I picked up STORM LAKE by Art Cullen in part because of its subtitle: "a chronicle of change, resilience, and hope from a heartland newspaper," and I continued reading because Art Cullen is such a terrific storyteller. After all, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for Editorial Writing about taking on corporate agribusiness for polluting the state's water and soil. In STORM LAKE he describes his decision to join his brother in starting a local Iowa paper. Almost immediately, I was picturing him trying to persuade his wife that this was a good career decision for their family of two young children. I also wanted to continue reading in order to learn more in response to questions like: What is happening "on the ground" in Iowa? How do you make a difference in your community? What impact does local journalism have and how does it relate to the "American Dream," especially for immigrants trying to assimilate?

I started doing some quick research and found the statistics about the loss of local newspapers to be truly astounding. Academics, national and international publications have been lamenting the change and noting the potential impacts on polarization, democracy, health care and investigative reporting.

Here are just a few examples with links to additional studies and data:
Nov. 19, 2018: "Political polarization increases after local newspapers close" (Journalist's Resource)
June 22, 2018: "Civic engagement declines when local newspapers shut down" (Journalist's Resource)
June 5, 2018: "Fading local press raises fears for city democracy" (by subscription at Financial Times)
April 11, 2018: "The Crisis in Journalism has become a Crisis of Democracy" (Washington Post)
Plus, the University of North Carolina, in conjunction with The Knight Foundation, has compiled a comprehensive database and report on The Expanding News Desert which looks at newspaper closings since 2004 and who is filling the void.

Interested? Plan to pick up STORM LAKE which will be on our shelves soon (or read an excerpt from the publisher's site). This title should have appeal for faculty and students from a variety of areas and disciplines (Journalism and Senior Writing classes, Integrated Global Studies School, US History, American Studies, and Junior Theme). Cullen's STORM LAKE received starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus.

Links in live post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-crisis-in-journalism-has-become-a-crisis-of-democracy/2018/04/11/a908d5fc-2d64-11e8-8688-e053ba58f1e4_story.html?utm_term=.8e241a671300
https://www.ft.com/content/ddaa7da0-5911-11e8-806a-808d194ffb75
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/politics/polarization/political-polarization-local-news-research
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/news-media/local-newspapers-civic-engagement
http://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567925/storm-lake-by-art-cullen/9780525558873/

Just okay. In parts of the book, he seemed like he was trying to hard to be okay with immigrants coming to his part of the state. I am sure this book will have mass appeal in Storm Lake, Iowa, and the surrounding region. It was just a tad long-winded. Mr. Cullen has an interesting story to tell but I found myself skimming and got bored with it. I had such high hopes for this book too.

It’s different being a reporter. You purposely become inquisitive, friendly, nosy, and even annoying. You know more about the town, the neighbors, the politicians, the local celebrities, than anyone else can without being arrested as a pervert of some kind. You can accost people in bars and knock on doors at will. Art Cullen has accumulated decades of this news gathering and distilled it into a book. Storm Lake, where he lives, is in the northwestern quadrant of Iowa. It is a small town, and his newspaper only has a few thousand readers. He and his older brother John keep it alive, and Storm Lake keeps them going.

It transpires that Iowa is no different than the rest of the country. It has long established families, newcomers, immigrants, and kids, some of whom stay for life and some who can’t wait to leave. Cullen has stories of all kinds to go along with the stereotypes. Thumbnail sketches and longer tales all add up to a vibrant and often really “with it” community. They are embarrassed by their elected officials, welcoming to immigrants, and learning to be respectful of the environment, which is particularly hard in Iowa, which is exploiting the land for corn – to the max.

He can’t relate to the bitter white people with their centrally airconditioned houses, boats on the lake and jobs for life. They hate immigrants and how they are stealing jobs, money and livelihoods (they claim). But the school district is desperate for them in order to keep enrollments from falling further. They have given the town multinational groceries and restaurants, graduated scientists and administrators who stay to give back, and added new music to the canon. Cullen delights in their presence. There are Sudanese, Laotians and Mexicans in Storm Lake, Iowa. The Mexicans hail from Storm Lake’s twin city in Mexico, which also raises corn and packs meat. They come north to make decent money for doing similar work, and often go home either to enjoy their “wealth” or because the discrimination is too much to waste a life on. Cullen visits the town and is fairly stunned to find all kinds of people there have lived in Storm Lake, speak English and know the town well. He is welcomed everywhere. They appreciate the link to Storm Lake, even if the locals back in Iowa don’t know about the connection.

The state’s biggest celebrity currently is Representative Steve King, whose misogyny and hatred rings forth loud and clear nationally. A local embarrassment, he is unseatable because the Democrats won’t make the effort. The mayor won’t talk to the paper, because he claims it is “fake news”. But the Storm Lake Times and Cullen won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for its series of editorials and stories on agriculture’s environmental damage and the corruption of county officials in actively hiding barrels of cash to fend off environmental challenges to its stewardship (or lack thereof). Big Ag acts just like Big Tobacco. The lake itself has gone from 17 feet deep to two, thanks to farmers planting right to its edge, running underground streams of perforated tiles to take topsoil quietly into the lake (20 tons per acre during heavy rains) and poisoning everything with pesticides and chemical fertilizers to keep the monoculture yield up.

I will not forget a story on the news last year, in which a reporter asked local Iowa farmers about all their topsoil ending up in the Mississippi delta, poisoning the fish and the shrimp and creating a death zone bereft of oxygen, the size of New Jersey. One farmer didn’t even bother leaning out of his pickup, saying “Not my problem.” It’s not all hugs and kisses in Iowa, and Cullen tries to be fair. He is a reporter, not a crusader. He is at his best describing the attempts to understand the problem, deal with the consequences and get farmers to co-operate in saving their own land, which has so little topsoil left the rains take whole corn plants right into the rivers and lakes with it. It’s the most dramatic part of the book.

His is a family of ink-stained wretches. They’ve all been bitten by the reporting bug, either helping out to keep the Storm Lake Times going, or running off to found their own papers, stopping to get experience at other papers along the way. It’s a seven day a week job, and simply takes over their lives. But the result is a web of connections well beyond anything Facebook is capable of, a depth of knowledge well beyond Twitter, and respect far more genuine than anything Linked In provides.

Storm Lake often seems to be written purely for Iowans. Cullen seems to be trying inculcate a sense of pride and worth in his fellow Iowans, making the point that efforts are worthwhile, that life is better there, and that everyone needs to keep at it. I got confused many times as to whether “we” referred to the staff of the paper or Iowans in general, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. It’s a look at the state of the state which most city dwellers can’t picture accurately.

David Wineberg