Center News

Simpson podcast features IowaWatch’s work with students

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Simpson students get to practice journalism of statewide impact when they report and write at IowaWatch, the nonprofit news source that covers public affairs in the Hawkeye State, shares Brian Steffen, chair of the journalism department at Simpson College. Suzanne Behnke, the executive director of the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism and an adjunct instructor of Multimedia Communication at Simpson, comes on the “Speaking of Simpson” podcast this week to talk about her work with IowaWatch and how it involves student journalists with real journalism that has real impact. Listen here.

Open government

Open Government, 1st Amendment Champions From Iowa Pick Up Honors

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IowaWatch honored an outstanding journalist and long-time advocate for newspapers during its seventh annual banquet Thursday night, Sept. 26, at the Des Moines Marriot Downtown. Carol Hunter was given the Stephen Berry Free Press Champion Award for a working journalist, journalism group or journalism educator in Iowa. Margaret Johnson was given the Randy Brubaker Free Press Champion Award for an Iowan who has done significant open records work over several years in a role other than journalism. Hunter has been at the Des Moines Register for nearly 15 years, serving as political editor, news director and now as the executive editor of the state’s largest newspaper.

freedom of information

Iowa FOI Council Announces Annual 1st Amendment Award Recipients

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The Iowa Freedom of Information Council this week announced the 2019 recipients of its Friend of the First Amendment Award, which is given each year in memory of longtime Iowa Press Association and Iowa Daily Press Association journalist Harrison “Skip” Weber. This year’s recipients are the mother of a police shooting victim and two Iowa newspaper editors. They will be honored on Sept. 26 during the annual Celebrating a Free Press and Open Government banquet in Des Moines. (click the button to buy a banquet ticket)

The recipients are:

Brian Cooper, the longtime editor of the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, through the years has been one of Iowa’s leading voices on the important role public access to government records and meetings plays in our democracy and in ensuring government accountability.

Center News

IowaWatch Transparency: Read Our 990 Tax Return Here

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You may read here the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism 990 tax return for 2018. The center runs the IowaWatch.org news website and educational programming for student journalists who produce in-depth reporting with IowaWatch staff journalists. The non-profit, non-partisan center, founded in February 2010, spent $134,688, while raising $125,312 in 2018, both increases over the previous year, the return shows. The center received a boost at the end of the year when donors responded to the center’s inclusion in a Knight News Match fund drive. That fund drive resulted in a $24,688 grant disbursed by The Fund for Nonprofit News at The Miami Foundation in 2019.

investigative reporting

Inside The Reporter’s Notebook: Revealing Alarming Deaths At Institution For Severely Disabled Iowans

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Several front-line state workers at the Glenwood Resource Center, a state-run institution in Glenwood, Iowa, that cares for severely disabled patients, have raised concerns about the quality of care there after a slew of patient deaths earlier this year, an in-depth report by Des Moines Register Tony Leys revealed. Fourteen Glenwood residents had died at Glenwood between June of 2018 and April of 2019 when the article was published, which staff members say far exceeds normal death rates at the facility. Staff members at the facility got in touch with Leys, who covers healthcare for The Register, “only after complaints raised internally had no effect,” Leys wrote. Current and former staff members expressed concern to Leys that the quality of care at Glenwood had diminished following administrative changes and the unexplained firing of a longtime doctor at the institution. Using Iowa’s Open Records Law, Leys was able to read the resignation letter of a physician who resigned from Glenwood and talk with a former Glenwood pharmacist who left that position because of conditions at the facility.

Suzanne Behnke Picked To Be The Next IowaWatch Executive Director

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The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, or IowaWatch, has hired Suzanne Behnke to be its new executive director. Behnke, who starts in August, succeeds Lyle Muller, who will retire in September after leading IowaWatch since 2012. “Journalism and its future are my professional passions, and IowaWatch will allow me to work in both areas,” Behnke said. “There’s tremendous potential for IowaWatch to grow in depth and breadth so it can serve readers for years to come.”

LEARN MORE ABOUT IOWAWATCH

THE PEOPLE OF IOWAWATCH

Behnke comes to IowaWatch from the Des Moines Business Record, where she has been an editor and contributor since May 2017. She also is a journalism and communications instructor at Simpson College in Indianola.

Center News

IowaWatch Honored For Exchanging Ideas With International Journalists

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The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism was one of three 2018 Citizen Diplomat Award recipients honored the night of April 16 by the Council for International Visitors to Iowa Cities, or CIVIC. The other award recipients were Diamond V of Cedar Rapids, for business and industry, and Johnson County Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass as an individual. They received the awards at CIVIC’s Fourth Annual Celebration of Citizen Diplomacy Dinner in Iowa City. The center, which runs IowaWatch.org, was cited for its work as a nonprofit organization because of the several years it has met with international journalists CIVIC brings to Iowa on U.S. visits that bring them to Iowa. The non-profit CIVIC is a community-based, member-driven organization established to create, support and sustain citizen diplomacy efforts in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area of Eastern Iowa.

IowaWatch Wins Top Broadcast News Awards For Politics, Farm And Agribusiness Reporting

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The IowaWatch Connection radio program collected seven awards — including first place for political coverage and farm/agribusiness reporting — for large market radio reporting during 2018 at the annual Iowa Broadcast News Association convention in Johnston, Iowa, on Saturday, April 13, 2019. The radio program had won first place the previous year, too, for farm and agribusiness reporting. The program is part of IowaWatch’s multimedia reporting effort. Each week, program host and producer Jeff Stein and IowaWatch reporters examine a story in depth during a 23-minute program that airs on 21 radio stations and then serves as an IowaWatch.org podcast. The program’s winning entries were:

First place: Political coverage for reporting on year-round interest in politics.

audience engagement

IowaWatch Hosting Journalism Workshop for the Public

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UPDATED AFTER THE EVENT: Story ideas, public feedback during April 24, 2019, citizens’ journalism workshop:

You’re interested in your community and current events and wonder how news about them is reported and written. Now, you have a chance to not only learn that but to be part of a workshop that takes you through the steps of reporting, writing and editing a news story in your community. The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, which runs the news site, IowaWatch.org, will host a journalism workshop on April 24, 2019, from 6 to 8 p.m. to inform and engage the public in news reporting. The workshop, “Creative Minds: Journalism Workshop Engaging Citizens In the News,” will be in the Iowa City Public Library, Room D, at 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City. REGISTER HERE
This workshop will be open to the public but we recommend confirmation that you will attend through Eventbrite, an online event management platform.