Weekly newspapers covered Agriprocessors Inc. and its big immigration raid differently than dailies

The weekly Postville Herald-Leader in Iowa faced an unexpected challenge last May when the town suddenly became the center of a then-record immigration raid and a symbol for the nation's immigration debate. An article in Grassroots Editor, published by the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, highlights the work of the Herald-Leader and other weeklies in covering the raid at Agriprocessors Inc. and its aftermath.

Agriprocessors was a story years before the raid. The company began in 1987, and, by 1996, had become the "world's largest kosher slaughterhouse." With the resulting "influx of Hasidic Jews and an international workforce, the town came to be seen as an experiment in multicultural living," writes Patricia Berg. "In a region almost entirely populated by Christians descended from German and Norwegian immigrants, Postville had suddenly become a mosaic of Anglo Christians, Jews, Latinos and Eastern Europeans." University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom wrote a book about it, Postville.

With this year's raid, however, Postville was national news, with major dailies focusing on Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and immigration policy. Local weeklies not only had to report that story, but also lived the story, as friends and neighbors were arrested and deported. "Even a few miles down the road their perspective is different from mine, because they don't live right here," said Sharon Drahn, editor of the Herald-Leader. The dedication required to report on many of the stories still emerging from the raid is also much harder on local staff. Janell Bradley, owner and editor of three area weeklies, says that she has begun studying Spanish three nights a week, so that she is no longer dependent on interpreters.

Gerald Blue, editor of the Fayette County Union, 15 miles from Postville, says that weeklies' proximity to the story has enabled them to report areas of progress. "The dailies chose to ignore anything that was positive" about Agriprocessors, he said. He says that while daily papers did not report on company changes for the better, such as a new staffing agency, the weekly papers did. (Read more)