Thanks
My heart is an overflowing cornucopia of abundance. Democracy prevails. Facts matter. The crops were darn good despite a nasty drought. We are here to tell about it. That is worth taking a week off from complaining about politics and weather.
Last year at this time the documentary “Storm Lake” aired on PBS. We’re bad, we’re nationwide, as ZZ Top would say. It saved our bacon. The pandemic nearly put us under. We weren’t sure of an epilogue. We were scraping by thanks to a tin cup. Before the credits rolled, donations started rolling in. It saved us.
It put us in a position to buy the Storm Lake Pilot Tribune in April. The two newspapers were killing each other. As part of the deal, we also purchased the Cherokee Chronicle Times. There was nothing simple or easy about it. We consolidated the Storm Lake newspapers, trimmed the Cherokee newspaper publication from three days per week to two, and consolidated the Cherokee Area Advertiser and the Advertising Guide into one super-shopper.
There were times when it was clear that we bit off more than we could quickly chew as problems of all size and manner punched us in the chopper. You get up off the mat and do it again until you get better. That’s what the past seven months have been.
Readers and advertisers have been patient. Lord knows the staff would make Job proud.
We are in the black after swimming up a red stream. We are covering all the news that fits and then some. Circulation is fair to partly sunny — a huge victory in this media climate. Advertising revenue is steady.
So thank you. All of you.
To our readers. You are the reason we exist. Thanks for your subscription.
To our advertisers. Your support is building our community through journalism that brings people together looking for your service. Thanks for letting us assist you.
To our staff. Jon Robinson made sure the trains ran on time when we were off the tracks. Dolores Cullen is everywhere all at once. Jen Olson cranks through an incredible amount of copy, from church listings to intemperate letters and columns. Snow and sleet cannot stop sports man Jamie Knapp from making his appointed rounds from Sioux Central to Ridge View. Son Tom makes me proud of his reporting twice a week. Mary Cullen keeps finding new families to sample their recipes, and John Cullen eats it and pays the bills. Jake Kurtz rides the hotseat on deadline and runs a stray, undelivered paper to Newell when need be. Zach Dicks keeps track of roughly 10,000 subscribers and their checks. Jenna Bernhoft has been a stroke of recent sunshine as our new bookkeeper. Jennifer Newton maintains a cheerful voice on the telephone when chaos prevails. Bruce Kurtz, Jake’s boomer dad, has figured out how to juice up our E-van with his cellphone to roll onward to the Albert City post office. Which allows me to sit, or recline, and think great thoughts. Thanks to all.
I’m grateful that Brother John and I were able to get back into business with Brother Paul Struck, the Perry White of Cherokee. Better call Paul when things are looking grim, because he will remind you of living in Truesdale with about 20 people in one house. He makes me laugh. And old hand Denny Holton, who thinks he is a better drummer than Paul. Chris Reed and Rhonda Fassler are the sales people who keep bread on our table. Adam Dublinske is doing a great job covering sports for the Chronicle Times, where paid readership is growing. Cindy Hanner juggles the pages while Nick Brewer spins the website. We’re proud to rebuild a storied franchise in Cherokee history. Thanks for working with us.
To our benefactors: There is a God and she has angels. John Tu of California changed our trajectory from down to up just when we needed it. The Schmidt Family Foundation’s 11th Hour Project (which is devoted to journalism about food and agriculture) has provided the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation with operating funds to support more community reporting in rural Iowa. We also received support from the Google News Initiative, and will again this year. We hope that the coming year will see a grant from Report for America to add to our reporting ranks. Thanks to our donors for making independent journalism available in Storm Lake and Cherokee. And, thanks to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation for supporting independent news sources that keep the community fabric together.
Often I think I have it tough. I’ve been traveling a lot talking about what a wonderful place The City Beautiful is, and how journalism makes it better. I hate airports and Hwy. 20. I despise hotels that do not offer a free cup of Joe. Last weekend I was coming through the Hwy. 20 vortex from Waterloo to Hwy. 71 when I realized that I was lucky enough to speak at a benefit that raised $14,000 in an hour for striking grain millers whose jobs the company is trying to outsource. (And you wonder why people are anxious.) All my problems of having a silver spoon stuck in my mouth came into perspective. Thank God. For the grain millers and farmers and meat cutters and everybody else who feeds talking heads like me. Thank God we are here in Iowa, the most bountiful place on Earth if we don’t screw it up. More about that some other time.
Art Cullen is editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.
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