smaller. But on the downside, there's fewer jobs for people. But also AG doesn't pay well enough to pay a whole bunch of people. So.

 

JS [00:05:01] Sure. Yeah, that sort of double edged sword of technological advance making things easier. But yeah, certainly fewer fewer jobs for more people. Yeah. Uh, so shifting gears a little bit, now that we know a little bit about you and a little bit about your community, um I would love to hear your thoughts on how you access uh information. So um looking mostly at news, uh news media, news information, um how do you access your news? Is it primarily in print? Is it primary online? Uh what types of sources do you do receive your your news information? 

 

KB [00:05:40] It's primarily online. I try to avoid accessing any news on Facebook. Um, that just seems sketchy. Uh, I have a news app on my smartphone. And look at the articles on there, mainly, mainly from um I guess outlets that, excuse me, that I know of. And uh you know, things like mediaite and things with weird names like that. I generally don't look at those articles um and if I have a question about something, then I whip out the good old Google and see if I can get other sources that um confirm that uh kind of going back to being a history major, if one source says it and I can't find it anywhere else, I'm not really taking its word for it. Um, so mainly I do get my news from uh online. I try to avoid watching television as far as news because it seems to be slanted whichever direction you want to go with it. Um and I'm sure the news articles are as well, but it's easier to fact check them. So I guess that's kind of my modus operandi on it. 

 

JS [00:06:54] Yeah, definitely. So just to follow up on two things that you said, um you said you you try to avoid Facebook because it seemed sketchy and you try to get most news from a news app. So uh the two follow up questions are, why does Facebook seem sketchy to you as a news source? And what is the news app that you tend to use? And why does it seem less sketchy? 

 

KB [00:07:17] Um, I guess the reason I avoid Facebook is that you have, you know, an article from the Huffington Post or something like that, which is great. And then it's immediately followed by something that says breaking news and half of the words in the headline are in all caps, which I've found that very few serious um news outlets feel the need to put things in half of the words in all caps. It reminds me of the frantic woman, I guess, which is bad thing to say, but um that's I guess that's one of the reasons why. And, you know, there's a lot of people sharing different things and you go through your news feed and there's 10 people, five of them are saying five different things, and the other five are, I guess, posting recipes. But um so that's that's kind of my problem with looking at news from Facebook is that it just seems like anyone can post an article on there um and get it published in some way, shape or form, especially people if you put breaking news on it. Um, the news app on my phone, hate to say it, came with the phone. It was already on there. And I played around with it, put in preferences. I like getting stuff from like the BBC and PBS um kind of get a different outlook on things. Um and also with my family being mainly over in the British Isles, um kind of keep up on what they're looking at. And it's also interesting to see our news from a different country's perspective, which is one of the reasons why I like that app is because I can get the BBC on there. And mainly, I I just like the fact that it's, you know, that this um app has pretty much every news outlet of any sort of substance on there. I've got The Huffington Post and The New York Post and The New York Times and, you know, things like that where I was like, you know, they've been around for long enough. Yeah, I'm sure they're slanted, but they're not something that popped up 10 days ago in somebody's basement. So I guess that's my outlook on it. 

 

JS [00:09:29] Sure. So it sounds like, as you mentioned before, sort of your training as a as a historian, the emphasis on source verifiability is really, really important. 

 

KB [00:09:41] Yes. 

 

JS [00:09:42] Nice, so you did mentioned earlier when describing uh Brockway that a lot of socialization occurs in bars. Is that at all a source for receiving news, maybe more local news in that environment? Do you get any news verbally? 

 

KB [00:09:56] Yeah, I'm a mother of three children, so I don't get there very often. But um yeah, you go like my husband goes in there and uh that's the main purpose for going is to find out, you know what mainly how people's, you know, seasons are going, how is your spring or whatever. I also get a report on cattle and wheat prices and who may have died last week. Um and just, you know. Yes. Local news. We call it gossip. Um but that's that's kind of the primary spot to be able to go and get it and visit with people and kind of exchange views on things. Also, the gas station, the gas station is a really good place to exchange views. But, yes, it's it's a primarily sharing information with others um spot. 

