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I'm sorry, we're-- we're on deadline.
We're ready to put it on the page,
so, yeah, I appreciate that, thanks.
Mm-hmm, bye.
[Art Cullen] Dolores, this press release is coming at you,
from the police, about the building.
Tom, could you come here a sec?Sure.
They added this to the lede.
I think we've got to tell the readers
what the hell is going on here, okay?
Thank you.No problem.
[phone ringing]
[Jennifer Newton] The Times.
Mmm, we're on deadline so I'll see if he's available.
Art, are you available for Gary Lipshutz in Sioux City?
No.
He actually is a little bit busy at the moment.
Could you maybe try back this afternoon?
What time is it, 9:35?
Is the building story done, Dolores?
I'm still doing it.
When that clock hits 10:00, I'm gonna start going apeshit.
I get real uptight about deadlines.
Every hour we're late, it costs us a hundred bucks.
You know, get all amped up twice a week.
[laughing]
Snapping at family members, and you know,
it never works out well later.
You know, Jesus, you've been doing this for 40 years
and people still don't know what time it is.
♪♪
[Art] By today's standards "The Storm Lake Times"
has cause to celebrate, holding steady
in our annual report that we published on Friday.
We've always operated at the break-even point.
One year we post a small profit, the next a small loss.
Seven dollars.
Through three decades we have persevered
thanks primarily to your support, our family of readers.
A lot of people disagree with him,
but they sure read the paper.
I think it gets people to become more open-minded.
At least that's what I hope.
[Art] "The Storm Lake Times" weaves
the fabric of the community in large ways and small.
We're working hard as ever covering the City Council,
The School Board, Board of Supervisors in the court house.
Do you feel comfortable saying, uh,
if it's going to trial or not?
Oh, we're going to trial. Okay.
Son Tom Cullen, our reporter, lives the job.
Come on! Come here.
My wife, Dolores Cullen, is everywhere with Peach
the Newshound and the Times-mobile.
This is Ice Out Day,
the day when all the ice melts.
[Art] My sister-in-law, Mary Cullen, is hunting recipe features.
Isn't that pretty? What are the health
benefits of cooking low-salt?
[Art] A pretty good rule is that an Iowa town
will be about as strong as its newspaper and its banks.
And without strong local journalism to tell
a community story, the fabric of the place becomes frayed.
The news pages are the heart of the newspaper,
and editorial pages the soul.
My brother, fearless leader John Cullen,
founded the newspaper in 1990 with the belief
that honest reporting would attract a crowd.
It has.
[cheering and applause]
It's a great moment.
Thank you. Thanks, again.
[applause]
Tom, stand up. Give me a hug.
Now we need to grow that crowd to sustain our mission,
and again humbly ask your support
as we did nearly 30 years ago.
Tom? Police reports done?
They're done. Thank you.
We will always try to be worthy of it.
[wind chimes tinkling]
No, no, haven't fed her, nothing.
All right. I've been completely negligent.
Oh, it's still early.
In the old days of lead type, editors would, uh,
lock up pages of lines of type. They'd lock them up,
uh, in what we called a chase.
And if you were wearing a long tie,
you could lock your tie into the, uh, into the chase, so...
[chuckling]
So editors wore bow ties.
I don't have enough butter.
You always got lard. Yeah.
You took all the butter.
I took all the butter, right.
[newscaster] The small Iowa town of Storm Lake is where
some of the Democrats running for president will be speaking.
It's the first major multi-candidate event
of the campaign so far.
Part of the appeal is to be onstage with the town's
Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor.
[newscaster 2] Art Cullen, the lanky white-haired editor
of "The Storm Lake Times" walks across a downtown street.
Plenty of Democrats running for president
want to be seen with Art.
[Art] So it kind of tells me who really cares about rural Iowa.
And if you ain't there, you're square.
Welcome to all of you to Storm Lake,
The City Beautiful, and Buena Vista University.
I'm Art Cullen, editor of "The Storm Lake Times."
And I'd like to introduce our first guest.
And we're very thankful that Senator Elizabeth Warren
from Massachusetts can be here.
[cheering and applause]
Thank you, Senator. Thank you.
Farm income is down by half since 2013. Yup.
What can we do to provide immediate farm income relief
in what is quickly becoming an emergency?
A generation ago, 37 cents out of every
food dollar went into a farmer's pocket.
Today it's 15 cents.
And one of the principal reasons for that
has been concentration in agribusiness.
So I want to see enforcement of our antitrust laws.
I've called for the breakup of these agribusinesses.
[applause]
Two-thirds of Iowa's 99 counties, all rural,
are declining in population.
How can we ease the transition of immigrants
into rural areas to rejuvenate them?
I'm very proud of the story of Storm Lake in many ways.
You all have shown the value of the immigrant community.
I never thought before this campaign that I would get
great Mexican food in Iowa, but I have.
[laughter and applause]
Take a couple of minutes and just tell us why you're running
for president and what your campaign's all about.
Well, first of all, it is wonderful to be here.
And as you know, I'm your senator next door.
I can see Iowa from my porch.
[laughter]
[applause]
[Art] What'd you think, Whitney? Did you enjoy that?
The forum thing?Yeah.
Tom, you're going to write a lead story on the forum
and then make, what, a sidebar on Vilsack, or--
Yeah. Or are you just working him into...
Yeah. Love the cowboy shirt.
[laughs] Don't ask where I got it.
Where'd you get it?Uh, just don't ask.
Uh... Some dead guy, or...
Yeah, it was an estate sale.
Yeah, okay, all right.
Well, anyway, uh, Vilsack sidebar...Yeah.
And, uh, the forum for the front. Yep, yep.
Okay.
[Dolores] I have this, uh, listing
of when Ice Out Day was since 1975.
We kind of fell off the wagon and stopped keeping track
of Ice Out Day since 2012.
Now with all this talk about climate, now there's
kind of like, oh, well, maybe this is more interesting
than we used to think.
Some of these were already signed.
Paying some bills today. Gotta pay the garbage man
and the rug man and... the printer man.
[chuckling]Hey, John?
All the fun stuff.
[Art] Would you mind coming over here a sec?
I'm just laying out the front page here,
and of course the big story for this issue is the forum
with the five presidential candidates.
Each image needs about the same weight
so no candidate can say, you know, I wasn't fair to them.
It looks good to me, yeah.Thank you.
John's taught me everything I know about photography.
He taught me about how to use pictures.
He taught me all about graphics.
And he's got a great eye.
[Art] How's that forum story coming?
Good. Just a sec.
[Dolores] Ice Out, two pictures and a story, it's all done.
Okay then.
♪♪
Oh, there they are.
I left Storm Lake. I graduated from high school
here and left and shook the shit off my boots
and never wanted to look back.
