Elizabeth Warren and Art Cullen at the 2019 Heartland Forum in Storm Lake (DOC NYC)

This engrossing documentary takes viewers behind the scenes of the Storm Lake Times, a Pulitzer Prize-winning, twice-weekly newspaper based out of Storm Lake, Iowa. Founded in 1990, it’s largely been a family business: Art Cullen, lanky and bespectacled, is lead editor while his brother John is the publisher and founder. The reporting staff includes Art’s wife, Dolores, who specializes in human interest stories, and their son Tom, whose beat is harder news.

The Times’ coverage area also includes the surrounding county, which is largely rural. However, that doesn’t make the job of a reporter any less fast-paced or demanding. (The brisk editing captures a typically busy day for its journalists.) If the staff isn’t putting an edition to bed, in which case the newsroom is tense and Art is anxiously asking if articles are done, the writers are out chasing stories.

With the exception being the arrival of several nationally recognized Democratic politicians ahead of the 2020 Iowa caucus (though the narrative opens in 2019), the stories aren’t particularly flashy. Indeed, the typical Storm Lake Times story is about a farmer who, due to unseasonably heavy rainfall during the spring, started planting corn far later in the season than usual.

This story, written by Art, has local color to be sure, but he is more interested in how the inhospitable weather relates to a bigger issue: climate change. The paper has a reputation of being left-leaning politically, much like the town itself, while its county, Buena Vista, is more conservative and Republican. But for Art, climate change has less to do with politics than facts—it’s a fact, he says, that the county and state have been become warmer over time.

Though his screen presence might best be described as more folksy than charismatic, Art embodies all the qualities of a good reporter: he’s inquisitive and knowledgeable about his beat, which makes sense as he grew up in the area. He also has a healthy dose of skepticism, but he’s also passionate, which comes across in his editorials, excerpts of which are read aloud by Art himself. Here his progressive beliefs shine through brightest as he alternately advocates on behalf of immigration, which he views as having helped sustain and revitalize the town, and denigrates President Trump.

Yet directors Jerry Risius and Beth Levison never lose sight of how putting together a quality newspaper is a group effort. The paper covers a local parade highlighting the ever-increasing diversity of the town, a visit to an elementary school by representatives of a meat processing company, a longtime trailer park resident who has launched a bid for the city council, and a new Spanish/English bilingual initiative at an area school. If not for the Storm Lake Times, they would probably go unreported.

In some of the most telling moments, we observe the trust between the paper and its readership, even among those with differing political opinions who nevertheless rely on it to keep up on what’s happening in the community. But is that enough to keep the Times in business during an age in which checking social media is considered akin to reading the news, and when the advertising model that had long been in place is failing? While the Iowa caucus is a major plot point, most of the documentary’s suspense actually comes from this secondary story line as Art and company battle economic reality while exploring ways to boost readership.

Then comes the year 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic, at which point the newspaper’s situation is arguably at its most desperate. But Art and company keep chugging along, doing their jobs, all of which leads to an ending that’s almost Capra–esque in its feel-goodness. Yet had that ending never happened, Storm Lake would still be a lively portrait of how good local journalism reflects the lives of those who read it.