Congratulations to Fernanda Japa, the author of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps’ first published story, Elisa Angeles Espinoza, Dania Reyes and several other Iowa college journalists who won awards in the Iowa Newspaper Association’s inaugural Iowa Business-for-Good Journalism Contest.

The 2026 awards recognize “outstanding student reporting on how businesses and organizations in Iowa create both economic value and societal benefit,” the newspaper association (INA) says.

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Japa, Espinoza and Reyes of Buena Vista University’s The Tack won first place in the contest for the story, “Brewing a Local Workforce.” Judges cited the story’s “strong reporting and thoughtful exploration of a business serving a broader social role in the community,” the INA said in a news release.

The Emerging Journalist Corps republished the story on June 12, 2026.

Japa, The Tack’s editor-in-chief this past year, wrote the opinion piece, “Next generation of watchdogs already targeted,” for The Tack and shared it for republication in March by the Emerging Journalist Corps.

“Whenever like you see, like, a ‘Beware the Dog’ sign, you kind of are more courteous, more respectful of how you approach a house,” Japa said in an interview with the Emerging Journalist Corps. “I think just journalists are the ‘Beware the Dog’ sign.”

Winning reporting teams in the INA’s Iowa Business-for-Good Journalism Contest received cash prizes of $1,000 for first place, $500 for second place and $250 for third place. The awards are matched by the winning teams’ universities.

Other winners, from the INA press release, were:

Second Place “The Upcoming Diverse Culture of East Village,” by Dashae Engler and Olatuke Jayeola of Drake University.

Third Place “Shar Roorda: Defining Hair and Excellence,” by Karma Goodson and Logan Meagher of Wartburg College.

Honorable Mention

• “Storm Lake’s Stray Solution,” by Jacob Kriewald, Martell Watts and Aydan Guenther, Buena Vista University.

• “St. Anthony Regional Hospital is Central to Care and Community in Carroll,” by Max Pietig and Kiley Trecker of Iowa State University.

• “Behind the Scenes of a Dinner Date,” by Matthew Forristal, Kaleb Sander and Carter Griego, Buena Vista University.

ALSO, OF NOTE AS SUMMER BEGINS

The University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom. “If we are to be a Center for Intellectual Freedom, why is it mandatory?” former Iowa state Sen. Liz Mathis, a Democrat, asked in a virtual Center for Intellectual Freedom advisory council meeting Iowa’s Board of Regents held last week. It was a key question as the council debated the center’s purpose and future. The Daily Iowan’s Anna Olson reported”

IOWA LAW PUTS CENTER FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM AT CENTER OF NEW GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS

Drinking underage in college. Japa, Espinoza and The Tack’s Madison Savick created a podcast at the end of the school year about the pressures of underaged drinking. You may hear it here:

UNDERAGE DRINKING

No apologies for liking sports: Daniyal Shahbaz, of the Iowa State Daily, made the case for sports being more than a game in our society. He did this in a June 8 opinion piece, which you may read here:

SPORTS CULTURE: BEYOND BREAD AND CIRCUSES

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work.

Check out the latest from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative’s writers here.

By Fernanda Japa and Elisa Angeles Espinoza, The Tack

This story originally was published in Buena Vista University’s The Tack. Some editing was done here for a statewide presentation.

STORM LAKE, Iowa — The espresso machine hisses a steady exhale, cutting through the room as Monica David leans slightly over the counter, adjusting a student’s angle on the portafilter. “Turn it,” she says, her voice calm. The student follows, adjusting their position, before pausing to ask a question.

Around them, the Endless Sea Café moves with quiet purpose. A student closes a laptop filled with finished assignments. At a nearby table, conversations shift between English and Spanish.

David guides students through small decisions that may carry larger implications. Each correction is subtle, aimed at educating. Its core values are Christian based.

What happens here, at The Bridge of Storm Lake’s café, is not simply service work — it is early-stage workforce training in a community where the need for job-ready workers continues to outpace supply.

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The Bridge is an “advocate for Storm Lake youth in vulnerable places of life by meeting them where they are, building a supportive community there and providing training toward a more hope-filled future,” its website says. It is for middle school, high school and college students.

“What made me keep coming back,” David recalled of her start at The Bridge of Storm Lake years ago, “was just its sense of community. It was something to do at a young age, and I felt like the people there really supported me.”

That feeling is not accidental. It’s by design.

CHANGING TOWN, CHANGING WORKFORCE

Storm Lake, a northwest Iowa city of roughly 11,269 residents, has become one of the state’s most diverse rural communities, where Hispanic residents make up about 41% of the population and Asian residents about 16%.

That diversity has helped stabilize population growth in a region when many rural Iowa towns are shrinking. But it has also exposed structural gaps — particularly in workforce development, education access and social integration.

Research on rural Iowa communities increasingly has pointed to the decline of social spaces as a hidden driver of those gaps. When places for informal gathering disappear — such as diners and bowling alleys — social isolation rises and networks of opportunity wear out.

A project led by Laurel Waterman, an intern at the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in Perry, Iowa, found that these kinds of spaces are not amenities, but necessities. According to Waterman, such spaces function as a public health matter for social connection and mental health. They become “third spaces.”

Without them, rural towns struggle to retain young people and integrate new residents.

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Izzie Ramos, The Bridge of Storm Lake’s operations director, understands this from the ground up. She started volunteering in 2016 as a teenager. “I just felt super loved and cared for,” Ramos said.

At the same time, Buena Vista County faces broader economic pressures. According to the Iowa Health and Human Services snapshot, about 12.2% of residents live in poverty, and more than a quarter of the population is under 18 — adding pressure on schools, employers, and community organizations to prepare the next generation of residents.

For local employers, the challenge is clear: how to build a skilled, connected workforce in a multilingual, rural environment where traditional training pipelines are often limited.

Ramos described what she sees in the young people who walk through the doors.

“If you don’t have an open mind, you assume middle schoolers are just angry and mean for the heck of it. But ultimately, it’s because that’s what they grew up in. A lot of our middle schoolers and high schoolers dealt with the pandemic. They were forced into isolation, and then onto social media, where vulnerability was shamed. They just feel so isolated and alone. …They’re seeking something — and they don’t know what they’re seeking.”

The café, she believes, offers an answer.

A café as a workforce pipeline

The Bridge of Storm Lake and its student-run Endless Sea Café were created as a response to overlapping challenges. Founded in 2009, The Bridge began as a youth outreach effort but evolved into a hybrid model combining mentorship, education, and job training. The Endless Sea Café opened in 2022.

Sociologists call places like this “third spaces” — social environments distinct from home (first) and work (second) that host the regular, voluntary, and informal gatherings of a community.

The Endless Sea was not an adult invention. “The cafe was an idea that stemmed from a survey we did for our high schoolers,” Ramos said. “They kept asking for a place to be safe, hang out, and have it be their own. We already roasted coffee, so we thought, this is a way to provide a space that has fun drinks. The purpose is to give kids a space to be.”

In addition to learning how to make coffee, students rotate through roles that mirror small business operations: inventory tracking, customer service, sales, marketing, and basic accounting. For many, it is their first exposure to structured employment.

READ THE ORIGINAL STORY FROM THE TACK

In a town where the mean income per capita is roughly $30,603, and where many families are navigating language barriers, early work experience can shape long-term earning potential.

Additionally, Ramos said, “When it’s busy, I think they learn time management. Not just customer service, but customer engagement.”

For the students, the benefit is immediate: soft skills, job readiness, and mentorship. For employers, it creates a local talent reservoir.

PARTNERSHIPS AS INFRASTRUCTURE

What distinguishes the model is the ecosystem around it.

The Bridge program partners with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, Buena Vista University, and various other organizations, giving students exposure to career exploration. These partnerships function as a bridge between secondary education and the regional labor market.

“During my senior year of high school, I did an internship here in the finance part of The Bridge,” David said. “I got to really see what goes on and what it takes to run a non-profit organization.”

Students also participate in service initiatives like assembling weekend food packages — known locally as “Tornado Sacks” — for elementary students facing food insecurity. While not a direct workforce intervention, the effort addresses a key barrier to long-term economic stability: consistent access to food and basic resources.

In effect, the program combines three interconnected interventions: hands-on workforce training through café operations, exposure to educational pathways through local partnerships, and a layer of social stability through mentorship and initiatives that address statewide needs.

That integrated model reflects a broader shift in workforce development across Iowa, where policymakers and employers increasingly recognize that building a reliable labor force requires more than technical skills alone.

With more than 61% of Iowans completing education or training beyond high school, the state has invested heavily in aligning education with workforce needs, but gaps remain — particularly in rural and multilingual communities where access and opportunity are uneven.

DOES IT SCALE?

From a business perspective, the model is simultaneously promising and constrained.

On one hand, it aligns closely with labor market conditions across Iowa. The state reported more than 52,000 job openings in 2025, even as its unemployment rate remained relatively low at about 3.4%, signaling a persistent mismatch between available workers and employer needs.

Programs that build foundational workplace skills — communication, reliability, and teamwork — can help address that gap, particularly in rural areas where employers often struggle to find job-ready candidates despite a growing labor force.

On the other hand, the model is inherently resource-intensive. Success for a program like this depends on consistent nonprofit funding, sustained involvement from adult mentors and student participation outside of school hours — inputs that are not always scalable or easily replicated.

“How do we get the money?” Ramos asked. “A lot of grants. It requires research on that part, and then our fundraising events. We have three major fundraising events and then some smaller ones sprinkled in.”

These constraints mirror broader challenges in Iowa’s workforce system, where growth in the labor force — up roughly 32,400 workers in 2025 — has not fully translated into meeting employer demand.

There are also trade-offs embedded in its design. By limiting adult presence in the café during student hours, the program prioritizes a controlled, youth-centered environment that fosters confidence and skill-building.

At the same time, that decision may reduce revenue potential and limit broader customer engagement, underscoring the tension between mission-driven programming and financial sustainability.

