Interview Transcript

Interview Date: 05 June 2020

Interviewer: Dr. Justin D Shanks

Interview Participant: Elizabeth Swank

 

JS [00:00:00] Okay, so uh to start with, we just want to do a little bit of background, get to know who you are. Where are you from? What's your career? What do you do in your free time? Um, basically, just a short bio. If you could just just kind of what should we know about you? Who are you? What do you do? Those types of things. 

 

ES [00:00:22] Okay. Yes. So my name is Elizabeth Swank. I am a member of the Crow Tribe that is located down in the southern eastern part of Montana.  Um,I am a graduate student in the health and human development field. I have my undergraduate in the health and human development field as a community health, and I'm getting my graduate in sustainable food systems in order to um maybe help change the food system down on the Crow community. Uh, what I do in my spare time is I like to hang out with my kids and my husband. We like to go on hikes, then hang out at hot springs, um mainly outdoor stuff. I like to stay home, too, and watch TV a lot. I am a net flicker. So other than that. Yes, that's about me.

 

JS [00:01:21] Awesome. Thank you so much. Uh, that's a good, good introduction. Um so you grew up on the Crow reservation, correct? 

 

ES [00:01:30] Uh-huh, yeah.

 

JS [00:01:32] Okay. So could you tell us a little about your experience growing up there and um maybe how that uh community has changed over time? And then um since you're now in Bozeman uh attending MSU for grad school, could you kind of talk to us a little bit about um about what your experiences are living in Bozeman vs. living on the Crow Reservation, kind of talk about those two communities and your experiences there? 

 

ES [00:02:01] Oh, yeah. So um growing up in Crow, I grew up in the country um three miles outside of Crow agency in a little town called Garryowen. My dad parents, they settled there from Wichita, Kansas. They came up with the orange migration back in the 40s after the Great Depression. And um they traveled up and they traveled through crow and they just found that squatting their own and they really liked it.So his family made stake there and the rest of them moved on to California. And so my grandpa, he built a gas station and a grocery store out there. And at the time, if you were a store owner, you were also the postmaster. So as my dad grew up there, he when he um he turned 18 and he went to the army and when he came back from the army, he um resumed that postmaster's spot from my grandpa. So my dad was in the post office for like 20 years. And then in the eighties, like eighty nine, my mom passed away. So we moved up to. But the time that I spent in Crow was mainly in the country. And we, we like, grew our own food. We were kind of self sustainable. My grandpa had a garden. He wanted to be a farmer and so he had this big old garden. And so we grew all of our own produce. I think that's where, like my love in my heart came for gardening was because my grandpa did it. And so, like memories, I just remember we were always playing in that garden and picking strawberries, and my cousin. My mom was Crow and my dad's white and so my mom has this big family and one of her brothers would come over and he has like seven kids. And so we would just all go in that garden and just raid it. And my grandpa would get so mad at us and we just loved it. It was really fun growing up in the country. I was really outdoorsy. And then after my mom passed away, we moved to Billings and my dad went back to school because, like I said, he went right into postmaster and he didn't want to do that no more. And he didn't have no education beyond high school. So he went back and he got his business degree. And then so that's when I left the reservation was when I was about 10. And then I grew up in the city from there. And that was a change of life. So we weren't so dependent on our own production of food, like we had to move and start living off of grocery stores and what they provided. And like it just I just noticed, like, we were, you know, our income, like we weren't allowed to do certain things at home a lot. I think that's where I got used to staying home and then um yeah and then my senior year, we moved back to Crow. But I was only there for a couple of years and then I left. It was, it's a different life. It's harder. There's not so much convenience. There's a lot of, um you have to work. You have to have money in order to buy stuff, in order to have a good life, in order to have good food. Otherwise, people depend on welfare and TANF and SNAP benefits. So that really limits what your income and you're buying power is and and so that's where I noticed, like people try to expand their buying power, so they buy these cheap, cheap foods and then so I was there in high school, and then I left and I started pursuing nursing. That's when I came to Bozeman, in like, it was 2006, like 2004. I came to Bozeman and I started pursuing nursing and I just loved the Bozeman life like they they are so healthy. They’re so outdoorsy. Everybody walks, everybody hikes hike when like, if you're inside and you watch TV, like, you know, there's something wrong with you [laughter].They're like, why are you inside? It's so beautiful out.And and so when I ended up getting pregnant and having my son in my senior year I didn’t finish nursing. I ended up having to go home because it's too hard being on my own. And when I went home, I just it just wasn't I couldn't live there.] It wasn't like a, I had to find a job so I became a CMA is just I was just living paycheck to paycheck and it was just hard. Was a hard life. Oh, shoot. Hello can you still hear me?