 

JS [00:10:47] Great. Thank you. So uh now I want to look back um as far as you can, um what's your earliest memory of watching news, reading news, listening to news um when you were younger, you know, during your childhood, if you can think back that far? What's what's your earliest news consumption memory?

 

KB [00:11:07] Um, the Oklahoma City bombings. Um, we grew up without TV, but my grandparents had it. And so when that happened, we all went over to my grandma's house to see what was going on. So that's really my first memory of anything, you know, that you saw on the news. Um growing up, we didn't have, you know, uh even a state wide paper that we got at the house. We got the local county one, um which had a really didn't have anything as far as um nationwide news or even statewide news because they assumed you were going to get another newspaper. So the Oklahoma City bombing was definitely the first sort of news story that I can recall. Um, you know, knowing about that it had happened. I can't even remember what year that was, but I remember being quite little. 

 

JS [00:12:02] Okay, so and now if I can ask you to compare, contrast that experience of watching a major uh national news event occur with some of your family members on the television um as a form of news and information consumption versus how you now currently get most of your news uh you know via online sources, actively avoiding television news and uh getting the local news verbally. What's what's changed in terms of your access to news and information in that time period? 

 

KB [00:12:33] I think the fact that it's just so readily available at this point. Like my husband and I were discussing it, you know, you hear about something terrible happening over on the other side of the world. And, you know, it's it's followed by this report and that report about other things that have happened. And my husband said he's like, you know, it just seems like things are terrible all over the place. I was like I just don't think it's really changed that much. I was like I think it's the fact that we know about it. I was like you know, my husband's 13 years older than me. So, um you know, he was even further back where, you know, news wasn't checked, news was generated 24/7. We just didn't hear about it 24/7. Um, you didn't have um these channels that were solely dedicated to finding something that they needed to report on. Um and I think it's just, you know, hitting saturation point. And, you know, now at this point, I check the news once a day, usually in the morning, and kind of hit the things that seem important. And then I leave it alone because there's going to be so many different reports about what our president has tweeted and where something terrible has happened somewhere else in the world and what somebody else has tweeted. Um, it just gets to be depressing at some point um and frustrating. And, you know, it'd be really nice if people would just be quiet for a little while, have their inner thoughts and keep them to themselves. And so I think that's that's the thing, you know, growing up, I remember my grandparents watching the news at 5:00, and that was it. And then um my kids' grandfather here on the place with us has FOX News on probably 10 hours out of the day. And I was like, you know, just the fact that it's always there, it's always giving you updates on more specifically anything terrible happening, and it's not specific to Fox News, all of the other outlets kind of do that. Um, I think it's just kind of information overload as far as the news is concerned at this point. 

 

JS [00:14:50] Definitely, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, I like your phrase about news has always occurred 24/7, but now we have access to access to it 24/7. That nicely summarizes the condition that we find ourselves in. 

 

KB [00:15:04] Yeah. Well, like my my husband and I were discussing it and he's like, you know, just all these things happening all at once and I pointed out to him, I was like, you know, summer of 1880 or summer of 1848, I was like all of Europe was in revolt. I was like we were dealing with um still dealing with some uh problems in relations with Mexico. I was like we we had problems with Russia of all things that year too as the US. I was like we also had ongoing campaigns against the Native Americans. I was like there was a lot of crap going on that year. I was like, but very few people realized it because, you know, it took at least three weeks to get reports across from Europe to the US and vice versa. And no one knew what was happening in Africa. I mean, there was all sorts of atrocities going on there. I was like, but no one knew it because nobody was tweeting it and Facebook living it. I was like so I was like it's just kind of your perspective on this is, yes, are terrible things happening now? Yes. Um, is it horrible? Yes. Is it new? Not really. 