But my brother John started this newspaper,
so I came back because I was sick of working
for corporate newspapers without a soul.
And, uh, it was a great move.
We did that presidential forum,
but that's not the reason we get up in the morning.
Most people in Storm Lake care a lot more about
whether garbage is getting picked up
than whether, uh, Elizabeth Warren is in town.
So when it comes to news, our motto is if it didn't happen
in Buena Vista County, it didn't happen.
We're about an hour and a half drive
from the Minnesota border, halfway between
Fort Dodge and Sioux City.
We are the county seat of Buena Vista county.
I was born in 1957.
Storm Lake was a lily-white Republican town.
And we had one Jewish family and one Black person.
In the '90s immigrants populated Storm Lake and turned it blue.
But the rest of the county drowns out that Storm Lake vote.
And so it's very much like a microcosm of the nation.
It's important to know
who had a baby and who died
in a community of ten to fifteen thousand people.
That's important in this community,
to know who's getting married and buried.
And it's important to know what the city council is up to.
So I think it is important to have real news.
I'm still old-fashioned enough to believe in the wisdom
of Thomas Jefferson and the First Amendment.
[chuckles]
Maybe a quaint idea these days.
But the question is,
you know, how long does a community support journalism?
And it appears to me that
whether it's Storm Lake or Buffalo Center,
people aren't supporting journalism like they did.
35 in and 23 out...
Okey-doke. ...for the Times.
The last I knew, there were about
300 news deserts in the United States.
And these are towns with twenty or thirty thousand people
that are now without a local news source.
You could say, well, they can get their news
from the metro paper, but these metro papers
don't cover those communities anymore.
When I started out in this business, there were newspapers
so fat you could barely lift them.
Now there's no newspaper at all.
You've got to have a strong business model
to do good journalism.
The problem is that the business model
is falling apart and, uh...
Uh, and also, rural communities are a lot weaker
now than they used to be.
And that makes rural newspapers weaker.
A lot of the mom and pop stores that were
the basis of our advertising are gone.
The small-town feed dealers and businesses that catered
to farmers, which is our base here, they're gone because,
the family farms are going, and they're being taken over
by big corporate livestock operations which either have
their own feed mills or they buy direct from the manufacturer.
So they don't need Bob and Sally's feed store anymore.
And Bob and Sally's feed store
then doesn't need "The Storm Lake Times."
So somehow we've got to increase
the number of readers.
If you don't have readers, you've got nothing.
But now people want to get their news for free,
because apparently looking at their breakfast on Facebook
is all the information they need to live
as an informed voter in America.
And that's not how you sustain a democracy, you know?
You need people who can talk about facts and deal in facts.
And that Iowa is getting warmer and wetter
through the decades, those are facts.
That's what we're here for.
And people have said, "Oh, well, that's not worth a dollar."
♪♪
[thunder rumbles]
[Tom] Chelsea, right?
Yes. Uh, I'm Tom Cullen
with the Times at Storm Lake. Hi.
And it's my understanding you had some material for the media?
If you have your card, I can email you and make
sure that we get you that information that has
all the speakers and their bios and...
Thank you so much, really appreciate it.Yeah, you're welcome.
Joe Catera, how's it going?
Okay, welcome, are you ready to stand with me today?
[cheering]Are you ready?
Let me know if you're ready to work with me today,
because all about what we're doing today is going
to be about how hard we will work together
to move our issues forward.
Our farm and rural communities are in crisis mode right now.
We're fed up with multinational
corporations extracting our wealth.
If you wonder why our cities and towns are being
hollowed out, you know, when you understand the largest
owner of beef, poultry, and pork in this country
is a foreign corporation extracting wealth,
taking opportunities out of rural communities.
We need to protect our natural resources.
Believe it or not, we're not the last generation that's going
to live on this land, you know, so it's time for a change.
So thank you all very much for coming, thank you.
Hi, Emmanuel. This is Dolores Cullen
at "The Storm Lake Times."
Can you call me back today so we can talk
about your, uh, talent show experience?
Thank you, bye.
Emmanuel Trujillo, the guy who tipped me off,
sent me a thing last night.
And so I looked it up online, and he seems to be advancing
in this show called "Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento."
And so I looked at the video...
[Emmanuel singing]
This is a Storm Lake guy
who works at Tyson and...
It looks like they like him.
Well, hey, Emmanuel.
You work at Tyson, right?
I wanted to be able to take a picture of you.
I thought it would be kind of cool to, you know,
you'd just be in like the Tyson parking lot or something.
Like, you know, by your car. And then it would just be...
You can't have any picture taken at Tyson?
That's okay. Could I come to where you live?
Okay, muy bien.
Okay, bye.
This is really good for our community when we have,
like, happy stories about all types of people.
[Art] We're all about happy.
That's my... That's my beat, Art.
You're on the happy beat. Yeah.
Hello. Come in.
My name's Dolores.
And I am here to see Emmanuel.
Yeah, he's coming.Okay, he's coming.
It's nice to meet you.Yeah!
I'm Elena. Oh, great.
And then this is your daughter. Yeah.
Okay. Hi!
You're a singing star.
Yep!
Congratulations
Thank you so much.
What do you think your chances are of, uh,
going on beyond the next round?
It's, uh, maybe a hundred... 100 more people.
A hundred-- Oh!
Yeah, so the competition is too hard.
A hundred more people will be competing against you...
Yep, in that second time.
The second time.
So weren't you really nervous?
Yeah, the first time. Oh, really, really nervous.
And I had--You don't look nervous.
You look, you look...Oh, yeah.
kind of, like, excited.
And that's how you looked when you were singing, too.
You looked very confident.
[both laughing]
I'm okay, I'm okay.
Big smile.
Okay.
When I met Art, he was at the, um, Algona paper.
And they were doing things
like this, uh, feature stories
about a family that had, um, seventeen children.
And, uh, it appealed to me,
'cause I'm a visual person.
I'm an art major.
I wasn't really into politics or anything like that,
but very interested in telling stories in a creative way.
And so, to be involved with them,
that was something that I was interested in.
I didn't know that I would become involved
in the enterprise eventually.
But, uh, I started taking pictures.
And I was usually told by Art that, you know,
if something is interesting, go ahead and report it.
And this, uh, we were covering how, uh, local people
were teaching English to newcomers
who did not speak English.
And these were Sudanese people.
And so I took the picture of-- of this woman,
and Art chose to run it big like this.
And we did get an anonymous letter by--
from someone who said, "Oh, why is she on the front page?"
And it was really mean.
Um, and that this was a long time ago.
I mean, there was kind of blatant racism.
Uh, so then Julio Barroso was featured, uh, back in 1996
as being a kid who helped other kids learn English.
And there was a raid of the meatpacking plant.
And then in the following issue
it was reported that Julio is gone.