David acknowledges the challenge honestly. “As of right now, there’s not as many people coming into the café … I’m hoping that they’re able to attract more students.”

IMPLICATIONS BEYOND STORM LAKE

The state’s labor market illustrates a paradox: relatively low unemployment paired with persistent workforce shortages. Even as Iowa’s labor force participation rate approaches nearly 68%, employers across industries continue to report difficulty filling positions, particularly in rural areas.

At the same time, structural pressures — including an aging population and slower job growth compared to national trends — place additional strain on the state’s long-term economic outlook.

Such challenges are already visible across numerous sectors. Healthcare providers, for example, face acute staffing shortages, while other industries have experienced job losses tied to broader economic shifts, reinforcing how fragile workforce pipelines can be in smaller communities.

Programs like Endless Sea Café offer a localized response by intervening earlier — building workforce skills during high school, connecting students to educational pathways, and embedding them in supportive networks and in their community.

If replicated, models like this could help stabilize Iowa’s workforce pipeline, reduce hiring gaps for local businesses, and strengthen economic resilience in rural communities — particularly in areas where traditional workforce systems have struggled to keep pace with demographic and economic change.

“A SPACE FOR ANYBODY”

The espresso machine finishes as David steps back, ceding control to the student. She watches but does not step in.

The student moves through the process, briefly hesitating before adjusting her hands. The sequence is not seamless but it works. The drink is finished and placed on the counter.

David nods for the student to ring the bell.

At the café, readiness is built incrementally. The Bridge of Storm Lake and its café do not operate at the scale of statewide workforce systems, but they address the same problem at its earliest point: preparation.

“What’s special to me about The Bridge,” David said, “it’s a space for anybody. I would just like other people to know that it is a good opportunity, especially for all kids. I think they can find their place here.”

For those behind the counter, it begins simply with a measured scoop of coffee.

Fernanda Japa and Elisa Angeles Espinoza are journalists at Buena Vista University’s The Tack. The story’s authors, along with contributor Dania Reyes, recently won first place in the inaugural Iowa Newspaper Association Iowa Business-for-Good Journalism Contest.

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work.

Alex Burdzy contacted me a while back with a question:

Would a story he did for his Luther College newspaper, The Chips, last winter be the kind that interests the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps? The answer was “yes.” The story still would be timely for a statewide audience outside of Luther College but would need work to make it relevant.

Decorah is a tourist attraction with deep roots in Norwegian-U.S. history so the elements of relevancy existed. It is home for Luther College and an Iowa spot that deals with issues of statewide interest.

Above, Burdzy and I talk about his story and experience with the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative’s new effort to bring young journalists and audiences into the mix when it comes to the news we consume, especially in news deserts or places where coverage gaps exist.

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Muller: Let’s talk about the story you did about the strength of Lutheranism in Decorah and winter she county up in northeast Iowa. Where did this story idea come from?

Burdzy: I was taking a class last semester, so fall of ‘25. It was called Writing for the Media. And, our big project in this class was to create a feature story, basically, just try to find something mostly college-related on campus. But, I thought — I was already a writer for my school newspaper at the time — so I thought taking it out into town would be more interesting. So, I had an idea. Because I’m a Catholic — I go to church every week — I thought, this town is very Lutheran. My school is called Luther College. What if I made something out of what is the relationship between the Lutherans and the Catholics?

And, at first, I did not know what to expect in terms of, is it good, is it bad? Is it straight? I was really happy with the result because it showed they’re actually very friendly with each other, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Muller: No, that’s just fine. What did you learn in this as you were doing your reporting?

Burdzy: I learned that, really, these theological differences don’t matter as much — when it comes to like, the community aspect — as some people would like to make it out to be. I found that — so, where I come from is, like, my suburb area of Chicago is very heavily Catholic, like, I went to Mass Catholic school all my life, so it’s insulated. Coming here was a bit of a culture shock to me, even. But in this small town, people work together more often, and that that means that people from different denominations and different congregations, churches, are working together more often. So, it doesn’t really matter as much whether you revere Mary (a reference to Jesus’ mother) or whatever else a difference that you have.

READ THE STORY: LUTHERAN-CATHOLIC COOPERATION RUNS STRONG IN LUTHERAN-DOMINANT DECORAH

Muller: You wrote a story about this for the Luther College paper. How did that go? How did that get — How were you able to pitch that story, I guess, and get it published?

Burdzy: Well, I wrote it first for the class, and then I had the intention, once it was turning out, and I was like, I like this product. I wanted to put it in with the issue, or our second newspaper issue of that semester for the end of the semester, when I pitched it, it was just like, Yeah, okay, you can do it and we’ll put it out. Just give us what you have, basically.

Muller: And then you reached out to us. A lot of times we’re reaching out to the students and saying, ‘Hey, here’s a good story.’ But you reached out to us. How’d you hear about us? And why did you want the Emerging Journalist Corps to know about your story?

Burdzy: I have a professor — I haven’t had her for a class, but she’s kind of an unofficial English advisor. Her name is Amy Weldon. Very great teacher, very accomplished. … she clearly knows what she’s talking about, and she kind of keeps her ear to the ground, and all these opportunities that pop up. And, I guess she was looking out for me because one day I got an email from her saying, “I just found this new opportunity from this new organization that’s called Iowa Emerging Journalist Corps.” So I said, “Well, let me check this out. That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

Literally a week before, my parents were saying — mainly, my dad was saying — “Oh, you should try to find something where you can write outside of this context.” And I agreed, because, like in this field, in order to get places you really have to have, like, a portfolio. And, I also just wanted the experience to write it for a broader audience, you know, because so far, my reporting has been limited to The Chips, the Luther College newspaper. So, I jumped at the opportunity … reached out when it came to pitching this specific story. I think, to be honest, it was just the best one I had in the fall. It was the most generalized. Most of my other stories are very college specific. So, I saw something with more potential to be able to write for my first statewide audience.

Muller: Had you worked at a high school newspaper before?

Burdzy: My high school was very small and kind of broke. … There was no newspaper, no journalism, anything related to that at all. I picked it up when I came to college and joined Chips almost immediately because I liked writing in general. Just — I didn’t know I liked journalism, yet.

Muller: Are you interested in journalism as a career?

Burdzy: Without a doubt?

Muller: Why?

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Burdzy: I came into college undecided (on a major) and I was kind of floundering. I was a little down because I generally didn’t know what I was going to do. And I feel like I was kind of wasting my time with the classes I was taking because I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do. But, I figured it out in my first semester when I joined Chips and I started writing,because I knew I was good at English in high school. You know, I liked writing, it came naturally to me, so I thought, “What if I just try to pursue this a little more?” So, I did end up pursuing it. I started writing pretty prolificly. At first, I was just a sportswriter but I started branching out to the other stuff. And it’s been great working with them and just starting to build up, you know, a body of work and get that experience. And I like talking to people. I like … chasing a story. I like interviewing, I like learning about new things and I like traveling. So, all those things really just combine, and I realized that journalism is probably the path for me.

Muller: What have you learned in the process of doing a story with the emerging writers’ core?

Burdzy: A lot of it came down to being able to generalize a story and make it appeal to a broader audience because, like I said, I only did stories in the context of my college before. … I had the draft of it before …

What I learned was how to generalize it so someone in another part of the state, specifically Iowa in this case, would want to read it. And also how to be more concise with my words, because I do like to write kind of flowery a lot of the time. So being able to cut down on stuff and shift from my, you know, like imagery-full essay style to a more concise, to the point, reporter style, has been helpful.

Muller: You also have had to do a little more work on this, some more to tell. Did that surprise you?

Burdzy: Yeah, it was a little bit like, I’m really getting, like, torn a new one on these edits. … It’s not that I was writing bad. I don’t think so. It just wasn’t in the right field in a lot of ways, and just some things needed to shift or, you know, stuff like that.

Muller: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. We are glad that you did this, Alex. I want to thank you for taking the time to working on this story, to do the work on this story. Well done.

Burdzy: Thank you.

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work.

Check out the latest from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative’s writers here.

By Alex Burdzy
Luther College Chips

This story originated from one published in Luther College’s student-run Luther College Chips newspaper. Read the original story here.

DECORAH, Iowa – Most of the counties nestled in hilly, picturesque northeast Iowa are strongly Catholic. In farming counties like Allamakee, Howard and Chickasaw, more people are Catholic than any other denomination, according 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data.

However, one county among them, Winneshiek, flips the statistical script with more Lutherans. Here, and particularly in the county seat and largest town, Decorah, Lutheran cultural heritage plays a large role in local life and affairs. The main reason is the town’s Norwegian heritage and the presence of Luther College, a four-year Lutheran liberal arts school on the town’s northwestern edge.

Decorah is a known tourism destination because of its natural beauty and Norwegian roots. It hosts an annual Nordic Fest and has hosted Norwegian royalty nine times since 1939; the most recent visit took place last year.

“Once you have this Norwegian Lutheran flag being put down at Luther College… that immediately created an attraction of immigrants from Norway, which was culturally Lutheran,” the Rev. Kristen Larsen-Schmidt, pastor at Decorah Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, said.

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Despite the strong Lutheran influence, Lutheran and Catholic churches in town work together on both doctrinal and cultural matters. Some of the local cooperation had roots in what the two denominations were doing worldwide. For example, in the 1960s, they agreed to recognize each other’s baptisms.

“That was really hugely significant,” said the Rev. Peter Kowitz, pastor of Decorah Lutheran Church. “I think for a lot of families that was significant because we started to have families where one member was from one denomination and another was from the other.”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Catholic Church dominate Winneshiek County’s church scene – according to the 2020 U.S. Census. The county’s 22 Lutheran churches, which include one Evangelical Lutheran Synod church, make up almost 40% of the population, while its six Catholic churches account for an additional 22.8%.

Other local Christian denominations, such as the United Methodist Church, Episcopalian Church, Presbyterian Church and United Church of Christ and others, make up the remaining minority.