 

JS [00:07:43] Yeah, are still there, Elizabeth?

 

ES[00:07:50] Yeah and so um I decided to back go to school in my community because I just noticed that the Crow community wasn't a healthy one. Nobody walks. Nobody did anything. And so I went back with community health. And then when I asked the community how like I just know the same things that people weren’t eating well and we had this high rate of disparities, obesity and diabetes, high blood pressure. And I just noticed that it, from what we eat and what mostly food and the lack of how to prepare healthy food or the lack of programs. I would I can pull back, I learned a from of sustainable food. And I come back to Bozeman and I could get my sustainable food degree and I could go back and I if I'm young and go I to do something and then work 20 years and I don't feel that that our next generation should grow up with these health disparities and that there should be some kind of education or some kind of programs that are in place to help them to help them deal with this. 

 

JS[00:09:46] Definitely, yes. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. It's really helpful to hear about your experiences living in both with Crow, as well as Billings and then in Bozeman, it sounds like your, you know your experiences in your youth were really formative and have brought you to the point that you are now as a grad student with sustainable foods and community health. Um and now that we understand a little bit about who you are as an individual on your experiences growing up and in your community, uh I want to shift the conversation to talk about information access, information accessibility. So the general goal is to understand your practices and decisions about information access. So uh just to start, could you tell me about where you receive your news information? So do you primarily get news online or television or uh newspaper? Um yeah, where do you get your news from? 

 

ES [00:10:53] Well, I'm not really a newsy person. I don't like the like what they represent. I feel that it's really negative. But where I do get my information is I will watch it on the local news channel. And then um social media on Face. I subscribe to like Arizona News and New Yorker and stuff like that. So when it just comes up on my feet, I'll read it. But other than that um some radio when I'm listening to the radio and they do the top of the hour news. Yeah, that's where I get my news. 

 

JS[00:11:37] Great. So um you mentioned that the news is often very negative. Could you expand upon that a little bit? Maybe, in what ways do you feel it's negative or why do you feel a lot of the news that you see is negative? 

 

ES[00:11:54] Yeah, I just feel that that they report on a lot in the world of like they report on the crises a lot and they report on like the shooting or the war topic. Um like a mother that abused her child now, and then the child died. And I just don't feel that they do more like positive stories, like where this athlete helped out. This disabled kid or this family had a rough time and somebody swooped in and helped them or like, just the better stories, I feel that it's more about like the crisis in the world instead of the helping hand. 

 

JS[00:12:53] Sure, yeah, definitely. And so you mentioned that you do watch watch local news parks more frequently; do you feel like local news is less negative perhaps, or is local news also negative?

 

ES[00:13:08] Local news, it's negative. Um I like to watch local news because I want to try and keep in touch with what is happening locally, you know, like when they do report on the positive things. Um, yeah, so I keep up on local news to see what's happening locally in my town and Montana mainly. 

 

JS[00:13:37] Okay, great. Thank you. Uh and even even though you're not a big news person currently, I'm wondering if you can think back historically and maybe uh talk a little bit about your earliest memory of watching the news or reading the news. What's your fondest memory of of news?

 

ES[00:13:58] Oh yeah, so my dad used to read the newspaper every morning because he was the postmaster, he sold the newspaper. And so I just remember every morning at the breakfast table, he would be reading the newspapers and and I didn't really know how to read yet or I wasn't a strong reader. So he would give me the funny section and I would read that section and he would read the rest. And as I like, grew up and started reading more, I um I would start reading the local and state, and that's where I, like, found the found um the need to know about local, but I didn't really, like, grasp the world view yet of it. 

 

JS[00:14:53] Nice, that's that's a great memory, I like that. Uh so if you can compare, you know, watching your your dad read the newspaper every morning and you getting me the funny section and then eventually reading a little bit of the rest of the newspaper as you aged, can you compare those memories, that experience with the news to your current experience with the news either, uh you know, occasionally watching the local news or maybe getting some news via social media. How has your access to the news information changed from when you were a child to to now? 