8-year-old deported with parents.
Since we do these feature stories, we get to know people,
but they're not just, like, anonymous immigrants.
This is a kid that we think is awesome and cute.
So then the next day when we find out
that they were kicked out of the U.S., uh, we cared.
And so then later we were asking, you know,
whatever happened to Julio?
And that's where Tom started doing this investigating,
and we actually found him in Mexico
as a young adult today.
[Art] A little boy from 22 years ago was top of mind last Thursday.
Julio Barroso.
In 1996, the world changed for Julio,
then in second grade at North School.
The immigration agents swooped in on IBP, predecessor to Tyson,
and rounded up scores of undocumented immigrants.
Barroso's family was among them.
Julio, now 30 years old, is married and the father of three,
working in Guadalajara, Mexico
for one-tenth the $18 per hour he could get in Storm Lake.
A dream is foreclosed.
In our lush, green town of 15,000 or so--
we don't know our exact population
because so many are immigrants.
Nestled among the row crops
and hog houses at Northwest Iowa,
2,200 workers cut up pigs and turkeys for Tyson.
300 others crack eggs for liquid shipment
at Rembrandt Foods 15 miles north.
Hundreds more distill ethanol from corn.
And those 3,000 or so--
maybe half undocumented, who knows--
are worrying not just about jobs
but also about their lives in Trump's America.
Even those with papers will tell you they feel a little edgy.
Dreamers are our vitality, our future.
They want to stay here with family,
unlike so many of us who push our children off to Chicago
or the Twin Cities.
And we all wish that Julio
would come home to Storm Lake someday.
We need him and miss him.
We're going to suburban Sulphur Springs, Iowa.
Providence Township.
The home of John Snyder.
Big John.
Plumber and farmer.
I'm mainly interested in, when did he plant corn?
How did he cope with the spring weather,
which was torrents of rain?
Wow.
This would be a picture like we've never seen, John.
I mean, it's just barely knee-high now.
[camera shutter clicks]
We had one day on May 4th...
For corn. For planting, yeah.
And then we got rained out...
until the 15th and 16th of May.
We had two days.
We didn't get back in until June 2nd.
Have you ever seen it this wet in the spring before?
No. Never. Not in my lifetime.
You know, I usually get out end of April.
You're right.
And we're usually done by May 10th.
What do you figure you get knocked off in your yield?
What'd you get last year... on corn?
Oh, probably 225. Probably.
What would you guess you'll get this year?
Take a wild-ass guess.
150.
I don't know.
If you say 150,
then everything after that is better.
Yeah.Right?
[laughs] Right.
That's gravy.
That's gravy on top of your taters.
Hi, Peach.
I wasn't really interested in doing the "Knee-High
by the Fourth of July" story like we always did,
but this year the weather's been so bizarre
that I thought we really needed to do it, um,
because we've never seen the corn like this before.
A guy farming today, you're going to need, you know,
over a thousand acres to support a family.
And a generation ago,
John could raise a family on 350 to 500 acres
if he sustained himself on the corn,
and then could make some real money on hogs.
That all changed in the 1990s, really,
when the pork industry was vertically integrated,
where the packer owns the hogs,
and drove John out of production.
You know, that's the game for most people.
If you're going to be in agriculture,
then you're working for a company.
Let's say you break up the, uh, vertical integration model.
Then where does that leave our pork production system?
And where does it leave these immigrants
who are working here if you blow it all up?
And so I don't know. I don't know.
[crowd chatter]
[marching band approaching]
[woman] Yeah! Whooo!
[camera shutter clicks]
God bless the Irish.
[man] Everybody make yourself comfortable.
We're just glad to have, uh, Senator Grassley here with us.
And I also want to thank him
for being super supportive of the water well industry.
And I'm really glad to see him here.
When I am at your, uh, city administrative building
or your local library
and you folks can't come to my town meetings,
I try to go places because you're working.
So I get a chance to interact with people
that wouldn't otherwise interact with me.
Now, what questions do you have?
Anything is legitimate.
[man] I've got one.
I'm not 100% political follower of either party.
And so, I see how this country is divided in half.
And I'll talk to one political party and...
they might have a good idea,
and the other one is going to say, "I don't want it."
Even if it's good, they don't want it.
Just they're going to be the opposite.
And I see that on both sides.
What's it going to take to change that?
You could have asked an easier question.
[laughter]
Um, first of all, there is too much partisanship.
And it's worse now than it's ever been.Yeah.
But, you know, controversy makes news.
So if people are getting along, it doesn't make news.
Thank you.
You're still doing a good job.
Okay. Next question.
As we know about Storm Lake,
it's heavily reliant on immigration.
Uh, what's your sense on that?
Um, what's-- what do you tell people
in Storm Lake who are afraid?
I don't think you have to be afraid
unless you're violating the law.
But as a practical matter, uh,
wasn't there a figure out a couple of weeks ago
that there could be 100,000 people deported?Mm-hmm.
Well, think, 100,000 out of 11 million people...
Yeah.
So why would you have to be very concerned?
I mean, if-- say if you're undocumented here in town--
and let's just be real,
there are undocumented people here in town--
I would be very afraid if Trump admits through tweet
that we're going to deport tens of millions of people.
Well...Uh, and I understand
the news media debunked a little bit of that.
We-- I-- I get your point.
We got people in Congress
that think you line up 11 million people
and get them out of the country.
That's not the real world.
And I'm not telling anybody that.Yeah. Okay.
You've never heard me say that.No.
The only thing you've heard me say about legalization is
we can't take care of that issue
until we convince the people that we can secure the border.
And listen, you know how many people on the right
would be irritated with what I just told you--
that I'd even be thinking about that?Yeah.
[Tom] It is meaningful when politicians want to have
a serious discussion with us.
It's all Dad ever wanted when he started this thing.
Growing up here in Storm Lake
and being Art Cullen's son was...
It was a bit of a roller coaster.
I remember there were teachers who would say,
"This is what Art Cullen thinks, and he's wrong."
You always had to know about the issues.
It was very difficult actually, now that I look back at it.
[piano playing]
[dog barks]
I never put two and two together
as to why Dad would be working on a Saturday.
Mom was always the one who took care of us.
[children screaming]
Okay, can you put them in, Joe?
Now I realize you can't necessarily go
to kids' baseball games or take them on vacation
when there's a paper to get out the next week.
There's a demand for excellence if you're a Cullen.
You will not get away with less than 110%.
Every one of Dad and John's kids worked here.
And I'm the only one left.
But still at the same time,
there's this bond that connects us all.
We all know that we gotta stick together.
'Cause we're all in the same leaky ship.
Tom, can you come here a second, please?
That's a confusing sentence.
[Tom] And the prospect of the newspaper
not being around terrifies me.