 

JS [00:16:17] Yeah. All very good points. Uh, you mentioned a little while ago that you have uh at times spotty cell service at your home. You mentioned having to kind of stand on top of a hill and jump up and down. How's your Internet access at home? Slow, fast, reliable, unreliable? 

 

KB [00:16:35] It's, um I guess as far as speed, it's mediocre, um we can stream Netflix as long as we only have one Internet device running at that point in time. And it also depends upon how many people are using the Internet in our area at that point in time. It's gotten a lot better, but the downside is is our local Internet provider um is backing off um because, you know, we've got bigger companies coming in. But the bigger companies don't necessarily bring more reliable Internet service. [Sneeze] Excuse me. So it's you know, I grew up with dial up Internet that you couldn't do anything with. So any sort of Wi-Fi seems still seems pretty fancy to me. But, you know, talking to my sister who lives out in Maine and she, you know, streaming this and streaming that. And I was like yeah I takes about five minutes for my stuff to buffer, but um you know, it's better than nothing, especially with, ironically, how much of the sheep records and data that we collect on really anything at this point has to be put you know we put it online to have it sent off, to be analyzed in Australia for the sheep. Uh I was like, you know, we've got to have it and it's better than nothing, but it is definitely slow and occasionally irritating. 

 

JS [00:18:03] Okay, so uh you mentioned that you get a lot of your your news online. So I'm wondering how to, how does the spotty or mediocre Internet impact that, um particularly if, uh are you using a smartphone to access any of your your news? 

 

KB [00:18:20] Yes, the bright side with the app that I have is they have um you can get the fancy view of the article with all of the pictures or you can just get the text, which comes through in our um uh with our service. And so it's, I mainly just read the text and not worry about the pictures, um which I feel I'm getting in touch with some 18th century news article then I'm not getting any colored pictures. Um but it does impact certain parts of getting um information, you know, like all of these videos with the current situation with um George Floyd's uh tragedy. You you can't stream the videos very reliably here for any of the reports on that. But you can read the articles as long as all you get is the text. 

 

JS [00:19:17] Sure, that makes that makes sense. So aside from uh using your news app, could you talk about your daily smartphone habits? How much do you use it? What do you use it for? Um, do you find yourself sort of drawn to it all the time, or is it just an occasional type of thing? What's what's your day day in the life of your smartphone look like? 

 

KB [00:19:40] Day in the life of my smartphone? Looks like I look at news in the morning. I have um, I guess, a business page on Facebook for my sheep cuz I sell registered seedstock, so I check on that. Um, and then most of my smartphone's job throughout the day is to play music through Spotify. And since I have um the version of Spotify that you can download things, I um have that. And I listen to a lot of podcasts while I'm doing stuff outside. And, otherwise, that's about what, aside from phone calls and text messaging, that's really all my smartphone gets used for. But I also got the cheapest one possible. So it's not really good at many other things. 

 

JS [00:20:28] Okay, great. Thanks. You mentioned a little while ago that you uh you well, you actually just mentioned a moment ago as well, that you use Facebook for some business purposes, uh but try to avoid getting any of your any of your news from Facebook. So I'm wondering uh first, uh do you use any other forms of social media uh and then. 

 

KB [00:20:49] No. 

 

JS [00:20:50] No? Okay. So simple and straightforward. So Facebook, is it predominantly for business purposes? Do you find yourself using it for social purposes as well? 

 

KB [00:21:01] Um, a little bit for social purposes. Because, like I mentioned before, I have um three kids and several of their aunts and uncles don't live in our area. And so I originally went on got on Facebook so that they could kind of keep track of the kids. And um that's still kind of the main purpose behind it. It has turned into a great um sales tool for the sheep side of it. Um, and then also it's one of the ways I keep track of um, like, sheep business stuff from across the world because my news app is nice. It doesn't allow you to get reports from stock and land in Australia so I can keep track what people are spending on sheep and grain in Australia. Um so but I can do that on Facebook. So I use it a lot for that as well. Um, keep trying to keep track of um I guess commodity prices worldwide for what we grow. But so the main things I use it for letting my aunts and uncles know what the kids are up to and um the business stuff as far as the sheep. 