Decorah’s Catholic community is served by one parish, St. Benedict’s, and its priest, the Rev. Donald Hertges. “Decorah has never been a strong Catholic town, so it does pose some challenges in that regard, but also some great opportunities,” Hertges said.

Hertges said a Catholic minority in the town serves as a personal net-positive. “It opens up the door for when to appreciate being Catholic better than if you’re in an area where even the cows are Catholic,” he said. “You can become more complacent when there’s so much Catholicism around you if it’s not challenged or questioned.”

Justin Johnson, principal of St. Benedict’s Catholic School, said Decorah is less prone to interdenominational bickering than most places because of its relatively small size. He said cooperation between Lutherans and Catholics grew last summer out of an Aug. 18 flood caused by lots of heavy rain and a burst pipe, and an Aug. 29 electrical fire – both of which severely impacted the St. Benedict’s school building.

“On the first day the teachers were back, we had a flood… Nine days later, we had an electrical fire that could have potentially put us down for weeks,” Johnson said. “Pastor Peter Kowitz at Decorah Lutheran reached out and said, ‘Hey, we have classrooms available, we have space, we have more than enough if you need to relocate for an extended period of time, please consider us, and we would love for you to call our church home for whatever period of time you need…’

“He was ready to be there as a brother.”

Larsen-Schmidt said Lutherans and Catholics have much in common. “In a lot of ways, given the rise of other kinds of Christianity in our country right now, we are more aligned liturgically and theologically than we are with a lot of other traditions,” she said.

Decorah’s Catholics and Lutherans, along with other churches such as the United Church of Christ and the Methodist Church, work together on a pressing matter: immigration. A local immigration action network, Path to Citizenship, brings in religious and lay people from several churches in several denominations to help immigrants settle in the area.

The action network handles “everything from legal services to helping take folks to their Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) check-ins to doing some advocacy on local and state legislation,” the Rev. Michael Wilker, head pastor at First Lutheran Church in Decorah, said. “That’s one of the ways that Catholics and Lutherans are working really hard together right now.”

Legal services are coordinated by the Archdiocese of Dubuque’s Catholic charities and held at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.

Last year, the archdiocese put out a statement affirming the universality of human dignity, upholding the rights of migrants and the displaced while calling for “providing legal aid, pastoral support, and material assistance where possible.”

The Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, a statewide group for immigration advocacy and services, works with the Catholic charities.

United Methodists have helped Iowa’s immigrants with legal affairs and other needs, like food, shelter and other supplies. Decorah’s branch of the United Church of Christ, meanwhile, hosted members of the Decorah Community for Immigrant Rights for a meeting in support of separation ordinances that restrict local law enforcement officials from asking people what their immigration status is and from cooperating with ICE agents.

Decorah’s Human Rights Commission is to host a June 16 public forum on a separation ordinance for the city that immigration supporters, including those from several area churches, are pushing.

Faith communities helping immigrants is nothing new. Local historian Elizabeth Lorentzen, of the Winneshiek County Historical Society, said St. Benedict’s and First Lutheran worked together in 1984 to help settle a Polish family in Decorah.

“The husband, Józef, had been incarcerated in Poland for being part of the Solidarity movement,” Lorentzen said.

The Solidarity movement, spearheaded by Lech Wałęsa and then-Pope John Paul II, sought to undermine the communist system imposed on Poland and emphasized religious rights as one of its core tenets.

Lorentzen said First Lutheran provided the family with housing and English instruction.

Johnson, the school principal, said, “The beautiful reality about Christianity is that we really are serving the same God.”

Alex Budzy, from Algonquin, Illinois, is entering his junior year at Luther College. He will be one of the two main editors at the Luther College Chips newspaper.

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work.

Hello,

Spring graduations have sent student journalists to summer internships and other endeavors, but we still have a few items to share with you because some student newsrooms continue to work year-round. Plus, we have an original story in the works from a student journalist at Luther College.

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Also, we were excited to see two Kirkwood Community College Communiqué reporters — Olivia Schanz and her editor, Mayah Anderson — published online May 16 and in the Monday, May 18, e-edition in The Gazette. The Gazette ran a version of their Communiqué story, “Rising gas prices pinch Iowa’s community college students,” after accepting a pitch from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps.

Special thanks to Mary Sharp — retired but still pursuing her passion by working part-time at The Gazette as a copy editor — for working with Olivia on that story.

BIG ASSIST FROM POYNTER INSTITUTE

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps is fortunate to have been granted free access to eight online Poynter Institute courses students and faculty working with us. Poynter is the nation’s prime training organization for working journalists. We are developing ways to make these courses available.

The courses are:

• Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More

• The Lead Lab

• Journalism Fundamentals: Craft & Values

• The Writer’s Workbench: 50 Tools You Can Use

• Clear, Strong Writing for Broadcast Journalism

• Ethics of Journalism

• Introduction to Reporting: Beat Basics

• Conducting Interviews That Matter

Special thanks must go to Neil Brown, Poynter Institute president, for granting access to the courses. Brown is a University of Iowa graduate who served as The Daily Iowan editor while at the university.

Let us know if you are a student journalist or Iowa faculty member working with the Emerging Journalist Corps and want to learn more about this terrific opportunity. We will share more about this with faculty advisers for Iowa’s college journalists when they meet in June.

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CAMPUS ROUNDUP

As the school year closes, here is a look at some of the best reporting coming out of Iowa’s emerging journalists:

This year’s college graduates are entering a difficult job market. “These challenges represent a sliver of the quickly evolving and increasingly complicated job market. The labor market appears stable on paper, but as hiring practices shift, the economy remains unstable and AI booms, getting a job as a new college graduate seems convoluted,” states a The Daily Iowan Ethics and Politics story by Anna Mitchell at University of Iowa.

COMPLICATED JOB MARKET POSES CHALLENGES FOR UPCOMING UI GRADUATES

Students at Simpson College were shocked to learn that the college is cutting spending so severely that the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams, along with the shooting team, have been eliminated effective immediately. Other cuts were made to the speech and debate program, although that program was spared, The Simpsonian reported in a story by editor-in-chief Savannah Richardson.

STUDENTS, STAFF AND ATHLETES LEFT REELING AS SIMPSON BUDGET CUTS ALTER AND ELIMINATE TEAMS, PROGRAMS AND CAMPUS OPERATIONS

Storm Lake is one of Iowa’s most diverse small cities with a large international population. The Bridge of Storm Lake and Endless Sea Café exist to help bridge cultural gaps, as detailed in this story by The Tack editor-in-chief Fernanda Japa and staff reporter Elisa Angeles Espinoza from Buena Vista University.

BREWING A LOCAL WORKFORCE

The Iowa State Daily features a series called “Humans of Iowa State,” which gives readers a chance to get to know students pursuing ambitious goals. At the close of the spring semester, the paper featured graduate student Alexis Newport, whose studies have focused on English as a second language. In addition to discussing her passion for language and linguistics, she spoke with ISD reporters Leylah Moreno and Colby Schwantes about being a queer student.

HUMANS OF IOWA STATE: ALEXIS NEWPORT

— Written and curated by Lyle Muller, Emerging Journalist Corps editor

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work. Read about us here. Read more from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative here.

Oliva Schanz drove from her Amana Colonies home to Kirkwood Community College this school year and felt the effects of rising gas prices.

That is a news story, the freshman/sophomore-to-be Kirkwood Community College Communiqué reporter thought so she asked others about it. “I have a long break between classes and have to go home sometimes, but I don’t want to spend the gas driving there multiple times a day,” Maddie Lee, an elementary education major at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, told Schanz.

The result is this story, “Rising gas prices pinch Iowa’s community college students,” for the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps. Shannz speaks about the story and her experience with the Emerging Journalist Corps in this podcast.

A special note: Thanks go out to Carol Hunter, a longtime Iowa journalist and former editor of The Des Moines Register, who worked with Schanz on the story and edited the piece. The Emerging Journalist Corps program matches student journalist with professionals for a training experience.

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Muller: My first question is, do you commute to school?

Schanz: Yes, I do. I live in the Amana Colonies so it’s a good, like, 30 minutes to Cedar Rapids, where go to school.

Muller: How did you get the idea for the story?

Schanz: Well, as a commuter student — you know, 30 minutes to school every day — it takes a lot of gas sometimes. So. I just saw how expensive my trips to the gas station were getting, and I was just: a lot of personal curiosity about wondering what other people felt about it. And so, I decided to just explore that a little bit.

Muller: and talk with other students as well.

Schanz: Yeah.

Muller: You know, an interesting thing about journalism is: ordinary people see something that’s interesting and they say, ‘Hey, that’s interesting.’ Journalists see something interesting and say, ‘That’s a story.’ So, you obviously went into that.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Did you work at your school paper?

Schanz: I did not have the opportunity to work at a school paper. I was home schooled all through high school. And, I did get the opportunity to write a lot more in college and that’s where I was encouraged to pursue it as a career. I’ve been joining the Kirkwood Communiqué ever since and I’m planning on returning again to take a more active role in that.

Muller: Did you enjoy your work at the Communiqué this past school year?

Schanz: Yes, I did. I really enjoyed it a lot. … Probably one of the best things about it is just talking with other people and kind of exploring that curiosity and just kind of getting other people’s opinions on things that are happening currently.

Muller: Why did you decide to get involved with the Communiqué in the first place?

Schanz: I’m interested in a career in journalism. I was also encouraged by an instructor of mine who saw that I was interested in going into journalism. She really wanted me to get involved on the Communiqué. And I think that it was a great idea, because I’m really enjoying, kind of, exploring that opportunity and exploring the idea of going into journalism in the future.

Muller: We approached you about this story and said, hey, make it a statewide story instead of a Kirkwood story. Walk us through the process of what you did to produce the story that we’ve published with the Emerging Journalist Corps.