'Cause not only is it a newspaper
which is, in my opinion,
the most important pillar of the community.
It's the family.
[Art] You brought sunshine with you.
Right? It's coming.
I've got to warn you, there's a bunch of fans in here.
They're kind of-- It might be kind of a circus in there.
Thanks so much for having us--
Well, thanks for coming. We appreciate it.
Come on in, everybody.
Thank you.
How are you doing?
Glad to meet you. I'm John Cullen.
I'm Jim Cullen.
Nice to meet you.
Jim is my brother. Uh, he's the editor
of the "Progressive Populist"...
Uh-huh....out of Austin, Texas.
And we produce it here.
Nice.
Well, anyway, welcome to Iowa.
Thank you.
And especially to Storm Lake.
We've been talking with, uh, people
a lot about rural America...Mm-hmm.
...and how we got kind of flown over, uh...
[laughs] ...last time.
So we're real happy you're here.
And we're hearing that perhaps the campaigns
might not even play in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio
in the general election--
that we're going to get flown over again.
Policy-wise...Right.
...rural America is often talked about
kind of like a problem we've got to solve.
[Art] Right. [laughs] Right.
Our message ought to make sense in rural America,
'cause the Democratic Party grew out of the idea that--
that we're standing up for the overlapping interests
between workers and farmers.
It's kind of an unusual community.
It's an immigrant community.
But people here are living in fear.
And they were living in fear
during the two terms of the Obama administration as well.
What kind of damage has this wrought?
And we're not just talking about immigrants.
We're just talking about race relations in general.
Our city is growing, finally.
Not by much, but we're proud of--
To be-- to even have a positive number
is a big deal for us, right?
If you net out the factor that immigration played in that,
we'd be flat-line at best.
And so when the President says we're full, I'm thinking...
Right....we're not full.
But the thing is, if we do not resolve racial inequality
in our lifetime-- yours, anyway--
um, it could sink the American project in our lifetime.
I think we're going to have to go.
I'm sorry.Well, anyway--
Sorry to cut it a little short.
Thank you very much.Same here.
Thanks for having us.
I hope you'll be back.I sure hope so.
Good to see you again.
I hope you stop by again.I hope so.
Hey, did you sign our sign of the Times?
Oh, no, I'll sign that.
Yeah, you gotta go up top now.
Oh, man.
You're a lefty.
All the great ones, you know?
Did you ever pitch?
All right. No, I got two left hands.
Oh.[laughter]
♪♪
[camera shutter clicks]
♪♪
[pigs oinking]
♪♪
We're headed out to see Tom Lane,
who's running for city council.
And the reason why I'm interested in this
is, Tom became interested in city government,
uh, when they were about to shut down Westview Trailer Park
and they were about to evict him from his house.
And he took the leadership role in that community
to stand up to the mayor and the city council in Alta
to say that these are our homes and we're staying.
Oh, man.These weigh about 12 pounds.
And they're a flat head Dutch German cabbage.
How do you get something to be 12 pounds?
All this stuff is pure organic.
No chemicals.
And when did you move to Westview again?
31 years ago.31 years ago.
I'll just say this, it just--
it does look a lot better than what it was.Yeah.
And it's my understanding that you were behind all that...
Yeah....with your effort at city council.
Is that the-- the culminating piece?Yeah.
I was reading the-- in the paper
that all these openings were coming up.Yeah.
And all of a sudden I decided, you know what,
I'm going to run for city council.Mm-hmm.
How many signatures did you need for that?
They said it was ten,
but I got actually 15 of them.Okay.
My wife here, Tarla. Grab some signs
out of the back end of the pickup here.
Okay, if everybody's ready,
we're going to hit the campaign trail.
[Tom] All right.
What expertise could you offer?
Really, my expertise--
I can walk in a trailer house
and tell you exactly right now
what's not kosher and everything.Uh-huh.
Well, I've been underneath every one of these trailer houses.
Either checking heat tapes or...Yeah.
...fixing a frozen pipe, 20 below zero,
wind blowing up your... back end.Yeah.
Not just work on things,
but I'd help people, too.Yeah.
You know...Well, yeah.
Like, I've given them vegetables and...
Yeah....everything.
And I used to go to Sioux City and...
Yeah....and buy a truckload of bread...
Oh, I didn't know that.
...and bring it back here and--
and just hand it out to people.
Wow.
Hi there.
[woman]Hi.
I'm going to put a sign out. Is that all right?
That's totally fine. Yep, go for it.
♪♪
So has someone else in your family
been Pork Queen, Pork Princess?
No.My other daughter, she's our Little Miss Fair Queen.
Oh, yeah.So she's--
Oh, okay.
Now it's coming together for me.
I've seen the name...Yeah, and she was a...
...McCarthy....Little Miss too when she was that age.
You guys have royalty in your blood.
We do.
This is Mrs. Hughes-Camp.
She's our second grade teacher.
Hi. Nice to meet you.
Do you guys know what's in pig's feed?
Any guesses?
Mud.No.
[laughs]Calvin?
Corn.Yep, corn is one of them.
And then soybeans is the other.
The piglets in this picture
are drinking milk from their mother.
Look at their noses. They are called snouts.
Can you make a sound like a pig?
[children oinking]
Okay, so the pig we're going to bring in
is about three or four weeks old.
[pig squealing]
You like the diapered pig?
I haven't seen that.
Here, let me get around here.
You guys are... [laughs]
We try to prevent, uh, accidents.
Yeah, because I'm sure it's happened before.
It's traumati-- Yeah, it has.
Turn him a little more sideways, yeah.
Yeah.
[pig squealing]
[classroom "aww"ing]
You guys have any questions?
[boy] Do you hand them out to the market
when they're babies and full-grown?
So they only go to market when they're a big pig.
The pig has feed all day long,
because we want them to grow as much as possible
in a short amount of time.
Because that is what the pork industry is all about.
We want to grow the best product
with the least amount of resources.
Art, when I write about the pork producer's visit,
could I write "This little piggy wears a diaper"?
Sure.Okay.
'Cause it seemed like they were kind of, like,
covering up the diaper part.
And they'd wrapped him up in a towel.
And I'm like, gee, why cover that up?
I mean, this-- why-- [laughs]
especially in Albert City where--
I went there last night,
and it absolutely reeked again.
It was so putrid
I almost gagged from hog confinements.
And I was at the post office
and a guy said hi to me,
'cause I was delivering the papers.
And I said, "Does it really smell this bad
in town all the time?"
Because it smelled so bad on Monday.
And he said, "Oh, no, it's just harvest
and they're drying a lot of corn."
And I'm like, no, this is not the smell of drying corn.
This is hog shit.
Um, so anyway.
He has really pretty eyes.
Okay, now recipes. What are you thinking?
So I have lots.
