opinion

Evans: 2020 has shown us why America needs journalists

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There is one week set aside each year to salute newspapers for the important role they have played in our nation, a role that goes back to the beginning of these United States. This year, however, waiting until Oct. 4-10 and National Newspaper Week has been difficult, because the coronavirus pandemic and a variety of major news events across our land have tested newspapers, and our communities, in ways we might never have fathomed. Taking stock of the contributions by newspapers, large and small, serves as an important reminder of why our founding fathers wrote freedom of the press into the Constitution’s Bill of Rights – and why the theme for this year’s National Newspaper Week, “America Needs Journalists,” is so appropriate. We have seen our lives and our communities change in dramatic ways because of coronavirus.

opinion

Evans: Our Founders Wanted the Press to Shine Its Spotlight

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Fifty-three years ago, I was a high school kid in southern Iowa who knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life: I wanted to be a journalist. The first step on that journey occurred when I walked into the offices of the Bloomfield Democrat and introduced myself to Gary Spurgeon. 

He was the editor. But Gary ended up being my “professor” at the Spurgeon School of Journalism. Working for him my final two years of high school and during vacations when I was in college, I learned lessons from Professor Spurgeon that I am now preaching to others a half century later. 

Gary was motivated by a higher purpose as a newspaper editor and publisher. He believed a newspaper is much more than merely a business.

freedom of information

IowaWatch Co-Founder Returning To Iowa To Headline Sept. 27 Celebrating A Free Press And Open Government Banquet

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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Stephen J. Berry, whose push for journalists to work thoroughly and ethically led him to co-found the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch, will be the annual Celebrating a Free Press and Open Government Banquet’s guest speaker in Des Moines on Thursday, September 27, 2018.

Eagle Grove Iowa

They Called This Young Iowa Woman Plucky For Running A Newspaper In The Late 1880s

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“I am strong and hearty, and as willing to work as any man,” Katie Prehm wrote in a letter to the White House in 1878. The Traer, Iowa, girl was only 11 years old and hoped to receive 160 acres for a farm through the Homestead Act. Her older brother and dad were already in Kansas working a farm; and Katie promised they would help break up the land in her plot of land, if the government granted it. She planned to fence it all in with willows. And she had a half peck of maple seeds that she could use to establish a big grove on the land.

Iowa’s College-Based Newspapers Adapt To Digital Readers

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Student-run college newspapers in Iowa are feeling newspaper industry trend repercussions, reporting fewer print readers but increased online readership as young readers increasingly get their news from digital sources.

Blog

Bill Casey, Lee Rood Named IowaWatch Master Mentors

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The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch has honored two longtime Iowa news professionals for work they’ve done as mentors to young journalists – The Daily Iowan publisher Bill Casey and The Des Moines Register watchdog reporter Lee Rood.