Weekly newspaper in Iowa wouldn't have survived without gifts, including small ones, Pulitzer-winning editor says

Art Cullen (Photo by Clay Masters, Iowa Public Radio)

The Storm Lake Times Pilot of northwest Iowa is freshy robust, having bought its in-town competitor and a weekly in the next county, thanks to a big gift from a California philanthropist. But the Storm Lake Times would have died without smaller, earlier, gifts, Pulitzer Prize-winning Editor Art Cullen told Iowa Public Radio last week.

"This newspaper war was killing both newspapers," Cullen told Ben Kiefer. "We were losing gobs of money. Something had to change." Cullen and his brother John had both gone off the payroll after going on Social Security. With other papers they formed a foundation that helped keep them afloat. "We couldn't have done this without philanthropy, and we couldn't do the journalism we're doing," Art said. "We wouldn't exist. We would have closed last year. And I bet the [Storm Lake] Pilot-Tribune was pretty close to it; I don't know."

One of the givers to the foundation was John Tu, a Taiwanese American billionaire who had donated after hearing Art on Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" show on NPR. Art reached out to him when another newspaper owner said he was willing to buy some local papers, including the Cullens' competitor, and sell it and another to the Cullens. "We said, 'Sure, but we don't have any money.' We're broke, and we couldn't even make a downstroke," Art recalled. "So, I emailed this person who'd given us money. He was a California technology guy. His name was John, too, and he pledged to support us. And if he hadn't done that, we couldn't have bought these newspapers. … We wanted to make sure that our employees had health insurance, and that they were paid a decent wage. Those are the only things he cares about. He just wants to make sure that Storm Lake has a strong newspaper. And it's just incredible. It's like he's an angel. He's never been to Iowa, I don't think, but he really cares about democracy.

"We couldn't have done this without philanthropy, and we couldn't do the journalism we're doing. We wouldn't exist. We would have closed last year. And I bet the Pilot-Tribune was pretty close to it, I don't know. But we wouldn't be here if it weren't for the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation, which is a nonprofit foundation to support independent, family-owned newspapers in Iowa. And, uh, so we really need philanthropy, I think, for the next five years until we can build these digital products that can sustain themselves."