Schanz: Yeah. So, I originally started by just getting some more interviews with college students across Iowa, I reached out to a lot to people that I knew who worked with youth groups or in high schools, and asked if anybody students that were going to community college. And I did get quite a few responses from that, and I got some great interviews. And after that, it was the process of editing the article, which was really great experience. I learned a lot from that, working with some people, trying to bring that story together. I also reached out to people at Kirkwood, some people in our Department of Institutional Effectiveness, to get statistics on information about Kirkwood students and about how they’re dealing with this financially.

Muller: One of the people with whom you worked was Maya Anderson, a sophomore at the Communiqué. She’s going to go to the University of Iowa next year, I understand.

Schanz: Yes.

Muller: How did she get involved?

Schanz: This was my second article that I had in the student newspaper, and I was unsure of how to go about interviewing students. And so, she really helped out on that front. She helped me develop questions and helped me go out and talk with other students and just showed me the ropes of how to do all of that.

Muller: And your editor for the emerging journalism. Core story was Carol Hunter. And Carol is the former editor of The Des Moines Register, so that’s a heavy hitter for you. How was the experience of working with Carol?

Schanz: I learned a lot, honestly. She really helped me, showing me what’s kind of expected, what would be expected of me in the field that I’m going into. She also helped me just figure out what was missing from my piece, what I needed more of, what I could have done better, but also what I did well, too. It was a very great learning experience. I really enjoyed it.

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Muller: Were you happy with the way the story turned out?

Schanz: Yes, I’m really proud of it. I honestly don’t know if it could even be better. I don’t think it could be. I think it was just a really great experience. I think it went beyond my own expectations.

Muller: What is the key thing you want people to learn from the story?

Schanz: I want people to come away with a better understanding of how people are affected by these things. I mean, we see a lot of news stories about gas prices and how they’re affecting people but we don’t really talk a lot about the community college students, which are people that often do commute. They’re often going to community colleges because it’s cheaper. And so, gas prices, the price of transportation rising, is going to be something that affects them a lot more. And so I just want people to come away with a better understanding of how people like those are better affected.

Muller: Very good. Well, it’s an excellent story, and we’re glad that you were willing to work with us. Do it again next year.

Schanz: All right.

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The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work. Read about us here. Read more from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative here.

By Olivia Schanz and Mayah Anderson, Kirkwood Community College Communiqué

This story builds on reporting originally published in the Kirkwood Community College Communiqué. The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA) published it on May 18, 2026.

Victoria Mondragõn shares a vehicle with her mom and brother, so getting to classes at Kirkwood Community College already was difficult. Then the Iran war spiked gas prices, and the family is scrambling to pay them.

She said of her brother, “Any money he makes, usually in cash, he sets aside for gas.”

Mondragõn, a STEM and IT major, expressed concern that she might not be able to attend some classes in the upcoming semester.

“I’m still going to go to Kirkwood,” she said. “I’d just have to figure out how to get around to buildings with walking instead of driving.”

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Community college students across Iowa, many of them living off campus and driving to school, have felt the financial stress of balancing commuting costs and college expenses.

Hope Hartson, an occupational therapy student at Indian Hills Community College College who lives about 35 minutes away from campus, said she spends nearly $100 a week to fill up her tank, a big difference from the estimated $40 a week she spent before the conflict. That’s made her more conscious of other expenses.

Maddie Lee, an elementary education major at Iowa Central Community College, has only a 15-minute commute, but higher gas prices have affected her class attendance.

“I have a long break between classes and have to go home sometimes, but I don’t want to spend the gas driving there multiple times a day,” she said.

Lee said she has cut back on shopping trips because she does not have as much to spend on the things she wants.

On Feb. 28, the U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack against Iran, which in turn closed the strait of Hormuz, causing oil prices to skyrocket. According to AAA, the price of regular gasoline in Iowa rose to an average of $3.95 per gallon in early May, compared to $2.96 a gallon in May of last year. Students at community colleges across Iowa are feeling the impact.

Data collected in the 2024-25 school year by Kirkwood’s Office of Institutional Research show that nearly a fourth of Kirkwood students were already considered economically disadvantaged before the conflict began.

Kirkwood art major Paige Hanghey can’t help but notice how these costs have affected her daily routine.

“I really procrastinate on getting gas now,” they said, “and I just keep hoping that it’ll go down a little bit, and then, my tank’s dead empty.”

Hanghey finds their social life impacted by gas prices as well.

“Mostly, I just hate going out now,” they said. “I have a lot of friends in Iowa City, and I don’t want to drive 30 minutes to go see them anymore. … It’s definitely confined me to staying home.”

Other Kirkwood students have made changes to their daily routines and cut back on certain expenses to compensate.

Though financial service major Jayson Huygens did not voice too much concern over gas prices, he has still opted to walk to class instead of driving and cut down on nonessential expenses.

“I used to pay $30 per tank, and now it’s $40, so $10 per tank,” he said. “It adds up fast.”

AT MINIMUM, IT IS IRRITATING

Students like mathematics major Bryce Engberg and engineering major Aras Basu do not feel as though gas prices have had a significant impact on their daily lives. But both expressed irritation about climbing prices.

“I have to do things I do anyway, so it’s just annoying,” Engberg said.

Basu is being more conscious about his gas usage.

“I’m kind of still doing what I’m doing, but trying to be a little more efficient about what I’m doing,” he said.

READ THE KIRKWOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE COMMUNIQUÉ HERE

Business major Chey Duncan describes themself as significantly impacted by rising gas costs, estimating they pay about $20 more to fill their tank since the start of the Iran conflict. Duncan has cut back on expenses like food and nonessential items.

“Personally, I’m someone who’s always going to make it work,” they said. So, no matter what, I’m going to be here. We pay to be here. It does put strain on everything else, though.”

For people like Kathryn Langenberg, a court reporting student from Des Moines Area Community College, virtual schooling is more cost-effective than commuting. Although she was a virtual student at DMACC before gas prices began to rise, she has become more intentional about her driving habits and is more aware of how they affect her.

“Paying for gas has not impacted my spending on social activities or my lifestyle, but it has made me more aware of how I choose to spend my money,” Langenberg said. “I am someone that is intentional with how I spend my money, and it does feel frustrating to know that I was spending less on gas even just a month ago.”

Another DMACC student, business major Zoe Morey-Geissinger, tries to avoid long-distance driving.

She called the current gas price manageable, but “if it continues to increase, I will have to make big lifestyle changes,” she said, such as coordinating gas station trips to when she gets her paycheck.

Charlie Gingerich, sonography major at Muscatine Community College, plans her trips to drive as little as possible. She lives at home and receives support from her parents for necessities like groceries and self-care items.

“It does concern me that there are students out there that don’t have parents who can assist them,” she said. “For me, commuting to community college was the cheapest option, and I would say most people feel the same. However, I feel like if gas prices were to keep rising, it would be increasingly hard for commuting students to afford going to school.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was corrected on May 12, 2026, to reflect that Charlie Gingerich is a woman.

Olivia Schanz is a Kirkwood Community College freshman from the Amana Colonies. Mayah Anderson, from Hiawatha, is a Kirkwood sophomore who is transferring to the University of Iowa.

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work. Read about us here. Read more from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative here.

By Lyle Muller

Listen to the podcast:
Buena Vista University student journalist and longtime Iowa journalist Lyle Muller

The time will come, Fernanda Japa says, when she will take a run at law school because she wants to make a difference in people’s lives.

“I want to be able to help someone say what they want to say,” the Storm Lake native wrapping up her sophomore year at hometown Buena Vista University said in an interview. “Even if I don’t agree with someone’s opinion. I’m not gonna’ want to say, ‘hey, you can’t say that,’” Japa said.

“You should be loud and wrong if you want to.”

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Japa, editor of the BVU student newspaper, The Tack, made the comments in an interview I did with her at Buena Vista after he became the first Iowa college student journalist to have her work published by the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalists Corps. Japa’s piece dove into the risks college journalists take to be truth-tellers in this modern era. A key point she made was:

“If reporting the truth can land a professional journalist in handcuffs, a lawsuit or a hospital, what message does that send to the young reporters still finding their voices? Student journalists, who operate with far fewer resources and protections, are watching. The effect is: You risk being harmed if you want to publish unfavorable information.”

We started with that topic, with her referring to controversy at Indiana University, which fired its director of student media and Indiana Daily Student adviser last fall when the director, Jim Rodenbush, disagreed with university leaders over what should be in the Daily Student’s print edition.

She included the pressure student newspapers have from universities about reporting on diversity, equity and inclusion. The universities get the pressure from state legislatures, like Iowa’s, to kill these programs, which, in turn, leads to killing areas of academic focus. Those threats almost reached private colleges this year before a legislative effort to withhold state student funding for colleges with diversity, equity and inclusion programs failed to advance.

Japa: A lot of the retaliation does follow either pulling funding from the publication itself, or a lot of attack online, or in terms of money, pulling funding from the university itself, for even having DEI offices, or anything that’s similar to that. Or, just in other ways as well. Online hate and harassing the student journalists, as well, is something that I’ve seen. I go on Reddit sometimes to see what college student journalists are doing, and a lot of them just get hate. And, it brings down their mental health because they’re already going to school, and on top of that, they’re reporting on such heavy topics. So, getting messages, with complete strangers on social media, is just even more demoralizing. And knowing that you are a little flower in a big field weeds, it’s really hard.

Muller: But you think that at Buena Vista University, you have it a little bit easier than other campuses?

Japa: Oh, yeah. Our president, Brian Lenzmeier, from what I know and what he’s told Andrea (a reference to Andrea Frantz, professor of digital media) and what Andrea has reiterated to me and us is that we have a very forward-thinking president. …

Muller: What makes you want to do this?

Japa: You mean, like, as a journalist?

Muller: Yeah.

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Japa: So, in my culture back in Mexico — I’m not from Mexico, technically, but I’m a Mexican by ethnicity — my mom and my grandma, especially, she grew up during the era of the Olympic attacks in 1968, where the Mexican government actively took over public media and silenced what occurred in the this square in the capital of Mexico. (A reference to the Tlatelolco massacre a few weeks before the Olympics opened in Mexico City.)