 

ES[00:15:29] I think it's a lot more available. Um, like when I was growing up, you either had the local morning news or you had the newspapers. And sometimes once a week you would have the even like the county local newspaper that came out once a week. Um, compared to now. Now I feel like it's still available. You can go anywhere and you can look at anybody’s news. You can, like I said, I watch Arizona News. I'm not even from Arizona, I don't even know anybody in Arizona, but I watch their news and I'm really intrigued by by how like Arizona conducts itself and the people within it compared to when I was a little kid, I did it. I never thought anywhere outside of local. And so I just feel that that difference of availability has really changed from when I was a kid to now being an adult. Um, I don't feel that I have to read the newspaper in the morning or watch the news in the morning because if I want to have access to it later on in the day, I can have that access. It's not like a like you need to watch it because it's on now and won't be available later. 

 

JS[00:17:00] Definitely. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense the sort of always available  nature of the news is certainly different now than it was previously. 

 

ES[00:17:10] And you can look at anybody new. You can look at any state newspaper. You know, you can I can read Idaho's or Colorado's or New York like Tennessee's. You know what I mean? Like, I can read anybody's newspaper compared to when you were a kid, you only had the newspaper that came out, which for us was the Billings Gazette and the Harden paper. You know, I didn't have you know, sometimes you would get the USA Today or The Wall Street Journal, but you have to like specifically subscribe to it. 

 

JS[00:17:44] Yeah, certainly. Thank you. So also thinking about access, um do you have Internet access at home? 

 

ES[00:17:53] Yeah, I do. 

 

JS[00:17:54] And do you consider your Internet fast, quick, reliable, unreliable? What's it like at your home? 

 

ES[00:18:05] I think it's um reliable. It's quick, but it's not fast. Um, yeah, I feel that it's good compared to back home. Like back in Crow, that the Internet back in Crow like it's not readily available and not everybody has it or it's not available and everybody's health forward. You know what I mean? Like like if you live in the country, you may not get it because the Internet lines don't travel out there. 

 

JS[00:18:43] And so do you think the the access or the availability of Internet in Crow or maybe the lack of availability or the slow speed of Internet in Crow, do you think that influences people's or families’ access to news information in Crow? 

 

ES[00:19:07] Yeah, because then they're not. They relied on just getting it through the television or through the local paper. Um it's because they don't have that reliable quick Internet. That that they don't even they don't even look at stuff outside of the television or the paper. Yeah, even like doing email. So I talked to this lady a couple of days ago trying to push through my proposal for the tribal health board, and she lived in Pryor and I called her and she was like, the Internet at my house is real shady.She said, I have to drive into town to text people to check my email. And so when I go into town, that's when I’ll email the person to see if we can get you on the agenda, you know? But like, she she couldn't just do it. It wasn't so convenient. She had to wait until she went into town. So, you know, who knows who long who knows how long that could be?

 

JS[00:20:20] Yeah, that's a great example 

 

ES[00:20:21] I think it's like it just like prohibits that that stable stream of news coming to them. 

 

JS[00:20:30] Yeah, that example really emphasizes the uh importance of the Internet for news and for communication with people or friends or family. That's really critical. And so you mentioned texting. What about smartphone? Do you own a smartphone. 

 

ES[00:20:47] Yes, I own a smartphone. 

 

JS[00:20:49] Okay and you mentioned earlier that you use social media uh occasionally to access information. Could you talk a little bit, maybe how you use your smartphone and how you use social media? What type of social media do you use um, do you share things via social media, news or other items? 

 

ES[00:21:09] Um so I’m the social media I am on Instagram and Facebook. And I'm not a big sharer. I don't if I don't know, something like that may benefit other people from reading it from, yeah, from reading it then I might share it. But other than that, I usually just read for my own enjoyment or knowledge. Um what was what was the next question on that? 

 

JS[00:21:42] Uh, just looking at what types of information do you get? So what types of things do you get for your own enjoyment or knowledge? 

 

ES[00:21:49] Yes. So I like I like the um the news feeds that are live that are constantly showing what's going on. Like um like I talk about Arizona cuz that’s the most one that always shows up on my page. I really like it. So they always, like, show their car chases or um a standoff or something like that. And even though it's kind of negative, I think it's that action part of it that I like. So will they you know, what's going on and how long have they been doing this and how many people are watching? And I really like um news that kind of has an action that has like a positive spin on it. I really like reading about like um like what celebrities. I really like celebrities.

