There’s a new book coming out this year by a notable journalist from Northwest Iowa.
Art Cullen has been a lifelong newspaperman, writing in North Central Iowa and also now for more than 30 years in Storm Lake in Buena Vista County.
Originally that was for the Storm Lake Times, which is now the Storm Lake Times Pilot, after taking on a former longstanding newspaper into the fold.
Art is editor and co-ower with his brother John Cullen, and other family members and others run the paper. The Times also won a Pulitzer Prize in in 2017 for a series of editorials about agricultural surface water pollution in Iowa.
He authored a journalistic memoir, Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper. And now Art Cullen has written a new book, and he joins me on What’s The Frequency to talk about that and more.
He references the title: "It may be perceived as vulgar, but we live in vulgar times."
The theme of the book is Cullen telling the tale of huge changes in Iowa, in water quality and agricultural practices, to his lifelong friend, who lives in the state.
When it comes to mass concentration agriculture fecal matter increasingly in water, he said, "We are literally crapping in our nest."
Cullen also bemoans the loss of population in Iowa towns that has happened since the 1970's. He picks over recent policy pushes by President Donald Trump and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds.
Additionally, he shares impressions on the state of journalism, and it is not a positive trend.
"Community journalism is in a death spiral, as newspapers fold left and right," as people now get news "from madhouses of misinformation," Cullen said.
He adds, "In many ways, I witnessed the heyday and decline of Iowa newspapers."
*Click on the audio link above to hear the entire show.
What's The Frequency, Episode 66.