I can show you the link to it so you know that: the military came in and massacred a bunch of emerging master students at UNAM university because they were rioting — not rioting — protesting against the injustices, the lack of the fact that the Mexican government was putting so much money towards the Olympics instead of putting money back towards this community and towards its country and the unfair practices going on in labor unions. And, with that, it kind of inspired me to speak up more with my voice. And, even though my mom does pressure me, she’s like, ‘Brianna, please don’t be saying that stuff online, because you never know, like, what they’re gonna do to you. We don’t know how this government works. I don’t want anything bad happened to you.’

But now I live in a country that, despite what president is in office, I am protected by the First Amendment and by previous precedents of other people speaking up and taking that risk for me so I can do what I want to do. I just am so fortunate to be a bilingual person as well, saying that I can have a voice in Spanish and also in English. I don’t want to take that for granted by not speaking up about an issue that I know my mom might be having, and me being a U.S. citizen, bilingual and being a college student as well, I have that privilege. And, I think I should be taking much of that privilege to speak up for those who do not have it.

I think it also affects my mom.

Muller: Are you a dreamer? (note: she had just said she is a U.S. citizen, so ‘no.’)

Japa: No, I was born here but I do know other dreamers, and knowing that they are also, like, freaking out about what’s been going on, I know that I want solid ground. I’m chilling. I am relaxed, but they’re not. And if they aren’t willing to speak out, I want to be that voice for them because I can fight it in court. I can get, I have, I can contact people to help me fight back if someone tries to a little like suppress me or something like that.

I have always just been someone that: I don’t like when someone gets picked on, because it’s easy. I love fighting back. My mom says I’m very argumentative, especially because I do want to be a lawyer, so it kind of explains why. But I just come from my previous, my coming up, my childhood. I always hated the fact that I never always had a voice, and so I want to be the voice for people that need a voice. And I think that’s where a lot of my passion comes from. My advocacy. My passion for advocacy comes from the fact that, growing up, I lacked a voice because I was shy because of the fact that our legal system seems to not put a true focus on children’s thoughts, even though children are incredibly smart. …

That is mostly where my advocacy stems from, and growing up in a community, and that it has a history of suppression via the media, and that it still continues, as it still does have a history and a pattern with suppression of, like, expression using media. Since Mexico has always been dealing with the issue, and they still do, if you look online you can definitely find a bunch of art covering and mocking the government for what they did. And, that there’s, like, a quote in Spanish that’s like, the paid press is a dumb press. It was really funny. I mean, it’s funny in context. But I think, coming from a history, or the background that has always been a fight — there’s always been a fight in the background — that I want to be a fighter that I know my ancestors that have lived it were.

Muller: And, just to clarify and to prove that sometimes there are stupid questions in journalism, I did hear you say you were born here. Of course, you’re not a dreamer. I apologize.

Japa: No worries.

Muller: Earlier you mentioned, no matter which president is in power, you earlioer talked about your university president, you talked about what was going on in Mexico, and you talked about United States. Are you talking about the U.S. President? No matter which U.S. president? You’re not the college president.

Japa: Yes, no matter which U.S. president. Or, college president. I was referencing which U.S. president but, literally, any authority figure in power. If there is no true legal thing saying that I cannot speak on it, then I will speak on it. But if it’s not covered in any statues, any amendments, and I can’t say anything about it, I’m not gonna let some guy in office, whether it’s the university office or the Oval Office, tell me what to do.

Muller: How important do you think the student press is at the college level?

Japa: I think it’s so important. That’s where a lot of people start, and it’s where you kind of get your footing. Because, as a professional, you’re basically on your own, in a way. But, as a student journalist, you have other student journalists alongside you who do want the same and want to have the same angle as you or are as passionate about something as you are.

And with student journalism, you kind of get the more current perspective with: students are online or offline, depending on how you see it or how some people see it. I know some people don’t have TikTok or social media, but students offer a new perspective because they’re living it. They’re the ones almost always being directly affected by what’s going on, or they’ll have to deal with consequences later on. So, I do hold a true love for student journalism.

It’s even younger than, like, college. I think high school press is also very important. I know that Storm Lake High School is trying to start one, but with consistencies, it’s been hard. I think supporting student journalists and telling them, hey, yeah, we do need watchdogs for the government, because without these watchdogs, we don’t know what’s gonna happen.

… I don’t know how to say this, but whenever like you see, like, Beware the Dog sign, you kind of are more courteous, more respectful of how you approach a house. Without the beware the watchdogs, Beware the Dog sign, you’re kind of more relaxed approaching. I think just journalists are the Beware the Dog sign.

I think student journalists are just, they just need to be reminded of that they are important. And, they do need to feel like they have a place here, because, in reality, a journalist can be someone that can publish, that it has a camera or has an ability to put up graphics, something like that. But, I just, I don’t know how to express my love for journalism.

Muller: Has the ability to tell people something, right?

Japa: Everyone has their own perspective and things. I think students often have a current perspective. I do think that older generations, or more professional journalists, they do have more of a … more generalized perspective, since they do have to their audience is a general audience, in a way.

But with student journalists, you’re often trying to communicate to a younger demographic, someone that maybe knows nothing about what’s going on. And, they need a quick refresher and they need a quick summary of what’s been going on.

And so, I think student journalists are that bridge between the quote-unquote, real world and the student world, because students are often focused on college, their athletics or friends or social life. It’s the stage when we’re trying to discover who we are, and student journalists act as that little bridge, that rope bridge that’s fully being frayed because of what’s been going on with this whole administration. (She is referring to Donald Trump)

Muller: You just made an important point, and that’s what’s behind the Emerging Jurnalist Corps, and that is, is that: we’re missing your voice if we don’t listen to it and if we don’t give you an opportunity to tell your stories. What year are you going to be coming into in the fall at Buena Vista University, and what’s next for you?

Japa: I’m going to be a junior this fall of 2026. And for me, I do hope to go to law school after this. I do want to go into … I don’t know which law school yet. I think I have an idea. I want to say in the Midwest, since I think the Midwest is one of the more underserved areas, especially when it comes to the press. And I think the largest Midwest press is the Chicago Tribune, I think it’s one, and the other one would be the Minnesota one, but they’re really small compared to, like, the east coast or west coast.

And, I hope to go into advocacy so I would love to work with the ACLU in a way. Since anytime I get a Freedom Forum email, I always see like a lawsuit that’s been going on, I wanna’, I want to be able to help someone say what they want to say. Even if I don’t agree with someone’s opinion. I’m not gonna want to say, ‘Hey, you can’t say that, because I like the belief that you you can.’ You should be loud and wrong if you want to.

Is it dangerous? Maybe, probably. But I don’t want to hold anyone to a double standard.

Muller: How does journalism help you do that?

Japa: Storytelling. One of the things I noticed with politics is that everything comes from story or someone’s story. There’s a reason why we have, like, the Amber Alerts, because there’s a child who had to fall victim … Everything is rooted in the story. Policies are written in stories, statutes are written in stories and journalism, as well, is written a story. It has to be covered because something is going on and that everyone needs to know. Everyone should know.

I think, also the writing portion has helped me a lot with it, so I’m able to look at more of a balanced perspective. I don’t want to say fair, because I know what my law professor would be very upset if I use the word fair, but … I like looking at it more as a balanced perspective.

Muller: Don’t forget fact finding.

Japa: And fact finding. Oh, fact finding. I love research, especially with the law side. Being a pre-law student or a legal study student, I’ve been able to find more unique ways of how to research. I know a lot of people don’t really, necessarily know of a lot of the documents that they may not think are public records — they’re public records, and you have the ability to go out and ask for them. You can file a form most of the time.

And I think that that, as well, has allowed me to be more passionate with my writing. … The law and journalism are definitely two different things. With law, it’s because this-then-this where, in journalism, you kind of need to keep communicating. You need to keep the reader ingrained or immersed in it because, unfortunately, not everyone is going to be unified by an issue. So, you need to either give them a reason to be interested in this topic or at least have them, in a way, understand or sympathize or empathize with the topic going on.

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work.

“In my generation, I see a lot of my friends go from coffee to energy drinks a lot lately,” the UNI first-year student from Urbandale with sophomore standing, said in this podcast.

“If one friend has a drink, another friend’s, like, ‘me too,’ especially as we’re getting close to the end of the semester and it’s finals week. People are getting that extra boost to stay up late and study, or they’re just really stressed and they want to have more focus.”

She wrote in the story:

Catered to the younger generation with bright colors and celebrity promotions, energy drink sales are surging. Even with unpleasant side effects — ranging from sleeplessness, anxiety spikes, heart problems and dehydration — demand continues to grow.

Dykstra talks in this short video podcast about her motivation for doing the story and what she learned.

Go here to see the original story in The Northern Iowan.

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience and a public platform for their work.

Lyle Muller is member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Check out some of the collaborative’s most recent reporting in this week’s summary.

This story is derived from an article originally published in The Northern Iowan.

By Avery Dykstra, The Northern Iowan

Convenience stores offer them. Vending machines placed in multiple college campus buildings display their bright cans. Grocery stores sell affordable variety packs. For many college students rushing between classes, energy drink consumption has become normalized as part of their daily routine.

Catered to the younger generation with bright colors and celebrity promotions, energy drink sales are surging. Even with unpleasant side effects — ranging from sleeplessness, anxiety spikes, heart problems and dehydration — demand continues to grow.

Kaitlyn Sellner, finishing her junior year at the University of Northern Iowa and a member of UNI’s volleyball team, said energy drinks have easily become part of her daily routine. “Depending on the drink, sometimes I’ll have two,” she said. “They definitely help during practice, and I can totally feel whether I’ve had them or not.”

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Students on Iowa’s other college campuses are finding a handy assist from caffeine. At Iowa State University, the Iowa State Daily reported that retail locations sold 2,613 cans of Celsius during prep week in fall 2024. The usual rate that fall for the brand, ISU’s No. 1 choice, was 1,577 cans, the ISD reported.

