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Everybody's getting in on the California drought, journalism-wise. This is more creative than most. From Vanity Fair, a unified (and annotated) theory of drought shaming in a nifty little flow chart. That's a corner of the graphic above, by Randy Dotinga and Lily Nelson. From the set-up, which I believe introduces the concept of Big Nut as a California interest group:
In the weeks following California governor Jerry Brown’s historic speech heralding water-use restrictions in the state, aspersion casting has quickly become a full-contact sport in the golden West. The almond farmers—and their gallon-per-nut crop—were the first to draw ire, but it hasn’t stopped there. Big Nut fought back, pointing dehydrated fingers at other water guzzlers. Looking at you, developers. And lentils. And other farmers. Nobody wants this hot potato. (Fun fact: you need 24 gallons of water to produce eight ounces of potato.) Turns out just about every water hog in California is busy shifting blame. Confused as to whom you should hold responsible this week? We did our best to sort it all out.
Meanwhile, the anonymous tweeter behind the Twitter account @LosAngelesRain revealed himself to be KPCC producer Kevin Ferguson. "Never underestimate a corny idea's potential to take off," he explains.