 

JS[00:22:50] Great. Thank you so much. Uh now that we've talked a little bit about uh where you access information, I want to talk about information evaluation or information trustworthiness. So when you watch the local news or uh read some news or watch some news via Facebook or Instagram or uh you see some other type of news or information, um how do you determine whether or not that information is trustworthy, factual, reliable? What's your what's your process for um determining whether or not to trust the information? 

 

ES[00:23:26] Well, I like to see how old the information is first. So I try to see if I can find like a publishing date or a release date or like a timeframe of when this act, this news actually happened because I find that some people will share news that they feel is relevant to the situation, but yet it's like eight years old. And so it may be relevant, but it's not current. And so the situation may be different in those circumstances depending on the time that it happened. And so I like to look at the time stamp on it. Um, I like to see who comes out with the material. So, like I say, I like to watch celebrity news. So I don't, it’s not like my reliable information, um but if it comes out of, like, a newspaper or uh like um a well-established researched journal article like maybe The New York Times or TheWall Street Journal, um or something along those lines,I'll look at that. Another one is I'll look at who wrote the paper and I'll try and do some research on like this person that wrote the paper um just to see, like, who he is or she is and like, what other stuff have they written? You know, like, is this just that do they just go across stuff and just write about anything or do they, like um, master one subject. And um um just write about that, you know, so that's that's how I determine like my reliability of my resources. 

 

JS[00:25:32] So it sounds like uh the timeliness or the age of the information, uh the source of the information, both in terms of who publishes, but also what type of experience or expertize does the does the author have are your primary criteria.

 

ES[00:25:48] Yep. And the people that are publishing the information to like like is that like yeah we have the writer, but what company does that writer work for that's putting out that information too. Like, um I don't I don't know how you would say that, like the magazine or the newspaper. Also I look at who what who's putting it out there, who is allowing this person to write an article for them on subject. 

 

JS[00:26:19] Definitely, yeah. Thank you. So over the last few years, there's been uh growing attention to the concept of post truth uh in the media. There's been some research about this. It's maybe something that you've heard about. So I'm wondering, have you at all heard anything about the concept of post truth in the news media? 

 

ES[00:26:41] No. Like, can you elaborate a little more on that? 

 

JS[00:26:45] Yeah, of course. Yeah. Um so post truth is generally um in the media at least refers to uh media news that appeal to emotions rather than to facts. So are rather than the truth. So it's trying to make an emotional appeal to get readers or viewers to uh understand or agree with a certain perspective, rather than presenting a truthful slash factual approach to a particular topic. So worrying less about the truth, more about uh cultivating fear or misunderstanding or apprehension or disagreement or upsetedness or something like that. 

 

ES[00:27:34] Yeah, yeah, that's that's um kind of what I see about uh when people when I mentioned people post stuff from like eight years ago trying to make it pertain to something that happened today. You know, it it it doesn't, um hold on I lost my train of thought, 

 

JS[00:27:57] Oh no problem, take your time. 

 

ES[00:27:59] It doesn't connect to that person, right? Like to that incident, it's just like a story, you know? And so they're trying to get that sympathy or that emotional response out of the public. But really it's not they don't pertain to each other. And I think the people that they're reaching out to are those people that don't check their resources that that just skim the headlines. You know what I mean? And and they're not those fact checkers like we are. Those those I think it's more like the less educated people the I don't know, sorry to say, but the naïve, you know what I mean? That that just read the news or they skim over it and then they're like, oh, this happened and look it's happening now so I'm gonna put share this on Facebook and be in and put this comment on there and get these people all worked up saying that this isn't the first time this happened or look this happened in this city, too, but really it's it's like a different circumstance or it doesn't relate to the problem at hand. And so those people that are reading it, they're getting all worked up and then they're sharing it to their friends. And it's just like this like snowball frenzy affects of these people that are being outraged over nothing. 

 

JS[00:29:30] Certainly and that's actually a very good segway into the the next question. So uh I think your your previous answer touches on this, but I won't ask you explicitly, have you heard of the concepts of fake news or alternative facts? 

 

ES[00:29:45] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fake news um that I think fake news when people started talking about fake news and how they put a spin on it, I think that's when I really started seeing like, well, what is this person writing? And who is putting this information out there? And, you know, where are they a reliable source to be saying this information? And it really falls into that, thatwhat do you say that post-truth, is that what you called it?