University of Iowa officials say energy drink consumption is up at its Iowa City campus, too.

The main reasons students use these drinks are led by the need for a boost in energy, especially after insufficient sleep, a study published in Nutrition Journal showed. Other reasons include studying demands or a project due, driving long distances and mixing them with alcohol when partying.

A small percentage use them to treat a hangover, although medical experts say that is not effective other than providing a temporary boost of energy. Medical researchers also point out that caffeine masks alcohol’s depressant effects and that the two should not be mixed.

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RELATED: ARE ENERGY DRINKS FUELING COLLEGE STUDENTS, OR DRAINING THEM?

The current surge of interest in energy drinks is nearly 30 years old. Researchers from four university-based laboratories wrote in a 2007 study — the one published in Nutrition Journal — that the attraction to new ways to consume caffeine had been growing since 1997, when Red Bull hit the market.

“Findings from our study support the premise that college students use energy drinks to treat sleep deprivation and while studying for exams or completing major course projects,” the researchers wrote. “On the other hand, caffeine consumption has not been found to affect academic performance among college students.”

Avery Dykstra talks with Lyle Muller about her story.

UNI campus dining data show that thousands of energy drinks were sold last year across campus, generating thousands of dollars in revenue.

In spring 2024, UNI’s health survey reported that 20.7% of students drank five or more energy drinks or shots in the past 30 days. Two years later, the same survey question showed an increase of 16%, the data show.

READ THE NORTHERN IOWA HERE

Health experts say awareness is key to understanding how these habits affect both short- and long-term health.

“College students in general, they have this idea most of the time that they need caffeine to keep going,” UNI health promotion coordinator Megan Cahalan said. “It’s very normalized.”

Austin Lott, another health promotion coordinator at UNI, said high use of energy drinks can cause individual well-being to decline. “A lot of people are using energy drinks to maybe stay up late and study homework, all the things that students have to deal with,” he said. “Sleep is one of the big ones. Anxiety is tied to that as well.”

More noticeable effects include irregular heartbeats and, more commonly, dehydration.

Attempting to break the addictive cycle is difficult. Tessa Navrkal, a UNI freshman, said she tried to quit drinking Monster every day, but doing so was too hard. “I tried one time because I thought I was getting sick off of them, but then I decided I can’t live without them,” she said.

Without intervention, quitting may no longer feel like an option. Sellner, the volleyball player, said, “Once you start it, having caffeine as a daily part of your routine, you just can’t stop.”

Avery Dykstra is a University of Northern Iowa sophomore from Urbandale, Iowa.

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience and a public platform for their work.

The attention was necessary so you could understand what these temporary Iowans were dealing with because of the war. The people who started the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalists Corps — myself included, and especially Akira Keene Teotrakool, a second-year student from Bangkok at Grinnell — made reading the story statewide possible.

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It started as a story simply for the Grinnell campus in the student newspaper, The Scarlet & Black, where I am the professional adviser. From there, Akira, who uses “they” and “them” pronouns, worked with me to bring the story to a level of statewide interest. It worked out well.

“It is rare to have someone go to bat for your work the way you have for this piece, especially as a student journalist,” Akira wrote after the story was republished. “I came into this not entirely sure what to expect from the Emerging Journalists Corps, and what I have found is a collaborator who actually cares about the work reaching people.”

Fun fact: I bet you did not know a college student in Iowa could be operations manager for the Bangkok Youth Opera. Akira is.

This is a good example of what we can accomplish with the Emerging Journalists Corps. Kathie Obradovich, the Iowa Capital Dispatch’s editor, is part of a team trying to make this effort work, and we send our thanks to her. More stories you would not know about Iowans without student journalists are in the queue.

We are working with Olivia Schanz of Kirkwood Community College’s Communiqué on a story that has not been reported anywhere but in the college paper — one we think will interest you. Watch for it.

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A few notes about the Emerging Journalists Corps: We are not sure what will happen in the summer because almost all of the college papers take a break, but we will try to keep you informed. We probably will use that time to refine this experiment, which you are privy to, for a full-scale launch.

Also, some of you have asked about donating toward this effort. We are working out the best way to collect your donations. All of those donations will be used to pay stipends to the student journalists. Give us a few weeks to figure that out. We will give you ample opportunity to support these gifted young k

Thanks for reading Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps. This post is public so please share it and help us build an audience.

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AMES SISTER RELATIONSHIP WITH KOSOVO CITY

The city of Ames is in the early stages of building a sister-city partnership with Podujeva, the Iowa State Daily’s Mallory Prescott reported. Plans call for mutual projects, including educational exchanges.

Ames launches new sister-city partnership with Podujeva, Kosovo

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR, GRINNELL COLLEGE GRAD, DEAD AT 90

Sam Harris escaped a Holocaust concentration camp but could not hang on long enough to receive an honorary degree at the 2026 Grinnell College commencement. The 1958 Grinnell graduate died in Naples after a notable career that included founding and serving as president of a Holocaust museum in Illinois. Reporter Sam Schmidt wrote the story for The Scarlet & Black.

Legacy of Holocaust survivor and education advocate Sam Harris ’58

NEW COLLEGIATE NATIONAL CHAMPION FROM IOWA

Athletics teams get a lot of attention when they succeed — unless, perhaps, the team in question is a cheer team. Here is big news about the new national champion Morningside University cheer team. Making this story more interesting is the

jump Morningside’s team made to a new competition level. Jesus Flores wrote the story for the college’s The Collegian Reporter.

From Risk To Reward: Mustangs Crowned National Champions In Historic NCA Debut

END-OF-YEAR BURNOUT MAKES REACHING THE FINISH LINE DIFFICULT

Think of college burnout this way: You were given five assignments at work and told they all are due the same week. That is what college students are facing this time of year. St. Ambrose University’s Madison Thompson wrote a story for The Hive.

Spring Burnout Rises Among SAU Students as Finals Near

BLAME IT ON “HOSTILE CULTURE”

Payton Young, of Buena Vista University’s The Tack, expands on the idea of student burnout in an essay in which he argues that spending extraordinary hours to finish a school year results in something called “hostile culture.”

Burnout by design: The hidden cost of college hustle culture

Thanks for reading Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support the work of young journalists.

— Curated by Lyle Muller, Emerging Journalists Corps Editor

Greetings.

This is the launch of a look at some of the top news stories reported from college campuses in Iowa. It is part of the Emerging Journalists Corps program the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative has launched to expose readers to news stories they might not otherwise see because it comes from college journalists.

These young journalists have a lot to tell us and Iowa is fortunate to have them. Because of that, we periodically will provide links to reporting done by these young journalists for their local news sites.

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This week, we published our first news story from one of the students. You may read here our goals and mission for doing this.

Fighting in the Middle East forced the cancellation of a March overseas study trip to Bahrain by Grinnell College students, one of several disruptions to student life at Iowa’s most diverse private college.

Akira Keene Teotrakool, of The Scarlet & Black, reports:

Iran war has wide impact on one Iowa college’s heavily-international student body

SPRING IN DRAG

Spring brings out a tradition at a few Iowa college campuses — the annual drag show. These student-run events are, to say the least, colorful.

And controversial, for some.

Some of the fun has been reported by Simpson College’s The Simpsonian and Grinnell College’s The Scarlet & Black. University of Iowa students hosted a show in December, which The Daily Iowan reported on, and another in March. A show is scheduled for April 25 at Iowa State University, the Iowa State Daily reported. Several of these shows raise money for charitable and social causes.

Central College students’ show, however, caught the ire of Iowa flame-throwing conservative talker Steve Deace and the conservative news website The Iowa Standard. Their grip was over the organizing group, Common Ground GSA, saying the event was for all ages but would include alcohol sales. Deace did a monologue but The Iowa Standard — like Deace, not a student news media outlet — did some reporting and quoted a Central official as saying the promotion was changed because of concerns.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month so the Iowa State Daily provided valuable information for its readers.

Iowa State resources for sexual assault survivors

DANCE MARATHON IN DAVENPORT

More than one college campus hosts a dance marathon to support the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. St. Ambrose University is hosting the dance on Saturday, April 18. St. Ambrose Dance Marathon President Abbie Hendrick spoke with SAUtv reporter Jess Vargas in this report.

Dance Marathon 14 with Addie Hendrick

AUTHOR’S ADVICE: TRUST YOUR IDEAS

Noted author Angeline Boulley, who wrote “Firekeeper’s Daughter,” spoke in a public lecture April 13 at Buena Vista University about her debut novel and the role culture plays in her writing and told students to trust their ideas, BVU’s The Tack’s editor-in-chief Fernanda Japa reported.

Award-winning author Angeline Boulley speaks at BVU

BUSINESS NEWS: NEW SHOPPING AREA FOR WATERLOO

The old College Square Shopping Mall area in Waterloo is to become a shopping center if the property’s new owners’ wishes come true. The Northern Iowan’s Jenna Westendorf filed a report.

A new era for the longstanding College Square Mall

FACULTY SALARY CONCERNS

Dordt University is examining faculty salaries because professors there say the pay is not keeping up with rising costs. Luccie Emming had that lead story in the most recent edition of The Diamond.

Changing economies, rising prices: the discussion on professor compensation at Dordt

CHUCK GRASSLEY ON SEVERAL TOPICS

Finally, The Daily Iowan Ethics & Politics team’s annual visit to Washington, D.C., has yielded an interview with U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, on a wide range of topics that include the SAVE Act, voter identification, rising farming costs and whether he will seek another term.

Q&A | U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley talks farm bankruptcies, DHS funding

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…Curated by Lyle Muller, Iowa Writers’ Consortium Emerging Journalists Corps editor

This story originated from one published in Grinnell College’s student-run The Scarlet & Black newspaper. Read the original story here.

Fighting in the Middle East forced the cancellation of a March overseas study trip to Bahrain by Grinnell College students, one of several disruptions to student life at Iowa’s most diverse private college.

