★★★★

When newspaper editor Art Cullen tells his son, Tom, a writer for the family-owned newspaper, The Storm Lake Times, he doesn’t understand or care all that much about podcasting and has no interest in working on developing one for the local Iowa newspaper, he punctuates a frustration that countless others in his role has expressed in recent years.

No one wants to pay for content anymore.

Storm Lake shows us the hand-to-mouth existence small newspapers and outlets experience in a day where people are quick to profess that journalism is dead, but then turn around and complain about paying to unlock a paywall that proves to be a far cheaper expenditure then they previously paid for a newspaper subscription.

Directors Beth Levison and Jerry Risius embed with Art, Storm Lake Times owner and Art’s brother, John Cullen, Art’s wife Dolores, their son, Tom, and the remainder of a lean ten person team, working tirelessly to ensure that the biweekly newspaper gets delivered to 3,000 residents. We learn that John works essentially for free, living on his Social Security, so as to not take a paycheck from the newspaper. And we spend a whirlwind two years or so with the staff and the Cullens, taking us through the Iowa Caucus, the Democratic presidential primary, and COVID-19.

Journalists are generally a tenacious lot and Art is persistent in staying afloat and driving subscriptions and interest in the paper. Levison and Risius find plenty to document, capturing discussions and conversations both at work and away. Together, they paint a portrait of small-town journalists trying to fight for their voice to be heard, in a medium some have written off as dying a slow, painful demise.

Through the filter of an Iowa farm town, we get a sense of the respect Storm Lake Times has among its subscribers and community. Though amusingly a handful of local interviewees balk at Art’s impassioned left-leaning editorials, there is a communal appreciation for the great care and concern taken in ensuring these stories and this paper represents everyone fairly and appropriately.

Through political controversies and a global pandemic, the Cullens have found ways to remain storytellers. Storm Lake gives us a pure and honest look into the exhaustive grind of smalltown journalism and the fight to tell stories in a meaningful and mattering way. As Art literally counts coins and logs tallies of individual paper sales, we want to believe the Storm Lake Times, like any long-standing small town newspaper, has embedded its roots deep and wide enough to never go away.

Storm Lake was screened as part of SIFF DocFest 2021.