 

JS [00:22:10] Okay, so it sounds like Facebook provides some supplement supplemental, more business specific news. Okay great.

 

KB [00:22:16] Yeah. Yeah. 

 

JS [00:22:18] Um, so we're going to shift gears from information access to talk about information trustworthiness. So when you, you know, read an article on your news app or maybe you watched an odd bit of television to get some news or information or you see or hear news elsewhere, how do you evaluate that information to determine whether or not it's trustworthy, factual uh or reliable? 

 

KB [00:22:42] I guess my first thing that I do is um kind of think about it as far as does this sound rational and logical, like um my husband read a thing here on Facebook the other day about um Democrats trying to slip a ban for the Pledge of Allegiance into a bill. And he was a little bit outraged. And I was like, think about it for a minute. I was like does that sound like something that's even plausible. And I was like, what would they gain from that? And he sat there and he's like, 'Yeah, that doesn't sound right.' I was like so that's kind of my first um first thing that I go with and then if I kind of have questions on still, I do do a lot of Google search, you know, type in, you know, keywords to that, see if I can get other news sources that will um verify it. And then you know that if that proves that, yes, you know, that is the case, I generally wait a few days and see if it pops back up. Um, that's kind of what I go with it with as far as verifying facts. Cuz I mean, there's just some really outlandish things that are written out there on, you know, put out there online that, you know, that just doesn't even sound, that's just kind of click bait, I guess, um and rather salacious, like I've found that rarely is news quite that exciting or scandalous. But so I guess that's that's kind of how I go about it. 

 

JS [00:24:17] Okay, thanks. So speaking of outlandish news or click bait, um there's been a lot of attention in the last couple of years on concepts of fake news and alternative facts. So I'm wondering if those phrases are familiar to you. And if they are, what do they mean to you? 

 

KB [00:24:36] I know my kids have a lot of alternative facts about who made the living room a mess, um but I guess the fake news I find to be a bit of an irritating term. I was like if it's fake, it's not news. It's a lie. Um, the alternative facts one kind of intrigues me because some part of it is you can have you can see the same events and come out with a different viewpoint on it. Um, and I guess, well, the person that use originally used the term alternative facts was not being trustworthy about it. I was like, you know, it is something that's interesting to think about because, like I said, you can have two people look at the same thing and come away with two entirely different opinions about it. And they just looked at different aspects of it. So kind of like alternative facts. Both of these things did happen we just, the same thing happened, they just see it differently. I guess, is my outlook on alternative facts. 

 

JS [00:25:44] Okay, uh both those answers uh make total sense. So I'm wondering, uh you had mentioned how fake news is an irritating term, uh, because of it it's fake, it's not news. It's it's it's a lie. And so I'm wondering if you think fake news is a widespread problem in news and in journalism or if it's isolated in particular types of news or journalism, or uh you know do you see it more often local or national or global news, particular news sources? Um you know, what are your thoughts about the problematic nature of fake news? And where might you find it? 

 

KB [00:26:22] I think all of the news sources have it at some point, it just kind of depends upon the topic they're talking about. Some are more rampant with it than others. I mean, as far as fake news, locally, uh you can hear real whoppers anywhere you go about anyone, um which is highly entertaining. Um, but, you know, as far as the state side of it, I mean, it's not necessarily a news outlet, but any sort of campaign bulletin you get um has things that are probably not true about the opposing candidate. But, boy, it makes good talking points. Um, and I mean both sides do it. And I mean, it just continues on when you get to national news. And very much by the time you get to global news, I mean, we'll say anything we want about Chechnya. Uh, you know, it's to some degree, it is to to appeal to that news networks um base core of readers what they want to hear. And I think, you know, there's journalists that are very good about these are the facts, you know, X, Y and Z. And then there are other journalists that do give you the facts, X, Y and Z, but it's in different fonts. And it skews what your take away about that story is. So I guess that's my outlook, is that, yes, fake news is around. Yes. Just about every news outlet peddles in it at some point in time about this fact or that fact um and it just gets bigger as the I guess the audience gets bigger that's going to consume it. So that's, I guess, where I'm sitting with this. 

