Icon: An Idea Worth Remembering

 

In recent years, “news deserts” have become a problem. As newspapers shut down across America, local communities have fewer sources of information to keep people informed. No one reports local news in many communities, and unfortunately, when people don’t know what’s going on, others fill in the void. According to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism report, the absence of local news leads to less participation, voter turn-out, and an increase in corruption, misinformation, polarization, and distrust in media.

 

In this expanding news desert, public officials do what they want (or what the chosen few want them to do). These and other activities need to be addressed or challenged. Many learn what lawmakers are doing only after their laws pass or norms change. In Iowa, school vouchers channel public tax dollars into private schools, which have already raised tuition rates. ¹ Iowa’s Area Education Agencies (AEAs) have also lost funding. Local AEAs provide services to students and school districts in nine state regions, or did, including special education services and curriculum development funding. This change will further erode public education.

 

Under the new funding system, which gradually reduces guaranteed funding for general education resources such as classroom materials and specialized teacher training, the online Times-Republican said, individual service agencies will now market their services to school districts directly. Districts and schools purchase needed services with allotted funds previously earmarked for AEA support districts. Prior to the new law, by pooling resources and expertise, AEAs had efficiently delivered services that individual districts found cost-prohibitive. Critics are worried the new law will be a devastating free-market disaster.

 

The bottom line is simple. Many local school districts will lose services to other priorities. School districts will have to decide between funding basic needs like teacher salaries or purchasing services their students and teachers need, services their local AEA had in their toolbox ready to go. Knowledgeable and focused professionals at the AEAs are leaving the state because funding for the regional AEAs is gone.

 

There was a debate about what Republican lawmakers were doing in Iowa, but you had to look hard to find it.

In a 1999 interview, someone familiar with this problem spoke eloquently about how to fix these kinds of problems — or try. News Deserts loomed even back then, as most publications, especially in Iowa City, were conglomerate-owned and run by people more interested in turning a profit than reporting on issues that helped build a strong community.

 

Those conglomerates and their people still do what they do: make money at the expense of civic society, families, and others in their communities. If for profit models are hurting us — like so many cash cow operations — it’s time for change. Communities can start building their own news organizations when this happens, even if it’s only a newsletter and an online community board, where community members can report on issues others want to read or keep tabs on where they live, an “advertiser” of sorts, or newsletter to guide community members with objective reporting. People’s opinions should be welcome, too, and all the letters to the editors that people can handle in their decision-making quest.

 

An inexpensive blog could help facilitate this.

 

Editor Michelle R. explained how her newspaper wanted to make this work. She and the publisher found an old house behind a QuikTrip in downtown Iowa City and converted it into a newsroom. It was a simple idea, but it worked, at least for a while. ²

 

“We just sort of fell into it,” said Michelle, the editor of the alternative news source, Icon. “It’s close to downtown, and we liked that. It’s not so far out, in Coralville or something, so we took it.”

 

They didn’t occupy the entire structure, but that was okay. The landlord was good with it. The publication set up shop in the living room, but instead of armchairs and couches, there were desks and computers. A copy machine sat beside a light table in the kitchen, but today’s non-entrepreneurial journalist doesn’t need all that. A newsletter with graphics requires a printer with a built-in copy scanner. Larger work, if needed, can be outsourced, and GIMP, an image manipulation program, is free!

 

On late nights, when Michelle and publisher Aaron W. were up until dawn getting the Icon out, it really didn’t matter where they worked, but Michelle sometimes missed having a couch. “I could get some sleep,” she said.

 

Aaron started the Icon in 1993 while a graduate student at the University of Iowa. He saw a need for a community newspaper and got to work, often with the help of volunteers. They publish every Thursday.

 

“We used to come out every other week,” Michelle said, “but this works better. We’re out there more often, and people know us better.”

 

Because the newspaper was free and able to support itself with advertising, a problem today, people shared issues that more than one person read. It became a community source of information, left on tables around the campus and in the community.

 

There wasn’t any other source of news in Iowa City that examined essential issues more closely in the 1990s, not to mention today. Still, publications were trying to fill in the news gaps, and Michelle and Aaron traveled to Bloomington, Indiana, looking for ideas.

 

Of course, alternative news sources are having far more trouble today, and many have gone exclusively online. The News & Review, a thriving alternative weekly in Chico, California, a college town in the northern Sacramento Valley, abandoned its print issue in June 2024 and has been struggling with its online presence. The Covid lockdown forced businesses to close and add revenue died up, forcing the publication to pull its weekly print issue from newsstands. It did return with monthly newsprint issue but is now exclusively online (the Reno News & Review still circulates 20,000-plus newsprint issues monthly).