For example, Daanyal Ahmed, from Qatar, has been calling home to his father, a member of the Qatari Air Force, and gets daily updates on his phone about the warnings and alerts the Qatar government is sending its residents.

“This has never happened to me before,” Ahmed, set to graduate this year, said.

Faculty have been affected, too. Shuchi Kapila, professor and the college’s chair of English, had planned to join the Bahrain trip as an additional chaperone and to teach a unit on Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novel “By the Sea.”

She flew through Doha, Qatar, to India on Feb. 27, the day before the attack on Iran. The airspace closed the following morning shortly after her flight departed. “I narrowly missed being stranded in Doha,” she wrote in an email to The Scarlet & Black (The S&B) student-run newspaper. “Hoping and praying for peace to prevail.”

Grinnell College officials say around 18% — almost one of every five — of its students are from more than 50 countries. Several are from countries affected by the war that began when the United States and Israel bombed a compound in Tehran, Iran, on Feb. 28. The country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, was killed, along with several senior military officials, during the airstrikes that unfolded.

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That same day, an Iranian missile struck the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. By the morning of March 2, the U.S. Embassy in that island country had closed.

That was five days before John Thabiti Willis, Grinnell College’s Kesho Scott Chair of African Diaspora Studies, was scheduled to travel to Bahrain on March 7 with 15 students in his special topics course on African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean.

Willis checked his phone at 5 a.m. on Feb. 28 and learned that Iran had launched a wave of strikes across several Persian Gulf countries, hitting U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE.

At 6:45 a.m., Alicia Stanley, senior director of student mobility and global safety at the college’s Institute for Global Engagement, told Willis she had received a State Department alert and was convening an emergency meeting of Grinnell’s Global Health and Safety Committee. By 9 a.m., the trip was canceled.

“The committee decided to cancel that travel given the announcement that the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain was closing and missile strikes in Bahrain had been reported,” Stanley wrote in an email to The S&B.

Shortly after, Bahrain’s Civil Aviation Affairs closed the country’s airspace and suspended flights. The college’s international insurance partner, GeoBlue/BCBS, issued a blanket advisory against travel to the Middle East until conditions stabilize.

“You could see pretty clearly it was going to get canceled,” said Parikshit Roychowdhury, who is to graduate this year and was one of the 15 students scheduled to go on the Bahrain trip. “We wanted to be culturally decently trained folks, and not people who were more of a burden to society by being uneducated tourists in that space.”

The trip had been central to the course Willis teaches. Willis, who has been traveling to Bahrain since 2012 and first took Carleton College students in 2022, had set aside 10 to 20 minutes every class session for travel preparation, covering Ramadan protocols, adjusted daily schedules, and appropriate clothing and conduct.

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Reporter Akira Teotrakool explains more about this story.

Willis has been unable to reach his partners on the ground in Bahrain since the cancellation. Persian Gulf governments have imposed a near-total information blackout, and sharing details about strike locations or damage can constitute a criminal offense.

The silence has compounded his concern about safety. Willis said many of his contacts in Bahrain are people he has known for over a decade, relationships that have moved well beyond professional ones.

“Most of my degree has been dedicated to studying Africa and the Middle East,” Ronald Taylor, a senior who has completed nearly all requirements for an Africa, Middle East and South Asia concentration, said, “I actually wanted to visit the Middle East just to research it and understand it more.”

Taylor blamed the United States for escalation in the Gulf region. “The United States struck a foreign nation, and the foreign nation responded through retaliation,” he said. “Everything is our fault, and it’s our fault that our military bases got bombed.”

Instability has been growing in Bahrain since the war. Protests against Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa have been held in the country and the Associated Press reports that the county is cracking down on demonstrators and arresting people on suspicion of being spies for taking video of air strikes.

Opponents of the Bahrain government accuse authorities of using the same tactics used to suppress the 2011 Arab Spring protests, the AP and other news outlets report.

READ THE SCARLET & BLACK HERE

CONCERN FOR FAMILY BACK HOME

On March 18, Iranian missiles struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas export facility, causing fires and significant damage. Ahmed, whose father is in the Qatari Air Force, said his father has stopped going to his regular job.

Ahmed has been calling home daily rather than weekly. He said his father will not share details of what is happening over the phone out of fear of surveillance.

Meantime, Ahmed’s Qatari SIM card remains active and delivers daily Ministry of Interior alerts instructing residents to stay indoors and avoid spreading information. His parents received these emergency broadcast alerts for the first time.

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TRIP CANCELLATION PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE

A class after the Bahrain trip cancellation was devoted largely to processing the war’s escalation. “I didn’t want us to come away with incomplete information about the gravity of what’s happening on the ground,” Willis said. By the next class, students had returned to assigned readings.

Jane Mozunder, a sophomore who was to have gone on the trip, said her feelings about the ordeal were complicated. “There’s sadness, but also this uncomfortable indifference that I keep circling back to,” she wrote in an email to The S&B. “Because the truth is, I had the privilege of simply not going. The people in Bahrain don’t have that option.

“My biggest problem was figuring out what to do with my free time. That contrast is hard to reconcile, and I don’t think I should reconcile it too quickly.”

Shahrom Sayfullobekov, a sophomore in the class, said the cancellation affected him on more than one level. Born in Tajikistan and raised in New Jersey, he shares a language, culture and religion with Iran, and had been drawn to Bahrain for its Shia Muslim majority and proximity to that world.

“I was really excited to see that kind of admixture of Indian, African and Middle Eastern people colliding and mixing cultures,” he said. He had been watching warship buildups in the region for weeks before the war started.

“I think a lot of people weren’t surprised, actually,” he said of the cancellation. His concern was less focused on the lost experience and rather on those affected by the conflict, he said. That included the loss of approximately 180 lives in a strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, on Feb. 28.

“I was really sad to see people dying on both sides,” he said.

Willis said he is exploring a potential alternative trip to Zanzibar next year. For this semester, no substitute travel is planned.

“There are just bigger forces at play than we have the capacity to simply plan around,” Willis said.

Akira Keene Teotrakool is a second-year Grinnell College student from Bangkok, Thailand; arts and culture editor at The Scarlet & Black; and manager of the Bangkok Youth Opera.

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The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalist Corps showcases the work of student journalists selected to participate in the reporting project. The program gives aspiring reporters something increasingly difficult to find in today’s media environment: hands-on mentorship, real-world reporting experience, and a public platform for their work.

By Akira Keene Teotrakool, The Scarlet & Black

These past two years I sang opera in a rustic barn two miles from campus, debated a real estate developer in a hostel in Austria and gave career advice to a thirty-year-old Israeli elementary school biology teacher who was thinking about transitioning to event planning.

My externship somehow landed me at a PhD admitted students day for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, which was not where I expected to be on a Wednesday in March. Last summer I got broken up with at a Waffle House in Atlanta and the waitress asked if we were siblings — the most American thing that has happened to me since I moved here. Most recently, a Colombian man I met in D.C. tried to convince me, with great sincerity, to invest in DOGE coin.

I also run an opera company in Bangkok.

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My mom thinks I do too much of meandering. She says I take too many breaks, stop to look at flowers when I should be somewhere and that I always do things that are light in content but rich in meaning. She means this as a criticism. I am working on ways to properly disagree with her.

What I do, I think, is sidequest.

The term comes from video games, where side quests are the optional missions beside the main story. The game keeps moving without them. But they are where you find the weird NPCs, the secret lore, the landscapes that have no plot reason to be beautiful. They’re where the world gets texture.

I want to tell you about my visiting psychoanalyst professor who taught Swiss culture and politics. She studied under Slavoj Žižek. On a class day trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, she led us through yoga on the pebbles of a gas station parking lot during the bathroom break. Warrior pose, next to a pump advertising unleaded. I think about it all the time.

It lives in me now as proof that the world is stranger and more generous than it looks when you’re walking somewhere with intention.

The biggest part of sidequesting, I think, is asking the question you actually want to ask. Not the polite version of it. The real one. The one you’ve been sitting on for twenty minutes because you’re worried it’s too weird or too small or too honest. Ask it anyway.

I have learned more from questions like “wait, why does that actually work that way” and “can I ask you something kind of personal” and “okay, but what do you actually think” than from most things I have read. People will answer you if you ask them things directly and mean it. This is underused information.

The reason most people stop doing this, I think, is that free time has quietly become something to be embarrassed about. We have been so thoroughly trained to treat unstructured hours as a problem to solve that an afternoon with no particular output starts to feel less like rest and more like a character flaw, something to account for when someone asks how your week was. But busyness is not the same thing as a life, and a calendar full of commitments is not the same thing as a year you will actually remember.

VIEW THE ORIGINAL STORY

There is a short-form Instagram based reality series called “Errands,” based in New York City, where people do small specific tasks and explain why it was an errand. For example, one man returned a Harvard ID he found because he googled the previous owner, discovered they had called Trump an orangutan in 2016 and decided that was a person worth meeting. The show treats all of this with complete seriousness, which is the point. The question “why is it an errand” is really asking — why does this small thing matter enough to follow through on? And the answer is always just because I had the impulse and decided to honor it.

That sincerity — of taking a whimsical thought seriously enough to actually do it — is what I’m talking about. The difference is that in “Errands,” the impulse arrives and people decide to follow it. What I’m saying is you can start there. You can make the whimsy the whole point from the beginning.

Say the thing you actually think. Ask the thing you actually want to know. You don’t have to perform disinterest or play it cool or pretend you weren’t curious. Curiosity is not embarrassing. It is how you end up with a life worth sharing.

Sidequesting is simple. Let a song you heard in someone else’s headphones stay with you. See a recipe on your phone and make it that night. Buy the strange fruit at the international grocery store. Walk somewhere you’ve always meant to walk.

None of this makes you more competitive or more lovable. What it does is make your life feel a little more like yours, which, when you think about it, is the whole point.