Okay, so this pumpkin bread recipe is,
um, from my grandma, my mom's mom.
Oh!And it's delish.
The pea soup recipe,
um, we used to have pea soup every Christmas...
Really?...with my grandpa.
'Cause it was one of my grandpa's favorites, so.
Oh, nice. Well, we could do all of them!
I don't care. Whatever.
Are you okay with that?Yeah.
I mean, that's a bunch, but it's-- they're all good.
Sandy, hi.
This is John Cullen at "The Storm Lake Times."
I need to check on a loan payment from September 16th.
I need to know how much was principal
and how much was interest.
[Whitney] All right, wish me luck.
Per paper, we try to get over $3,000 worth of ads.
They keep the lights on.
And that can be hard.
Especially when Art won the Pulitzer.
It actually got more difficult.
Because people in this town can be very conservative.
And they didn't like that he won.
So I actually had a big backfire on me for a while.
Hey, Mike.
Holiday open house time.
Here's what we did last year.
Okay. I'm not for sure,
so we'll have to go over that sort of percentages--
Yeah. That's no problem.
[door chimes]
Hey, Travis.Hey, how are you?
I have last year's ad that we did.
Okay.We did the quarter page in color.
We could even do like a couple more pictures on there, too.
Okay, yeah.
[bell chiming]
This is what we did last year.
It's a little smaller than a quarter page
for a total of 100.
But it was for two times in the paper in color.
Or we can go down to the one-time one.
'Cause I know a lot of people are going
to be in Friday's issue.
Friday's?Yeah, next Friday.
And it's a hundred?Yeah.
Or we can do-- we can go down to the 52
if you want to do just once, that's fine.
Can I think about it?Yeah. Yeah.
When do you need it by?
I can always stop in on Monday
or Tuesday next week, too.
Running twice-- when would it run?
Wednesday and Friday?Yeah.
Let me think about it just a minute...Yeah.
...and get a hold of you Monday morning.Yeah.
Sounds good.
Hey, you have a good day.You too.
Tell Mary I said hi.
Thank you. I will. Bye-bye.See you later.
I think it looks good for our newspaper
to have all the ads from downtown in there,
'cause then you can see that,
like, the businesses also support you.
You know, scratch our back, scratch yours.
I mean, how else do you make a small community survive?
♪♪
Art and I have always liked, uh, delivering papers.
You know, that's one of the most important things
about journalism. The-- the best stories
in the world aren't any good if you don't
get them out on the street so people can read them.
You run into people in the store,
"Oh, you got the new paper?"
Or maybe they'll tell you off.
That's happened to me a couple of times.
And that's good, too.
Art's definitely the voice of the Democrats here in BV County.
We're largely Republican in this area.
And I am more Republican.
So I like to read, though,
what he has to say about it and think about it.
I kind of bypass over the opinions most days.
Everybody's got one, and usually they stink.
I'm more interested in the local news
and what's actually happening.
If we see something we don't like or we find offensive,
it's easy to reach out to them and let them know how we felt.
[laughs] And they are really good at,
you know, getting back to you and--
and sit down and discussing the issue at hand.
[John Cullen] I think it's very helpful
that we know what's going on in the community.
There are consequences for everything we do.
And we feel that feedback immediately.
You know, you guys cover a lot.
You are big advocates for all the Latino community.
With the struggles that all the newspapers we have,
no matter what language you are,
I was thinking that maybe
we try to do something together,
you know, we can help one each other.
Yeah. So I was thinking
you guys can give me your story in English.
I translate it, you know, in-- in Spanish.
And all the credit is going to be
for-- for your paper.
So would the stories that we do
in the Times go into La Prensa then?
It will be-- Yes.
And I will...
So we can take stories out of La Prensa?
You can take stories out of La Prensa also.
I will translate those stories in English for you.
Okay. Cool.
So would we do the ad sales or would you?
I was thinking no, you know, you have advertising people.
[John] One person.
Oh, you have one person.
Okay. Yeah.
I just like the idea of shared content... myself.
And I don't know what appetite there is
among advertisers to go in La Prensa Latino publications,
but I'm sure there is one.
If it will be 15, 20 years ago
probably we would not be talking right now.
Right, yeah.Yeah.
Yeah. But it's getting tough.
And it's sad, because we are losing... Yeah.
...the big foundation of the small communities
that our newspapers...Yeah.
Because nobody else is going to fight for the little person.
Nobody.
Nobody going to talk about corruption.
Nobody going to talk about the church;
about, you know, the activity
that the community get together,
no matter what race we are...
Facebook don't going to do that.
Yeah. But it's sad.
It's sad that it's taking over.
Some politicians talk about fake news.
There it is, the fake news. Yeah.
Facebook.
We go to the, you know, to the field. Yeah.
We look the person eye to eye.
We interact with that person. Yeah.
[Tom] We have to live next to them.
Exactly. Exactly.
Well, it sounds like a good possibility.
I'm, uh-- But as I say, I think, well, Art has to...
Sign off.Make the decision.
...sign off on this, uh...Mm-hmm.
Thank you so much.
Well, thanks for stopping in.
No, thank you.
Thanks a lot, Lorena.Thank you.
I appreciate it.Yeah, thank you so much.
Could I have, uh, water too when you have a minute?
So what's, uh, this Lorena want to do?
She wants--She was in here yesterday and asked...
Yeah. ...if we could share content and ads.
She says that there's a lot of potential
for us to sell ads for her.
And if she's interested in our content,
we can make a little bit more money.
I don't see why we can't do it.
It wouldn't hurt to have a couple feet on the street.
Yeah.
And she said there's a good appetite for our stories there.
It's just no one can read them in English.
So it would be a way to build readership.
Sounds good to me.Yeah.
Is there anything else we could be doing with,
say, the website or something like that?
I like the idea of, like, Starbucks
selling Wall Street Journal subscriptions.
[Art] Oh yeah, I saw that, yeah.
Like, why can't we do that?
If you could pitch it to a place where
as soon as you log on to public Wi-Fi,
you get like a daily complimentary access to StormLake.com.
You'd promote it, and it's free--
just one for day only.
I don't know that we have enough critical mass
to make it work, but who knows?
If it sells us a couple of subscriptions...
Yeah....what the hell?
An idea that I raised before is the idea of a podcast.
And then you would be the star of it.
If we could do it semi-regularly,
maybe once a month or something.
Who's going to sell the sponsorship for a podcast
that has a hundred listeners?
I think this should be about reporting and--
and I should stick to writing columns
and editorials and...Okay.
And I don't understand podcasts, necessarily.
And if I wanted to get into radio,
I would have gotten into radio.Yeah.
I understand this whole...
If the podcast idea is like-- I'm not married to it.
No, no, I know.But--
I like the idea that you're bringing things up,
but it's just that, uh, we've got to concentrate
on circulation, I think.