 

JS[00:30:23] Yes, exactly. 

 

ES[00:30:25] That it really falls into that because they're just making these stories up and I see it a lot on Facebook when they um like have a domestic dispute and those ladies on there, they have this kid in a hospital bed and they're trying to get like this sympathy off of these people and have I think it's mainly like pull money out of them or something. And they're like, look at this baby. Nobody even cares. And the parents did this and nobody cares and they just keep, but it's fake. They're trying to feed off of emotions and I think they find when people are like sympathetic, they're more vulnerable and they're more open to, like, give to you because they're like, oh, this poor baby. Oh, you know, let’s help ‘em. And so I think fake news is it's almost like a scam. 

 

JS[00:31:25] So is it safe to say then that you think fake news is a problem in uh the news or in journalism? 

 

ES[00:31:32] Oh yeah, yeah, I think fake news because people they act like if it's in writing or if it's in the news, that it's true, that it really happened, that they don't have go out there to see for themselves, if it is true. Because because like 20, 30 years ago it was in the paper, you know it. There was some truth to it. And so they said it didn't happen if it's not in writing. You can put anything in writing and you can see everything out there and call it news. And people will just eat it up. 

 

JS[00:32:16] And so do you think that that problematic, uh problematic approach to fake news, do you think that's universal in local news, regional news, national news, global news, or is it with particular topics or particular sources? You know, how widespread do you think the problem of fake news is? 

 

ES[00:32:41] I think a lot of it is nationally within the United States. And I think that because so high powered in social media and Internet use, that's how a lot of our information comes out. But other parts of the country, they don't use it as readily as we do in the United States. You know, like um a lot of places regulate how much their people are allowed to use or how much information they can stream. Um and a lot of places they just don't. I think they are different. I don't know like I think they'd like some places outside of the United States don't rely so much on that Internet use as we have adapted our people to be like used to it. They depend on it like that's how a lot of people survive, is off of just that knowledge. They feel that that knowledge. And so because we don't monitor how much people use, I think that there's some openness for fake news to be up there. 

 

JS[00:34:14] So is it safe to say then that you think widespread exchange of information via the Internet, then widespread Internet use exacerbates the problem of fake news? 

 

ES[00:34:33] Yes. Yes, I do exacerbates it um because if people were allowed, I feel that if we mature, you know, that we say, oh, you only use this much. People shouldn't be on their phones all day then. Then they're going to find something else to do and they're going to channel that energy into some something else but because people are on it all day. Something to do and they want to be on it. So there's these people out there that are creating this news to get a riot out of the people that read it, for their own enjoyment, for the people writing it. 

 

JS[00:35:28] Great. Thank you so much for telling us about how you evaluate information. 

And uh now I'd like to shift gears a little bit, talk about what, how and why you decide to share information. So uh to start, what types of information do you share with others? 

 

ES[00:35:53] Like with anybody?

 

JS[00:35:56] Yeah so just hypothetically, let's say you read a bit of news or uh you see a television program with information or you catch something on social media. What do you decide to share or what do you not share? Um yeah, so what types of information? And then how do you determine whether or not to share or not to share something um with an individual or with a group or just generally. 

 

ES[00:36:23] Um I usually only tend to only share information if it's relevant to like that person's situation. I don't I just freely start saying stuff or being like, oh, you know, I read this and I found it really interesting and I think you should read it too. More like if I'm talking to somebody and they have a situation and I came across a certain problem, or they're like looking into something and then I have information that I had, you know, I'll be like, oh, well, you should look here, I found that this article is really interesting. Or I’d say if you look here, you might find your problem. Um, I usually share information that way. I don't just share it just to be sharing it. I usually share information if it pertains to a situation, or a current um current situation. 

 

JS[00:37:27] So it sounds like it's really dependent upon the type of information and the individual that you would share the information with. 

 

ES[00:37:36] Um-huh. Yep. 

 

JS[00:37:38] Great and is that predominantly face to face verbal sharing of information or digitally via social media or email? You know, what's sort of the most common way of sharing information with other people? 