 

Michelle and Aaron went to The Bloomington Voice to see what they were doing. The publication, like many newsprint publications, is gone today, but on their return time they discussed to need to be better at reporting hard news, arguing the need for contact and sources within city and county government.

 

Planning and zoning issues were a major concern in Iowa City, as it is in many smaller cities and towns with a university or college. But the need transcends planning and zoning, as has been discussed here. The problem is finding people with the interest and desire to follow and report on the issues affecting others in a community, especially for a model that relies on volunteers.

 

The Icon needed people who had the contacts to call and see what is going on. Just trying to get basic information can often be a problem. A call to the Reno News & Review, for example, to see if they were still publishing a print issue found an editor who promptly hung up.

 

"To follow the issue, I think," Michelle said, "you need to really focus on it. It can be so complicated. To just throw our interns in on that and say go do a story on zoning. It's really hard for them to come up with a good, strong story. One of the differences between us and the daily style is we want our reporters to tell the story, not just report on it. We need to cover local stories in more detail."

 

This, of course, is the hallmark of an alternative press. In the case of the AEA the issue becomes how will the change in the delivery of services affect people in the community? What will it mean to parents with a developmentally disabled child, or parents with a child who needs a speech therapist?

 

In 1999, women's issues were important, as they are today, especially with women facing medical emergencies, and doctors deigning basic care for fear of lawsuits. Still, the basics remain, at least in terms of depth reporting.

 

Michelle was looking forward to a local news program at a television station in Des Moines, but all they had during the segment was a female reporter telling viewers what she'd found in Cosmopolitan Magazine. "I was blown away," Michelle said, "that the story was about putting flowers on your desk at work. It's supposed to make you more productive, but I don't understand what the point is. I'm kind of naive, I guess, but I believe that the media will catch up on one day and figure out what they are supposed to be doing."

 

They haven't, but the problem has only gotten worse. There is less money today in advertising dollar than even back then. Michelle wrote a letter to the station manager (today they ignore emails).

 

"Women's issues are more important than a three-minute segment. And they come up with flowers! I'm not disputing the fact that putting flowers on your desk makes you more productive, but why is that labeled a woman's issue?

 

"We all have our interests at the Icon," she continued, "and women's issues is one of mine. That's kind of how it comes through. My consciousness has been raised, and I see a decision being made in the mainstream media, in the dailies, and even regular television. I think it is our role to kind of fill in the void or balance it out."

 

For Michelle, the answer to getting people to read what the Icon had to say, was entertainment news and giving people more. They read the Icon because they wanted to know what to do In Iowa city, as does the Chico News & Review with its Best of Chico issue online.

 

Things have changed, and most of us are reading our news and entertainment news online. But the fact remains, local stories are not being told.

 

Finding people to do this is where we are in 2024.

 

What Others Are Doing

1. Community-driven newsletters report on local events, issues, and stories distributed by email or physical copies.

2. Online platforms like Patch, Nextdoor, or Facebook share news and information.

3. Nonprofit news organizations with simple logos win grants and donations. Publications of interest are the Texas Tribune and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, which focus on local issues and provide in-depth coverage.

4. Collaborative journalism creates partnerships between local organizations, universities, and journalism schools.

5. Community radio and podcasts with local radio stations provide sources for news and information, especially in areas where print media is scarce.

6. Crowdfunding and community support organizations use platforms like Patreon or GoFundMe.

7. Advertiser-supported shoppers don’t offer in-depth reporting but serve as a vital resource for local information.

8. Community forums engage residents through town hall meetings and forums to help raise awareness about local issues and encourage grassroots reporting.

9. Volunteer reporting initiatives recruit in the community by offering training and residents a voice in their community’s narrative.

 

Links and Resources

Institute for Nonprofit News (INN)

Inn

 

Local News Initiative by the Pew Research Center

Local News

 

The Solutions Journalism Network

Solutions Journalism Network

 

The Local News Lab

Local News Lab

 

Nextdoor

Nextdoor

 

Patch

Patch

 

Texas Tribune

Texas Tribune

 

Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers

Lion Publishers

 

¹ A new study shows tuition for kindergarten at Iowa private schools has increased since the state's Education Saving Account Program went into effect. ... Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the new program into law creating accounts for K-12 students to help pay for private school tuition. Unfortunately, researchers have shown the program isn't meeting its intended goal: making private education more accessible to lower-income Iowans (https://www.kcci.com/article/iowa-esa-private-school-tuition-increase-2024/60897435).

 

² The Icon did not survive, but this moment in an independent journalist’s history needs airing. It’s an interview from an age of optimism when publishers and journalists saw a need and tried to fill it. Nothing has changed, and the problem has only gotten worse.