We're putting out a good paper.
That's all I know.Yeah.
Ultimately that will pay, right?
Yeah.
♪♪
[Art] The lake is frozen and snow-swept.
Men will squat in fishing shacks
to take out their anger on walleye and perch
while contemplating the Christmas message.
It must be time to write that holiday letter.
The kids are okay. They're not kids.
They're adults able to ride a bicycle solo.
You done good, Dolores.
Yet I wake up with a pit in my stomach.
The Republic is under attack from foes foreign and domestic.
The Constitution is under test.
A free press is in peril.
Here in a small Northwest Iowa town full of churches,
you would like to think better of ourselves.
We rush to our neighbor in need,
bring in his crops, shovel his drive,
donate for his new kidney at a pancake feed,
yet the Commander-in-Chief
thinks the law of the land is something for someone else.
Anxiety is the word.
The corn wasn't that bad.
The rain just wouldn't stop.
Tyson is building a new feed mill for its turkeys,
a good sign for Storm Lake.
The refugee children in our elementary holiday concert
are the Christmas story.
The divine finds us despite the walls.
Christmas is the time when we hope to perfect
the flaws of this world.
There remains more warmth of sharing here
than shadows of fear.
The hope that we can be made more perfect endures,
an antidote to anxiety.
[Dolores Cullen] I just got a first baby of the year picture, Art.
They're Micronesian.
We usually make a big fuss about the first baby.
It's a horizontal picture with a cut line.
[Art] I've been up all night.
I'm not in a good mood.
Let's get that story.
[Tom]Okay.
[mouths: "Fuck"]
Well, I guess we'll just go without
heart medicine again this month.
[laughs]
Our accountant says we made about $2,000,
so...[laughs]
Uh, a profit of $2,000 is better than a loss of $2,000.
We're kind of like farmers.
As long as we have money in the bank
at the end of the year, we're happy.
Squeaking by.
We're still keeping ten employees fed.
And, uh, I don't, uh, get paid now.
I'm on social security,
so I'm donating my time to the cause.
[Art] The reason he's here is to make sure we don't go broke.
[laughs]Yeah.
And then we'll be really screwed.
[Brian Gomez] Here you go.
[Barb Lange] Welcome.
The purpose of this meeting is to give you more information
about our dual language program that we're proposing
to start in Fall of 2020. So next fall.
[Yoanna Rosas speaking Spanish]
[Barb] There are some other dual language programs in Iowa.
We will be the seventh in the state.
We want this program to look much like
what our demographics look like in our school.
So we're going to run a lottery system.
We're not sure how many we'll have the first year,
but we're guessing that this will catch on
and we'll get more and more every year.
All right, are you ready?
Everybody's got a thumbs up, right?
One, two, three. Dual language!
[classroom] Dual language!
What's going to happen on Monday exactly?
How does a caucus work?
Okay, uh, what a caucus is, is people will gather
at community centers
and there'll be collections of neighbors.
And there's expected to be record turnout of like
250,000 or more on Monday night across the state.
And they'll come into these fire stations
and schoolhouses at the precinct level
and they'll hear speeches from precinct captains.
And then they'll say, okay, now everybody
split into caucuses.
And so the Warren people are going to caucus
over here in this corner and the Bernie people
are going to caucus over here in this corner.
And so everybody goes to their respective place,
and then they start counting heads.
And so you need 15% to be viable
to get a delegate out of that precinct caucus.
And that's why it's really not a primary.
It's a party-building exercise.
This is where the delegate selection process starts
for the Democratic National Convention.
Whereas in a primary, you know, you just go in and vote.
[Jen Olson] I just put it on the first page.
Okay, great. Yeah, that's perfect.
And then, so I took out Saturday morning.
Right. And then the Monday through Friday morning.
Yep, that's perfect.And that's everything that was--
You did it just right.
Let's see if we came out with 31 like we're supposed to.
[John] I've written several columns over the last couple of months
explaining what we're going to do with the TV listings.
We had to do something, because with our insurance
and printing costs and everything else going up,
we just-- we're looking for ways
to control expenses without, uh,
cutting personnel costs,
which most newspapers have done.
And we have run a TV section since we started, that--
it was a 12-page tab that had all these channels.
And we thought that maybe, uh,
we wouldn't need to run the TV Times anymore.
And, uh, our readers told us, no, don't do that.
Uh, they still like the printed version better.
So we asked our readers to let us know
which channels they wanted to keep.
And, uh, so we were able to drop
from about 80 channels down to 31.
We figured all told that running this TV section
was costing us close to $20,000 a year.
And this'll cut our expenses by more than half.
I hope to satisfy our customers that way.
I've been referred to twice now--
once in "The New York Times" and once in "The Boston Globe"--
as having a white mop... of hair.
Like one of those cotton floor mops.
Think that's what you're being compared to, Art.
So that's a hint that you need a haircut.
Yeah. Hint to the world.
Is that it?
Well, okay then.
[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] And so when we go out to caucus,
I went to make sure that everybody
brings at least one person with them.
[Bernie Sanders] Do everything you can to make sure
that the 2020 Iowa Caucus
has the largest voter turnout
in the history of the Iowa Caucus.
Thank you all very much.
I am here to speak to those who are still making up your minds
to look you in the eye and ask you to caucus for me.
We will continue to seek to have a message that,
uh, reaches out to everybody
and makes sure everybody feels welcome.
[Art] We need those Yang ads.
[laughter]
[Tom Cullen] Is the policy victories worth
the personal foibles, you know what I mean?
I mean, who's determining what's...
Yeah. You know?
Is it you, the press, determining?
Sure. Could be.
Or is it-- is it, you know,
actions that he's actually done.
So no, I stand be-- behind him 100%.
Sure. Nice to see you again.
Really what I'm after here is what you're seeing
from voters, what message seems to be resonating the most.
So I'm going into the small towns,
and they feel-- people feel so forgotten.
Especially farmers.
And they talk about the tariffs.
And I think they want a leader who has--
who has a strong character.
Yeah.And who is going to lead us into the future.
Okay.Not what we have now.
[newscaster] Literally hours away, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders
are basically tied at the top of the national polls.
And a lot of the polling on the air has them
potentially one, two-- although a little more middling
with Biden and some of the other candidates.
But the sharp ideological divide between the two
does mirror divisions within the Democratic Party.
One is campaigning on shaking things up.
The other is campaigning on steadying the ship.
Tonight's results could ultimately signal
where the Democratic nomination is heading.
There we are.
Peach... Art's on TV.
It just feels like a different energy.
I don't know how to describe it.
Well, it's not akin to anything,
but I think it's closest to '04
when Howard Dean had a lead.
John Kerry shot through at the end.
And, uh, everybody was anxious about electability.