 

ES[00:37:52] Hmm, probably face to face. Sometimes I’ll do social media. I don't really do it through email. I’ll do it through texting through my phone. Yeah,

 

JS[00: 38:06]  Great. Thanks.So um you have a tendency to share information with individuals when it's relevant to them or of interest to them. Um you do a lot of face to face sharing of information and maybe a little bit via social media or texting. And you've also lived in three very different places in Montana. Right. Crow, Billings, and Bozeman. So you've had a great variety of experience with ya know how other people in Montana share information as well. So I want you to think about how you share information and how other people uh share information in Montana and then compare or contrast that with how you think people outside of Montana share information. So basically, the question is, do you think information is shared differently in Montana than it is shared uh in other places? And why or why not is that the case? 

 

ES[00:39:06] I think compared to how I share information, compared to how other people share information, I feel that, well, I'm not a very voval person. I'll listen to somebody's situation and then I’ll give advice. Um I don't share my own life experiences openly. I think that's why I share my insights in like that compared to other people are more more open to, I guess, telling people what to do and how to live their life. And I feel that that's how other people share their information compared to like how Montana shares this information. Um I feel that they have done a better job over time in getting information out there to the people um compared to like other states, like I lived in California. And I feel that the information that like comes out of California isn't really um like wide as it would be in Montana. But like if something happened in Missoula I feel that Montana did pretty good job on doing um update to the citizen compared to like California or some where else. I don't think L.A. would be sharing news from like San Francisco or Sacramento. I feel that they would just be sharing the news within L.A. or those other states or towns compared to Montana and even come locally through individuals. I feel individuals share the news orally. I feel that Montana is a very very like oral information state, like a lot of people will share what they read with somebody else compared to me, I will only share it if the person if it pertains to that person's situation. 

 

JS[00:41:30] But why do you think Mont

 

ES[00:41:31] Does that answer your question? 

 

JS[00:41:33] Yeah. Yeah, it does, definitely. Just also, just as a follow up. Why do you think Montana uh shares more people in Montana sharing information more, more orally, more verbally with other people than maybe other places around the country? 

 

ES[00:41:30] [00:41:48] I think it's because of the availability within the state. We are a pretty rural state. We are pretty white bread with Montana. Montana is a very big state. But yet there's not a lot of people that live within Montana. There's not even a lot of like big towns within Montana. And so I feel that because of that population I guess it would be density, um that people are more likely to share news orally, you know, because maybe somebody didn’t doesn't have Internet access or didn't go to town to get the paper. They slept past the local news time, so somebody will go over there and they'll update them on what they see because they were reading or they were more likely to go share their newspapers. They knew that this person didn’t get their newspaper yet. That we're more like family orientated. That the whole city or that um because we're so small that we're close knit and that they just want to make sure everybody has the right information. 

 

JS[00:43:05] Do you think that's the same? So do you think compared to like. 

 

ES[00:43:09] No. The low population. Yes. 

 

JS[00:43:12] I was just wondering if you think that low population density and more of a statewide sense of community, as you've indicated, do you think that's also the reason that information is Sterrett shared across the state versus like, for example, before of, you know, L.A. news maybe doesn't stay in L.A. and not shared with San Francisco or vice versa? Do you attribute those same reasons to the sharing of information across state? 

 

ES[00:43:39] Yeah. Because of our population numbers, I feel that they feel that the information in Missoula is relevant to somebody that likes let’s say in Sydney because maybe they have kids in Missoula or they have grandparents in Missoula and they have family in Missoula. So they want the people in like Sydney to know, right?To know what's going on in Missoula even though they're across the state compared to California or another big state that has such a high population density that that most likely somebody is not going to have family in Sacramento if they live in L.A., you know, they they don't have. I feel that they don't have big families. You know, that the population is so high that people try to keep their family numbers low. And so because they don't have family up in eastern Cali or wherever that they're not they don't they don't need to know that information compared to Montana. 

 

JS[00:44:49] All right. Thanks for clarifying that a little bit. Uh I want to again shift gears now and uh bring us uh a bit more contemporary. So obviously, people around Montana, around the world have been dealing with the Covid-19 with Coronavirus for the last number of months. And Covid-19 really took a pretty firm hold in Montana in early March and since then you know we've had some changes in business activity and people have been staying at home more, working from home, spending less time socializing uh face to face. And uh so I want to know, during this timeframe so early March up until now, have you found yourself consuming more news, less news? Um have you been sharing less news or more news? Sort of, how has the impact of Covid-19 or how has Covid-19 impacted your consumption and sharing of news and information? 