 

JS [00:28:17] All right. Thank you. So there's one other phrase that's that's been increasingly uh utilized in the last couple of years, and that's a concept known as post truth. So I'm wondering if that's a phrase that you're familiar with. And if so, how do you how do you understand it? 

 

KB [00:28:35] It is not one that I'm familiar with. What is it? 

 

JS [00:28:39] So generally speaking, post truth uh in the media refers to presentations of news or information that appeal not to truth or to facts, but to emotion. Uh and you touched on some of the stuff a little bit, you know, sort of with notions of confirmation bias and so forth. But it's essentially making an emotional appeal to a viewer or reader rather than a factual or

 

KB [00:29:04] It's an editorial, opinion piece type of a deal. 

 

JS [00:29:08] Yeah, uh in part, yeah so an editorial or an opinion piece that's presented not as an editorial or opinion, but as truth.

 

KB [00:29:18] Yeah as as news, yeah.

 

JS [00:29:19] Yes. Yes, exactly. Yes. 

 

KB [00:29:20] No, those those things that pop up on Facebook readily. 

 

JS [00:29:25] Yes, you often see them in social media. For sure. Uh so I wanna again shift gears a little bit to move from your evaluation of information to your information sharing behaviors. So um you know if you read something on your app or you see something, um what types of information do you share with people? And how do you share those types of information with people? 

 

KB [00:29:51] Um, usually I very rarely share anything, I guess, publicly on Facebook. Um, if I do, it's generally about um sheep commodity prices or outlooks on that or uh I guess to some degree personal stories of an individual going back to being a history student. You know, if I run on to something about a historical figure that I find very interesting, good article then yes, I'll share that publicly on Facebook. Most of the time things as far as current events, um I share those privately in private messages with, you know, people that I like, you know, either you'll find this interesting, well you'll find it interesting either way, but people that I'm willing to discuss it with. I have no desire to discuss what I'm thinking with everyone on Facebook. So I've watched that too many times. It's a train wreck and it's never going to change anyone's mind. So that that's most of the stuff I share. I share with a select group of people. And if I do share it publicly, it's not going to hinge on current events. The only thing I've shared here, probably the last oh shoot like five months, was an account from some nursing students working with Covid patients in on the Navajo Nation and just their I guess their feeling feelings of hopelessness on that case. And, you know, kind of how the system failed them in that. And I it was just something that I felt it was pretty poignant. And it wasn't, you know, saying this this side is bad. This side is good. Is this just isn't working, you know, best with all of the things we try, it's not working sort of a situation and I felt that that was something that I was like I will take on anyone that wants to argue with me about this. So that's that's kind of my, I guess, sharing on social media standpoint. 

 

JS [00:32:00] Okay. So it sounds like for for sharing via social media, it's either business related or if you're going to share it publicly or you know if it's something that you find interesting or perhaps interesting to somebody else, you share that that privately. 

 

KB [00:32:13] Yeah. 

 

JS [00:32:14] What about beyond social media to sharing information in other ways? Maybe uh face to face, verbally, um send emails to folks with with information, yea outside of social media, how might you share information? 