And that's been the theme this year.
We are so afraid of screwing this up in Iowa.
And, uh... Uh, Art, am I being too simplistic?
Wow, you are hungry.
It feels like-- Sanders feels like
he's got the most identified ones,
as they like to say out here.
You know, he had what, half the caucus crowd, uh,
four years ago.
I'm not sure that he'll end up on top.
Anybody who is sure is too full of themselves.
[woman] Hello.[Art] How you doing?
Good. How are you?Who are you guys against?
Pete? Did you see him here at BV?
We didn't. Uh, we were working.
Oh, he had a big crowd here.
Very impressive.Yeah.
Did you decide just recently?
Yes.Yeah.
Who are you with tonight?
Yeah?
They've got a pretty good table over there.
Absolutely.
When did you make up your mind?
Pretty much when we got here. It was--
[laughs]
Have fun.
[crowd chatter]
[man] Okay, we're going to get started!
Hola, hola.
[speaking Spanish]
Everyone have one?
Okay. Now we're going to have the precinct captains--
which for every party that's here
that wants to represent themselves,
um, you guys will have two minutes to talk.
Hi, my name is Linda Torres.
I really think my uncle Bernie can beat Trump.
A couple of months ago my dad had passed,
and he was in the hospital for a week.
And we didn't have any time to grieve over my dad
because we were too busy fighting insurance companies.
And I truly believe that my dad would have still been alive
if we had Medicare for all,
and he could have been covered in Iowa,
and as soon as he got into that ER and been helped out
by doctors instead of waiting and waiting,
he would have still been here,
watching us fight for our country.
Please vote for Bernie Sanders
'cause he's gonna change our lives forever.
Hi, everyone. My name is Jean-Marco.
Thank you very much for coming here today.
Um, I'm here to advocate for Andrew Yang.
Anybody else? Okay.
All together?Yeah.
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
Whoo!Yay!
Oh, that was-- I was like--
We got 20.
What did Amy have?
Amy had 20. Right at 20.
So Warren and Amy each had 20.
And you were with Yang and you ended up with...
Sanders.
But you would have gone with Biden...
Yes....to make him viable.
Yes.
Had you made up your mind a while ago?
Uh, no. I was--
As far as second option,
I was pretty un-- undecided until today.
How about on Yang, though?
Oh, yeah, I've been decided on him for... months now.
Okay.
So but you're not really disappointed?
Or are you?
I'm very-- I'm super disappointed.
Oh, you are? Okay. All right.
Super disappointed.
Bernie! Bernie! Bernie...[Tom] Oh, my God.
This is insane.
I was not expecting this.
I thought there would be groups
that would be relatively even,
but I did not expect, like,
that this would be such a bloodbath.
You should have seen the army of Latinos at Better Day.
Ooh, awesome.
Yeah, I'm going to send you like 30-some pictures.
[Art] You looked at the Register, Tom?
I have not looked at the--
I'm looking at the site Troy Price sent me.
Initial reports out of BV...
Nothing yet.
Hi, Ron. This is Dolores from the Times.
Can you call me back?
We're trying to figure out how many people
you had at Methodist Manor.
Thanks, bye.
So Warren's winning in Des Moines at these precincts?
She did just okay here. That's to be expected.
Uh, Buttigieg is killing Webster.
Uh, Warren--There'll be--
Yeah, Warren didn't even make viability there.
Yeah.Whoa.
Yeah.
[Art] Bill! What's the news in Dubuque?
Yeah, I'm waiting, too. It's killing me.
That's why I called, you know?
But it'll-- it sounds like
Bernie probably carried Dubuque though, huh?
Thank you. See ya. Bye.
So what we do know is that we've been seeing these pictures
from precinct sites all over Iowa tonight
where Joe Biden in some of them has not been viable.
Why is that important?
Because the Biden campaign has been saying for a long time
that they believe they're one of the few campaigns
that would be viable across the state.
That yes, they may not be as strong
in the more populated areas... That's right.
...like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Davenport...
Who?Joe Biden-- uh, not viable.
...run up the score in more rural areas.
And I have to say, Brian, we've been covering
just about every single Biden event there is
over the last few months here in Iowa.
Uh, a lot of the places we go, the best dining option
is probably a Casey's General Store.
So these are rural areas.
And so we should consider that tonight--
All right, Mike Memoli at Biden Headquarters
where they officially know nothing.
[Art] What are you hearing?
We're all trying to figure out here in New York
why we don't have any results and where the hang-up may be.
I've never seen anything like it.
Oh, hell, the--
Every election is like this.
I can tell you the Iowa Democratic Party now
isn't saying anything.
It's not 10:00 yet.
Yeah.
I think AP's got a projection coming out.
In a, you know, a general election,
you won't get the results until midnight.
Yeah.
And yet nothing has been reported--
It's not 10:00 yet.Yeah.
Has it ever been in your experience--
No. Of course not.
Sometimes you won't get the results till the next day.
Yeah.You know?
...further endearing Iowa to the Democratic Party.
Jeez...
I know it's going to raise more questions for sure.
Oh, that's-- What a load of crap.
I'll be curious about there's the process questions.
Is this the way we should, you know, nominate a President?
Iowa Democratic Party has put a statement out.
Thank you, my dear.
Let's hear this.
We've experienced a delay in the results
due to the fact that the Iowa Democratic Party
is reporting out three data sets for the first time.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.True enough.
But regardless, we've only got the explanation.
We still don't have any digits.
Everybody's saying it's going to kill the Iowa caucuses...
Yeah....this delay.
It shouldn't, but it-- but it will.
Great.Good night.
Hey, Tom, would you mind taking a look at this?
Sure.See what you think.
Sure.
Hey, Tom, throw me a pack of smokes,
'cause if you kill me sooner,
you can own the newspaper sooner.
Is that reading all right to you?
Yeah, it was great.
It was better than I could have done.
I really wasn't concentrating on other precincts,
but I could just say Bernie swept the Latino vote in Storm Lake.
Yeah. That is 100% true.
I'm just going to operate
as though we're not going to see any results tonight.
I heard it's those caucus cards
that are causing all the problems.
They never had them before.
Yeah.They just counted heads.
Yeah.
Well... how much longer you going to stay here?
About another 15 minutes.
But I got my lede-in, as it it's just about Linda.
Linda's rousing speech about her dad dying
and how Bernie Sanders' health care plan
probably would have prevented it.
Well, it's too bad, 'cause it really is a good process
where neighbors get together
and actually speak to each other.
Yeah.
I think. That's my opinion.
But--Yeah.
These are just-- What are-- We got the cashews in here?
Just--Yeah.
Take as many as you want.
I'm going to pick out all the cashews.
Okay, then.See ya.
I talked to Matthew Marroquin at like midnight last night.