My roommate asks what I do to get into these situations. Honestly, nothing complicated. I say yes to things that seem interesting. I ask the embarrassing question. I let myself be moved by the oddly specific.

That’s all I’m recommending. Give yourself the permission to take the side quest. Look at the flowers. See what you find.

I dedicate this op-ed to my Grinnell friends, VO, CK, LNV, NN, ZYK, GB, BG, JK, RP, DG, JP, RS, BK and the quad.

THE SCARLET & BLACK

Akira Keene Teotrakool is a critical social sidequester and the arts and culture editor for Grinnell College’s Scarlet & Black.

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By Fernanda Japa, The Tack

Iowa should be proud. After all, this is the state that gave the nation Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court ruling that affirmed students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

But pride is not protection.

Student journalists are watching what happens to professionals in Iowa. They see a publisher sued by a president, a journalist arrested at a protest, and an editor forced to sue for access to the Statehouse. The message is unmistakable, even if it is not new: power has never welcomed scrutiny. What is new is the willingness of American institutions to abandon pretense and punish it in plain sight.

Journalists in the United States have been labeled the “enemy of the people.” The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reported that assaults on journalists in recent years have steadily increased.

That is a disturbing rise in physical assaults, arrests, and lawsuits against individuals who are simply doing their jobs. As of February 2026, at least 42 journalists have been assaulted and six were arrested or criminally charged while reporting in the United States

In 2025, those numbers were even higher: At least 186 were assaulted and 35 arrested or charged. These figures do not include the journalists who had their equipment damaged, seized, or those who were sent subpoenas or legal orders. Increasingly, reporters are forced to sue police just to protect their right to work — a costly and pervasive reality.

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If reporting the truth can land a professional journalist in handcuffs, a lawsuit or a hospital, what message does that send to the young reporters still finding their voices? Student journalists, who operate with far fewer resources and protections, are watching. The effect is: You risk being harmed if you want to publish unfavorable information.

But to understand where this threat is heading, we need to look at one state that most readers will be able to connect with: Iowa.

Iowa: A Microcosm of the Crisis

Iowa holds a unique place in First Amendment history. In 1965, students in Des Moines wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended. The Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, affirmed that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

But in Iowa 2026, that legacy feels like ancient history. Today, the state has become a testing ground for nearly every tactic used to intimidate and silence the press.

In December 2024, President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register, its parent company, Gannett, and pollster Ann Selzer. The suit alleges “brazen election interference” and fraud regarding a pre-election poll that showed Kamala Harris leading in Iowa — a state Trump ultimately won by 13%.

READ THE ORIGINAL STORY HERE

The “chilling effect” is no longer a metaphor — it’s the goal. And when billionaires take aim in civil court, they know they have the resources to win — or simply to make the point that they’re not afraid to sue, even when the law isn’t on their side. Either way, the press loses.

While the courts are used as a weapon, the Iowa Legislature has become a gatekeeper. Since 2022, Republican leaders in the Iowa Senate have barred journalists from the chamber floor, ending a 140-year tradition of press access near lawmakers’ desks. What’s the message? The watchdogs need to stay out.

The Iowa House has engaged in its own credentialing issues. For several years, it denied press credentials to Laura Belin, a journalist and sole editor of Bleeding Heartland. Belin was forced to file a federal lawsuit in early 2024 before the House finally granted her access. She had to sue for the right to do her job — a job the Constitution exists to protect.

The Legislature’s strategy extends beyond locking the press out of the building — it’s about controlling what happens on campus so there’s nothing left to report on. Iowa lawmakers have introduced bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs across public universities, with proposals that would strip funding from institutions that maintain DEI offices or teach certain content.

The Legislature has indirectly made it clear that either you comply with the ideological mandates, or lose millions in state and student aid. The University of Iowa opened a new Center for Intellectual Freedom in response — an entity born not from a desire to encourage debate, but from political pressure to preempt it. Control what students are taught, and you control what they think to ask. Control what they think to ask, and you control what eventually bleeds into the press.

The hostility is not only bureaucratic, but also physical. In 2020, Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri was pepper-sprayed and arrested while covering a Black Lives Matter protest. She identified herself as press. None of it mattered. She was charged with failure to disperse and interference with official acts. A jury acquitted her of all charges in 2021, but the damage was done. The message here? Your credentials will not always protect you.

And the warnings keep coming. In late 2023, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird wrote to several national news organizations, including The Associated Press and Reuters that their coverage of international conflicts could constitute “material support for terrorism.” It’s a stretched claim, but that is precisely the point. The goal is not to go to court. It is to cast fear and doubt on journalists.

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STUDENT JOURNALISM MATTERS

If this is what professional journalists face in Iowa, what might happen to the students?

Consider the Indiana Daily Student at Indiana University, where administrators ordered the paper to cease its print edition and fired the faculty adviser after disputes over editorial control.

In Nebraska, a high school newspaper was shut down for covering Pride Month. At Purdue University, administrators cut support for The Purdue Exponent, citing neutrality. These are symptoms of a broader national trend — a growing discomfort with scrutiny. A trend that has only worsened with time.

That power has never welcomed scrutiny is not new. What is new is the normalization of punishing it openly — not behind closed doors, but on podiums, in lawsuits and on social media feeds.

It would be easy to dismiss student journalism as a training exercise. Easy, but wrong. Students have reported budget shortfalls, scrutinized Title IX processes, highlighted discriminatory policies, and revealed the truth that has even reshaped student life. They are the ones holding small authorities accountable before those authorities grow into larger ones.

If we allow that work to be silenced — by lawsuits, by threats, by a culture that scorns the truth — we are not just failing student journalists. We’re failing democracy.

When we normalize retaliation against the press, we teach the next generation that truth is conditional — and accountability optional.

READ MORE AT THE TACK

DEFENDING WHEN INCONVENIENT

If we truly value freedom of the press, we must do more than invoke it when convenient. We must defend it when it is inconvenient. We must defend it for the professionals facing lawsuits and attacks on the front lines and for the students waiting in the wings.

If we believe in the First Amendment, then it cannot be a slogan we repeat to avoid social repercussions. It must be a principle we defend when a reporter is sued, when a student paper is silenced, when access is revoked, and when scrutiny makes power uneasy. Support local news. Defend student publications. Demand transparency from those who govern.

Because the next generation of journalists is already doing its job. The rest of us need to decide whether we will do ours.

Fernanda Japa is editor-in-chief of Buena Vista University’s The Tack. She is a sophomore from Storm Lake, Iowa, studying for a major in political science (legal studies) and minor in digital media. Along with being involved in The Tack, she is part of KBVU and Raíces.

By Lyle Muller

You probably do not know that five Iowa cities have sister relationships with Palestinian cities in the Middle East. One is Muscatine, which has a tie to Ramallah.

You could learn this from a May 2024 Urban Plains news story written by Andrew Kennard for a Drake University capstone project. Urban Plains is the digital multimedia newsroom where you can read and watch all of the senior capstone reporting projects by students in Drake’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The story won first place in the Iowa College Media Association’s 2024 Best Investigative Reporting contest. The association’s 2025 Best Investigative Reporting award went to former Grinnell College student journalist Zach Spindler-Krage, who wrote about trans Iowans struggling to cope with new Iowa laws rescinding human rights protections they had enjoyed in the state.

Plenty of good reporting is being done all the time by young journalists in this state, and we want you to know about it with the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalists Corps, a new effort by the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative to feature some of the best reporting the next wave of journalists has to offer Iowans who want to know more about their state.

The collaborative is doing this to expose a wider audience to great reporting by college student journalists, introduce readers to student publications on Iowa campuses, encourage young people to become professional journalists at a time when we need more trustworthy reporters, and expand access to community news in news deserts.

The initiative’s first story is an opinion piece from KBVU/The Tack editor Fernanda Japa about the risks college journalists take to do their work.

The collaborative is launching the Emerging Journalists Corps with existing reporting by student journalists at Buena Vista University, Simpson College, Grinnell College, the University of Northern Iowa and Loras College. Journalism instructors at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University say they would like to be involved, too, although both campuses already have strong, independent local newspapers in The Daily Iowan and the Iowa State Daily. Moreover, The Daily Iowan and the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication are training young journalists to do important community reporting through their unique joint ownership of the Solon Economist and the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun.

We expect to publish new stories at least once a week. Our hope is that you find these stories useful, especially because they will reflect a younger point of view than you ordinarily read in the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Meantime, we will continue talking with other college journalism programs in the state about participating in this project and also news media outlets about sharing these stories.

You can help this effort in several ways:

• Subscribe to the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalists Corps. Free subscriptions give these stories visibility. Paid subscriptions will allow us to pay students for the work they put into their reporting and writing.

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• Spread the word. Share posts with others to help build an audience.

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• Support college journalism in general by reading student-run newspapers online, in print, and through their radio and television outlets.

• Carry the banner that says fact-based reporting is vital in our society and that the next generation of journalists is needed and appreciated.

In Iowa alone, you can learn about Buena Vista University students navigating college with mental illness; how Trump administration and Iowa legislative policies and laws are affecting students at the University of Northern Iowa and elsewhere; how Grinnell College remembers former student Tammy Zywicki, whose disappearance and suspected death in 1992 remains one of Iowa’s most famous cold cases; and why Dubuque teenager Gwen Maiers collects a room full of toy horses to go with her love of riding hobby horses in competitions.

Didn’t know there was such a thing as competitive hobby horse riding? Read the story.

The stories we want to bring to you range from serious to simply fun and delightful, but each introduces you to something about Iowans you might not know. In an era when the number of reporters has shrunk at newspapers, television and radio stations, we think more reporting is a good thing for Iowa.

Consider this your invitation to learn more about the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Emerging Journalists Corps and to read their work.

Lyle Muller is the professional adviser for Grinnell College’s Scarlet & Black student newspaper and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. He is a longtime Iowa journalist whose work has included health and science reporting, higher education reporting, and serving as a bureau chief and later editor of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.