 

KB [00:32:30] I don, I do share information I find interesting, again, is different than most people. Um I do share it face to face um and their eyes glaze over when I start talking about Neanderthal DNA research. It's a good way to clear a bar. Um so I do share information face to face probably mostly or via the telephone or the phone talking to people on it because, again, mother of three, um thirty miles from the nearest town, most of my communication is done on a phone. Um, I really don't share information via email. I don't I don't send out emails like I get from my aunts about you need to read this and then it's something about the Chinese releasing the Covid virus. I don't think that. Um, but for the most part, I guess my outlook has always been I have my opinions, they're my opinions, and I keep them to myself. And I don't really need to hear other people's opinions. And they they can have them. I have no problems with that. Everyone has different opinions. You just don't need to necessarily share them with me. So that's unless it's something that I can sit there and go, it's a peer reviewed document um I don't really talk about it. 

 

JS [00:34:02] Great. Thanks for for explaining that. Uh so now I want to ask you uh sort of a compare contrast of the ways that you share information and maybe how you understand other people in Montana to share information. And do you think that's different uh than how people in other parts of the country share information? 

 

KB [00:34:23] You know, I I guess I couldn't say necessarily like my my sister lives out in Maine. She's a lawyer. She's five years older than me. So we're in, roughly speaking, the same age bracket. Um, she is very active on social media. She shares things on Twitter. She posts things on Instagram. Um, she has uh FaceTime debates with other people, which sound terrifying to me. Um and she takes things not necessarily very personally, but she she wants to discuss it a lot. And most of the people I run into here, you know, yes they'll read the article you shared or whatever, but they're not going to discuss it with you um unless it affects them personally. And talking to my sister, uh she's like, you know, that's what she does. Well, she's a lawyer. But any time she's out socially, they're discussing, you know, these bigger current events and things like that. And uh at least in the circles that I run in around here uh most of what we discuss is, you know, how people's spring went and stuff like that, I mean, kind of local interests more. And I think it also has to do with the fact that we're a smaller community and to some degree not in not as touched by um the current events that are going on now, whether it was Covid or um the George Floyd tragedy uh as someone in a more populated area is going to be. And so I guess that's kind of my outlook on it is we do share information, it's just um not necessarily as big nationally or globally, unless it has to do with commodities markets. 

 

KB [00:36:28] Excellent. Thank you. Uh so now I want to bring us um to talk about some current events and how those are affecting your news and information behavior. So, uh Covid-19, right, Coronavirus has been uh something that the globe has been dealing with for a number of months. And really, you know, since about early March, Montana has been addressing it on you know with changes in business practices, you know, people working from home, less face to face social interaction, et cetera, et cetera. So um since Covid-19 really took root in Montana in early March, have you found yourself consuming and or sharing more information, less information? You know, what have your news and information behaviors looked like in the last couple of months?

 

KB [00:37:18] Well, when Covid hit, it was the day we started lambing, so I was lambing sheep 18 hours out of the day. So I probably shared less. Um, it really hasn't changed much for me cuz I mean, we are fortunate in the fact that we're in a county that has had no active cases at this point. Yes, the kids were home from school. And yes, we you know kind of designated my husband as the person that had to you know get groceries and stuff like that. But most of that was because it was lambing season and I am busier during lambing than he is. He does more of the haying than I do. So, I mean, that was kind of, it didn't change a whole lot for our spring, let's put it that way. Just because of the time of the year it was for us anyway. Um it hasn't, I you know, when we're first in self isolation and stuff like that, I tried to keep track of how many people in Montana, you know, had contracted it and where they were at and stuff like that. And then after about a week that got boring and I quit doing that. But again, it didn't really affect us. Aside from the fact that it was hard to find toilet paper there for a couple of weeks, so um yeah it didn't affect us terribly much. 

 

JS [00:38:40] Okay, great. Yeah. The uh global shortage of toilet paper is something a lot of people have faced certainly, but it sounds like geography as well as uh profession, career really didn't change much for you. 

 

KB [00:38:56] Yeah. You know, if it if it had if it had happened like now. Yeah, it definitely would have changed things more cuz I mean, the kids are out of school. They have other functions that they would like to do and stuff like that. But and my husband and I have things going on this summer that, you know, we need to get accomplished. And they are slightly social, um but we don't go anywhere for anything really during lambing anyway because we lamb six hundred head of sheep out by ourselves. So it, I wasn't going to go anywhere for two months anyway. 

