The state of the Times Pilot

For the past 35 years I have written an annual accounting of the state of affairs of this newspaper. As I have noted each year, we do this to maintain the trust of our readers, since the founders of this nation gave the press special consideration in the First Amendment of our Constitution. The President of the United States usually delivers his State of the Union to Congress in January or February, and as President of The Storm Lake Times Company, I follow suit.

Well, the Times Pilot had a better year than the United States in 2025. Our federal government ran a deficit of $1.7 trillion last year, while this newspaper ran a profit of a few thousand dollars. So right away we ink-stained ragamuffins are off to a better start, and — I’d like to think — we are better managed than the US government. Unlike Uncle Sam, we can’t just print money to make up for losses. We make money the old fashioned way — we earn it.

More Buena Vista County people get their news from the Storm Lake Times Pilot than from any other source. Circulation revenue of the Storm Lake Times Pilot rose 24% during the past year, with 2,400 subscribers to our print newspaper and 1,600 subscribers to our online edition. That represents a total readership of more than 10,000 people, with each subscription read by an average of 2.5 people.

We’ve achieved this success through our dedication to providing uncompromised news coverage of our community. Editor Art Cullen has carried our message beyond Buena Vista County since winning the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2017. He has been a vocal ambassador for his hometown, carrying the flag for Storm Lake nationwide with his second book, “Dear Marty, We Crapped In Our Nest,” released this summer, and with frequent appearances on network news shows seeking his expertise on what’s happening in rural America.

Journalism ain’t easy these days. Reporters of all stripes are facing headwinds. Newspapers, broadcast television and radio are all under assault by rapidly changing information forces like social media, streaming, podcasts and a hostile government that is trashing the very Constitution that guarantees all Americans the right to free press, free speech, free religion and the freedom to protest when our government tries to oppress us.

People get their information from a wide variety of sources today. Unfortunately, many sources are unreliable. Metro dailies have cut back publication days, including major Iowa cities like Sioux City and Cedar Rapids. The evening network news programs reach only 10% of the audience they had in the 1960s, and two of the three TV stations in Sioux City dropped their newscasts altogether. A half dozen weekly newspapers in our area have gone out of business in the past year, including neighboring Schaller and Aurelia. The Pocahontas newspaper warned several months ago that a drop in local advertising threatened its existence.

Who is left to report local news that’s the lifeblood of a well-informed community? Frighteningly few these days.

This is especially hard on small communities already reeling from population losses following school closures and losses of local businesses as rural Iowa towns are hollowed out.

The Times Pilot, Buena Vista County’s oldest business, continues to operate after 156 years because our readers appreciate the comprehensive local news coverage we offer that they won’t get on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. No one else is covering city hall, the police, county courts, board of supervisors and school boards, not to mention profiling the newcomers to town who love to bake apple pies.

That’s why our readership continues to defy the odds. Our readers know they can trust us to give them the straight story.

Also, while we are not abandoning the newsprint edition, we have been brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century with our greater focus on digital delivery of the Times Pilot. We go to where are readers are, and that increasingly is on cellphones in our readers’ pockets. Our website, stormlake.com, is Buena Vista County’s most widely read news site, viewed more than 135,000 times each month. It allows us to publicize breaking news daily followed by the roundup of the news in our big colorful Friday print edition. Another 13,000 follow us on Facebook, 13,000 more on Substack, plus several thousand on Instagram and BlueSky. We quit X (formerly Twitter) after that site went off the rails with conspiracy theories and crazy talk.

While readership has increased, advertising has not, and circulation revenue alone won’t feed the bulldog or the 19 people we employ. Our advertising revenue is down 10%, mirroring the trend of newspapers and broadcasters nationwide as Facebook and Google sweep up the ad dollars. CBS says it will lose $40 million this year on its top-rated Late Night show with Steven Colbert. Meanwhile, local businesses throughout Buena Vista County have been forced out by big box stores in the cities and Amazon online.

To sustain good journalism in our community, we joined with several other area newspapers a few years ago to establish the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation, a charitable organization designed to keep local newspapers alive in this part of the world. You can make a tax-deductible donation to WIJF and help keep local news alive in places like Storm Lake, Carroll, Jefferson, Denison and Cherokee.

Thanks to you, our loyal readers, advertisers and generous donors, the Storm Lake Times Pilot looks forward to continuing our century and a half of service recording the history of our community — if the government doesn’t shut us down first.