'Storm Lake' documentary about a rural weekly fighting for its life, and getting support, premieres on PBS Monday night

From left: John, Mary, Tom, Dolores and Art Cullen

Perhaps the best documentary ever done about a community newspaper airs tonight on PBS. "Storm Lake" tells the story of The Storm Lake Times, the northwest Iowa weekly that won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing and the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism in 2017 and continues its potent blend of watchdog reporting, incisive commentary and community spirit.

Editor Art Cullen, who owns the paper with his brother, Publisher John Cullen, said in an editorial column last week that the rollout of the documentary at film festivals and other screenings over the last three months, along with media interviews, has brought "an outpouring of support" for the paper, which has local competition and survives partly because it's a family operation and the brothers are on Social Security and take no salaries.

Art Cullen, Winterset Madisonian Editor Vicki Minor and film

directors Beth Levison and Jerry Risius before a premiere.

"It’s a lovely and true film that is, at its core, about building a diverse rural community through civic engagement," Art writes. "Directors Beth Levison and Jerry Risius certainly portray accurately the struggles that local journalism faces. There was a point in the spring of 2020 when Fearless Leader John and I wondered if the newspaper would go under. Reliving it at 24 frames per second makes my gut spin. The movie suggests the question: What is going to happen to this newspaper and so many others like it, as social media and the pandemic turn the world inside out? We are much relieved to report that the public is responding. . . . A few donations have turned night into day for us."

One example: "A Chinese immigrant said he liked what he heard and wanted to give us enough money to get us through the pandemic. . . . I gave him the address of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation, which we started to organize in the depths of the pandemic with Doug Burns of the Carroll Times Herald and Lorena Lopez of La Prensa of Iowa in Denison. . . . Just this week, the WIJF received a six-figure grant from a California foundation interested in sustainable agriculture and climate reporting. Note that none of the newspapers take their orders from donors — we don’t even know who most of them are. The givers are supporting us for what we’ve done in the past, trying to report without fear or favor."

Art Cullen schools his readers, now a national audience about the hard facts of local journalism and democracy these days: "Things have to change as digital platforms upended our business model. In the future, we will depend more on readers for revenue than advertisers. We will have to offer more and better digital products to a larger audience that can support local journalism. Everyone in the industry agrees on that. We have to figure out how to pay for it. Philanthropy buys time and the ability to experiment with new forms of information delivery. I understand an old offset press flinging ink, but I do not care to understand TikTok. We need to recapitalize journalism for a new digital generation and keep old goats like me typing in the background. Democracy depends on that successful transformation. Lies and propaganda drove insurrections at state capitols in Minnesota and Michigan, and eventually at the U.S. Capitol. Disinformation meant only to divide and cause fear is keeping people from getting vaccinated against Covid. Never has a common set of facts been more important."

Independent Lens, the PBS series that includes the documentary, posted on its website a list of "feisty community newspapers that are surviving or thriving against the odds:" the Monterey County Weekly (Seaside, Calif.); The Berkshire Eagle in Massachusetts; El Tecolote in San Franciscso's Mission District; The Pilot in Southern Pines, N.C.,; and the East Texas Review in Longview. 

UPDATE, Nov. 19: John Cullen starts a Thanksgiving editorial, "The Storm Lake Times has a lot to be thankful for when we sit down to celebrate Thanksgiving next Thursday." He thanks readers, advertisers, staff, supporters and the filmmakers.