Small, family-run Iowa newspaper wins Pulitzer

Des Moines (Iowa): A small-town Iowa newspaper editorial writer won the Pulitzer Prize on Monday for taking on powerful agricultural organizations after a water utility sued the paper’s home county and two others over farm pollution.

Founded in 1990, The Storm Lake Times of Iowa and editor Art Cullen won for a series of editorials that challenged powerful agricultural interests in the state.

Judges said Mr Cullen’s editorials were fuelled by “tenacious reporting, impressive expertise and engaging writing.”

Cullen told the Washington Post that he knows what readers like. “We strive to have a baby, a dog, a fire and a crash on every front page, so, yes, we do pander,”he said.

It was the paper’s dogged coverage of farming issues affecting the state that won them the prize.

Fifty-nine year-old Cullen owns the newspaper with his brother and says his editorials were about government transparency.

Northwest Iowa’s Buena Vista County, where the 3,000-circulation, twice-weekly newspaper is based, was one of three counties sued by Des Moines Water Works for allowing too much nitrogen to be released through farm drainage systems into Iowa rivers from which the
utility draws its drinking water.

The counties fought the federal lawsuit using money provided by undisclosed sources. Mr Cullen says he feels vindicated that the information was released.

The sued counties secretly received money from agriculture groups to fight the lawsuit, and the newspaper pushed in its reporting to lift the veil of secrecy on who was paying to fight the lawsuit. The newspaper worked with the Iowa Freedom of Information Council to force the release of documents showing funding came from the Farm Bureau and other agricultural groups. A judge, however, dismissed the water utility’s lawsuit last month, giving the farm groups and counties a clear victory.