 

ES[00:45:58] Well since Covid has started, I think I started watching less news just because I felt overwhelmed by the amount of Covid information that they were putting there. Like I didn't after a while I didn't know what was relevant and what was hearsay and what like pertains to me and my town compared like it was just so overwhelming that I think I even stopped sharing information. Like it all turned to Covid like, but what's happening here with Covid? What was happening there with Covid? And I was just I just have to focus on my little family right now at this time and not let this outside influence affect how I shared my information with my kids. 

 

JS[00:46:56] Yes, certainly a lot to take in and process. And even though you have been consuming less news and have understandably been overwhelmed by the amount of coverage of Covid-19, I'm wondering where have you been getting your information about Covid-19 and how have you been determining been determining if it is relevant or trustworthy or factual?

 

ES[00:47:20] So I think at first when it all started happening, I would get it like the morning news and then Good Morning America, um lot of it through social media. And then I think because it was just so overwhelming after like the first couple weeks, I just I just stopped getting that information. I stopped feeding myself that information because because I just I don't know, I just felt it was like it didn't pertain to me, that it wasn't reliable, that any of it was really reliable. So I think a lot of it goes back to my background of um the job that I'm in now, I'm a public health emergency preparedness coordinator for Big Horn. And so I review emergency plans all day. Like, I just make sure that they're updated and I've been going through our plans a lot. And so I like for me, I kind of know how to steer through this pandemic and how to keep my family isolated. Um but the news, the news just kept changing, like what protocols to do and what you could or couldn't do and how bad it was and the numbers. And then and then the news started or people started saying that it was fake, that that's not really how it happened and that that China started lying to us about the outbreak and pharmaceutical companies released and uh because they had a cure for it and that Trump was behind it. And then, like, when it started going there. That's when I thought that it started turning into fake news and they started running out of pertinent information to feed the public. So they started putting little spin on news that they already delivered us to keep the people hooked, to keep them enciced, to keep watching ‘em, but I just found that it started being unreliable. So I stopped watching it and I stopped going on to social media to read it or because I just found that it started to get fake and unreliable. 

 

JS[00:49:53] So although there has been a ton of information and often updated and at times conflicting or unreliable bits of information about Covid-19, I'm wondering what's your understanding of Covid-19? What's your what's your understanding of Coronavirus? 

 

ES[00:50:11] So my understanding is that it's a respiratory disorder that affects the respiratory system and that it is traveled through droplets in the air and that they like it's a cross contamination bacteria. So based upon who you talk to or what the surfaces you touch that, that's how you get it. I feel that it's a pretty nasty sickness when you get it. Um I've looked at the pictures and I've looked at the bacteria itself. And when it looks like a pretty like a pretty mucousy bacteria that just like mucuses those abiolies and the ones that prevent them from pulling in that air. And so that's where, like the shortness of breath comes in. What it did for me, though, is that it really emphasized the hand washing in my household because I thought that because when it all started coming out that media was like, it's through contact, right? They’re like somebody coughs in their hand or, you know, in their sweat or whatever and then they touch an object and then you touch that object and then you touch your face that that that's how that bacteria gets on you. But then later on, they said that that it's not through touch that it's through your saliva or through your membranes that come out of your mouth. And so, you know, that's just like how can you say that it's not do touch anymore when that's what you guys are emphasizing on. So why are we sanitizing everything if it's not even to touch? You know what I mean? Like that, that’s my information, that's my understanding on this Covid. 

 

JS[00:52:08] Yeah. Thank you. That was. Yeah. Thank you for the very detailed and also at times confounding, conflicting, frustrating. 

 

ES[00:52:18] Am I giving you too much information at times? Sometimes I can just keep talking and talking and talking. 

 

JS[00:52:24] No. It's been fantastic. Your talking and talking and talking is exactly what I was hoping for. So thank you for that. Uh so we've actually reached the end of our question, so I want to thank you for for taking the time to chat with me. I really appreciate it. Hearing what you have to say. And I appreciate your willingness to uh share with me. 

 

ES[00:52:48] Yeah. I hope I gave you the information that you were looking for. 

 

JS[00:52:54] Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. I sincerely appreciate your your openness and your willingness to share. 

 

ES[00:53:02] Okay. All right. 

 

JS[00:53:03] Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Have a great afternoon. Enjoy the weekend. And we'll be in touch.