He gave me so many details about the app for the--
Oh, the app did crash.Yeah.
Okay.
[Art] Tom, uh, Headline:
who won the caucuses, question mark, not Iowa.
Yeah.
[laughs] That's pretty much it.
Chances we ever get a caucus again?
Zero.Apparently not.
Yeah.Oh well.
Like Dolores said, maybe they should just leave us alone.
Doug.
Shot. How about you?
Party's over.
It's not the process that broke down.
It was the app.
You know, the main anxiety in Iowa this year
is we're going to screw this up somehow.
And we did. [laughs]
It used to be, you know,
the results were always muddied and fucked up, you know,
but... and we could all live with it,
but with cable news, you just can't live with that anymore.
Well, I better get laying out pages.
All right, catch you later.
See ya.
Look at this picture.
This is democracy working.
But you know, I'm not--
that's not to say that we didn't have--
You know, we have our problems, obviously.
But it's just kinda too bad that--
that, uh, we can't be more patient with democracy.
♪♪
So it's been a pretty stressful, uh,
stressful time.
Very stressful.
And you know, you-- I've been sitting here for two weeks.
It's gray and rainy and cold.
So you're locked in the house
and you're thinking we're losing money,
and there ain't a goddamn thing you can do about it.
So it's really important that we can figure out a way
not to go deep into debt while saving the newspaper.
Our ads fell off a cliff just like every other newspaper.
We, uh...
We-- Our advertising was down 50% in March.
We hope that comes back, but, you know,
most of our advertisers were mom-and-pop stores
who are really at risk.
John said, "Well, I've just thought about
"just shutting it down and walking away.
I'd just like to walk away and go fishing."
And, uh, you know, we've both worked very hard.
And, uh-- And then just to see it all, uh, blow up,
you just think, well, okay, at least we got the building.
You know, we could sell that to pay off our debt.
So... it doesn't make a lot of sense
for us to go borrow money
when we could just walk away from it now.
♪♪
We're thinking about doing a GoFundMe page
to seek donations, uh, from anywhere.
At least buy us some oxygen until this thing clears.
You know, it just seems like a whole different realm,
a different reality.
For this last issue, I interviewed business owners.
They were sharing all kinds of things.
Like, the bait guy,
some people were stealing out of his self-serve bait machine.
Yeah.
He threatened them, that he was going to take the wheels
off their trailer if they kept doing that
while they were out fishing.
So I thought of a pretty good headline.
I thought "Angler Management."
No one's even talking about testing at this point.
So we don't know if the virus is even here.
Um, and all we can say is, like,
we're just closing down for precaution.
I call a hospital up to see if anybody's been admitted yet
for symptoms that appear similar to COVID-19
and, well, that goes nowhere.
[Art] If we do the right things here, we'll be all right.
We were kind of scolding local officials
for falling short on testing.
We're falling short on equipment.
And we're falling short on a clear and consistent message
from local, state, and federal authorities.
All the meatpacking plants around us we know
are all infected with COVID.
So we just know that there's got to be hundreds of workers
in Storm Lake who are infected,
but they aren't testing,
and then not reporting any cases.
How sickening it is to think of forcing immigrant workers
who are afraid of deportation,
forcing them into a potentially deadly workplace,
uh, without testing. [laughs]
And, uh...
and to me, uh, you know, there are--
there are blatant forms of racism
and there are subtler forms of racism,
but it's racism all the same.
[Tom] Occasionally, I go out to Tyson.
But, you know, all you could do
is speak to a spokesperson in Arkansas.
I called them. And first it starts with,
how many employees have tested positive?
Does every employee have sufficient PPE?
What are you doing as far as sanitation?
That's just a constant, constant drumbeat.
And they would get back to you with these statements, like,
"We take this with the utmost seriousness" and that's it.
♪♪
[Tom] From what I understand,
there's company-wide testing now at Tyson Storm Lake.
The problem with this is the state-delegated
testing responsibility to the meatpacking plants.
So there's no way we can credibly trace
the spread of the virus in the last several months.
It's not clear to me why Tyson or any other meat company
is now acting as a quasi-public health agency
and is conducting testing on behalf of the state of Iowa.
And then it becomes unclear to me
who owns that information,
who controls that information,
and how selective are they
in the release of that information.
♪♪
[Tom] We were the first ones to actually, like, come to press
and say a number of Tyson employees tested positive.
And then there was this dramatic spike of cases in Storm Lake.
It was just, like, unbelievable.
We're continuing to report on the numbers as best we can,
but we never really know the exact count on a given day.
And that's really incumbent upon the state department of public health
and the governor's office, of course,
you know, to enlighten us on that.
But, you know, they haven't responded
to a single email of mine.
[Art] Now Storm Lake is the hottest spot in Iowa
and one of the top ten in the country.
They decided late last week
to shut down the Tyson Pork Complex
for a few days at least for cleaning
after these test results showed
that over 20% of the Tyson Pork Plant roster had COVID.
Come on, Peach.
Where are you?
Hey. Come here.
There's room. There's room.
"Dear Tom, when James Madison wrote the First Amendment
"to the Constitution, he had you in mind.
"The reporter is the cornerstone of an informed electorate
and a functioning democracy."
So is it one per house then?
Yeah. Yep.One of each per house.
[Art] "The best journalism is that which builds communities.
You build your community by publicizing good deeds done..."
Hey, guys.
"...by urging yourself and those around you to do better..."
Tom!What?!
How are you?Good.
Doing good?
"...and by making certain that your town's issues
are heard in Des Moines and Washington."
[speaks Spanish]
"Tyranny prevails whenever the press is not free.
Stand guard."
[speaking Spanish]
Where are you from originally?
I was actually born in Mexico, in Jalisco.Oh.
And then, my mother and my two brothers,
we settled in Storm Lake, Iowa.
I was one of the first kids
when the ESL program was getting started.
[Art] "Reporters hold about as much regard
"as the world's oldest profession.
"But we are not professionals.
"Nobody gives us license.
We draw it from the Constitution."
None, I did not.
[Art] "All we have is our own credibility,
"which is called into question
twice a week in our circumstance."
So how's business? Uh...
Is it picking up any?
[laughs]
Yeah?
Yeah. I don't know either.
Right on, sister.
[laughs] [laughs]
[speaking Spanish]
[Art] "Readers decide our future,
not any branch of government."
Do you have your press pass?
Yes, I do.
Make sure that you have that displayed, okay?
Okay, will do.
"If you find writing is a chore after a while,
"you're in the wrong business.
"The pay is lousy and the hours can be terrible.
"But you can change the world through journalism.
"That's the only good reason to get into this trade.
"Because when you're looking for a friend,
"remember that the dog can't read.
"Love [you had better check that out], Dad.
PS: Is that story done yet?"
♪♪