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Air Dates: January 24-30, 2022

Rebroadcast Dates: September 26-October 2, 2022

The rise of instant updates from today’s online news sources have left many to regard the local newspaper as a thing of the past.  But Art Cullen describes how he and his family have kept Iowa’s Storm Lake Times newspaper alive and prosperous in the digital age.

Cullen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and editor of The Storm Lake Times, a family-run weekly newspaper in Storm Lake, Iowa.  He has made it his life’s work to ask the big questions, speak truth to power, and share the struggles and successes of his community.  Part cultural history, part memoir, his book, “Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper” explores the themes of family, community, immigration, and the Heartland’s turbulent history and promising progressive future.  It is both a story of cultural upheaval and loss and a story of successes and surprising sources of optimism for those who still believe in the promise of America.  The small town of Storm Lake is vividly described as a diverse, growing community enhanced by immigration from Mexico, Laos and other countries.  It is a story of how immigration revitalizes America culturally and spiritually, and how a small newspaper plays its role in investigating, explaining and sharing the life of the community around it.  “Storm Lake” was published in 2018.

“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs Saturdays at 8:30 a.m., 5:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 2:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. ET, and Mondays at 2:30 a.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal and aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.

This episode of “Story in the Public Square” won the 2022 Bronze Telly Award in the Social Impact category.