 

JS [00:39:33] Sounds like he would have been sort of isolating, self quarantining no matter what. 

 

KB [00:39:39] Yes. The bright side was the kids couldn't bring any sicknesses home from school. 

 

JS [00:39:44] Sure, sure. Uh so maybe even though you haven't been consuming a lot of information about Covid-19 during last couple of months, when you did consume or when you do consume information about Covid-19, um where, uh what are the sources that you're you're getting that information from? And then as a quick follow up to that, how are you determining if those are trustworthy, factual sources of information about the virus? 

 

KB [00:40:10] Um, I looked at the BBC mainly because, quite frankly, they got hit with the brunt of it before the US did. Um, I looked at PBS uh because if for no other reason, I trust them more than most people. Uh and then kind of hit the bigger uh national news sources as far as like uh The Huffington Post, New York Times and Washington Times and things like that. And um I appreciate any time they cite a scientist that I can find on Google and look at their credentials and more than anything is just looking at, since this is a global pandemic, um is finding sources outside the US that either verify that or are in the same, you know, train of thought as far as, you know, what are we looking at? What are the chief concerns with this virus? Um what are you know our best um safety protocols? You know, globally, not necessarily what one news source said. And again, I I've also kind of looked at scientific journals um because I figured that when we're dealing with a global pandemic, maybe maybe the scientists have have a thing on this over the Huffington Post. So I guess I guess that's that was kind of my verification on it as I looked for more scientific articles and um medical articles than just general consumer articles. 

 

JS [00:41:52] It sounds like you're your historical training once again, sort of comes into play you know with going for for primary sources, and source verification. 

 

KB [00:42:01]  First day at college in one of the history classes, they said if we cited Wikipedia, we'd get an F on a paper. It stuck with me. So. 

 

JS [00:42:11] So as a as a follow up to that, since you've consumed at least a little bit of information about Covid-19 and sound uh familiar with it, uh could you uh explain what you're understanding of Covid-19 is? 

 

KB [00:42:23] Uh, that we understand it very little. That it is primarily like most corona or, you know, uh Coronavirus type uh infections, you know, it's highly transmissible, more easily caught than the flu, uh that much like most viruses, it's going to affect people with weaker immune systems um and that, like many viruses, it's mutating quickly, um which is both a good and a bad thing considering what viruses do. It could mutate horribly or it could mutate, mutate into something that, you know, just kind of makes you feel cruddy for a week and then you're over it. But also the fact that much like what made the 1918 flu terrible, with the transport of troops all over the globe, our new lifestyle with being able to leave from here and be in Australia in 18 or 20 hours was not helpful. And also just the fact that for all of our technology, we aren't, things like this can still whack us in the eye, which I think is kind of not amusing, but I was like, boy, if you want to still feel human, um get get your butt kicked by a virus the same as it's been getting kicked for millennia. Um and, you know, the understanding I have of it is, you know, while we originally thought it was mainly a lung issue, is that it attacks pretty much anything it can get its hands on or those little knobbys that you see in all of the pictures. Um and that while it's yes, it's mainly devastating for older and immune compromised individuals, it can you know potentially be devastating to perfectly healthy people as well. Not as likely, but potentially. So it's nothing to sneeze at, which is kind of a bad way of putting it, I guess. But that's my understanding of it. 

 

KB [00:44:35] Excellent, thank you for that uh that explanation. Uh, well, we have reached the end of our question set, and I want to thank you for your time. It's been a real pleasure to chat with you. I appreciate it, hearing your thoughts. 

 

KB [00:44:48] Thank you so much, Justin. 

 

JS [00:44:50] Good to talk with you. 

 

KB [00:44:51] All right. Yep. Buh-bye.