Thursday
/NorthernIowan
September 14, 2017
@NorthernIowan
Volume 114, Issue 06
northerniowan.com
Opinion 3 Campus Life 4 Sports 6 Games 7 Classifieds 8
INSIDE THIS ISSUE Parking problems 2
‘DACA’ explained by columnist 3
Doug DuBois lecture 5 Spotlight: Panther Mayhem 6
The Storm Lake Times:
a tale of how a small iowa paper received a pulitzer AMELIA DUAX Staff Writer
UNI alumnus Tom Cullen, a reporter for The Storm Lake Times, spoke on campus Sept. 7 about how the small-town newspaper, based, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. The staff at The Storm Lake Times, which prints twice a week and has an estimated circulation of 3,300, earned the award for their reporting of a Des Moines Waterworks lawsuit related to the release of nitrogen into drinking water. While the actual recipient of the Pulitzer was Art Cullen — Tom’s father — Tom Cullen was involved in the reporting and research to find the answers they needed.
The pulitzer prize is named after joseph pulitzer, a revolutionary in journalism.
In addition to explaining how The Storm Lake Times won the Pulitzer, Cullen wanted to share his knowledge about science and the media during Thursday’s lecture, which took place in Sabin Hall. Cullen, age 24, began his journalism career in 2014. He graduated from UNI in 2015 after studying economics and immediately began working on the Waterworks case. “When this all started out, it was a big lawsuit — statewide acclaim and national acclaim, even. It was covered in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune,” Cullen said. “We knew it was big, and we also had that lens that the landscape has changed dramatically over these years. It was our idea to cover this as much as we could.” However, that process soon
became complicated. Cullen and other staff members at The Storm Lake Times ran into numerous obstacles during their research on the waterworks issue. According to Cullen, the county attorney was not hired to defend the counties when they were sued. It is still unknown as to why a county attorney was not hired. Instead, nearly a dozen drainage attorneys were hired, according to Cullen. “We were just basically banging our heads to figure out how they [are] paying these lawyers? How are they doing this? Who’s paying for it?” Cullen said. “Whatever new information we could get — and believe me it was sparse — we would run it because we were aware of how big it was.” Cullen stressed that it is
important to stay dedicated when looking through records and doing research on a big issue like the Waterworks case. Cullen said that he tries to use a step-by-step approach when dealing with scientific research and the media. According to Cullen, as long as he can understand what he has written about, then the reader should be able to understand it too. As for the Pulitzer win, it’s an award of national significance. As a result, Cullen now deals with higher expectations. “It’s an honor that I still can’t even fathom,” Cullen said. “Going day to day now, it ramps up the pressure a little bit.” See PULITZER, page 5
Six-game soccer win streak comes to an end JOEL WAUTERS
Sports Writer
The UNI women’s soccer team lost their first game of the season this past Sunday after a 2-1 loss to the Montana Grizzlies at
the Cedar Valley Soccer Complex in Waterloo. The loss ended the Panthers’ initial six game winning streak. Despite the loss, which came after the Grizzlies made a game-winning goal in the 57th minute, the Panthers continue to show
signs of a strong season. UNI kicked off their 2017 campaign on the road with a dominant 5-0 win over the Chicago State Cougars in the Windy City. The Panthers played two more road games, posting back to back 2-0 shutouts of the Nebraska-
IRIS FRASHER/Northern Iowan
Kelsey Hansen, No. 18, looks ahead to get ready to pass the ball. She has seen a total of 457 minutes of play time in all seven games of the current season.
Omaha Mavericks and the South Dakota Coyotes. Defending the Panthers’ home field in Waterloo began on Sept. 1 when the North Dakota State Bison came to town, only to fall 1-0 to the purple and gold. The Kansas State Wildcats and South Dakota State Jackrabbits met the same fate as the Bison later in the same week. In their first seven games, the Panthers outscored their opponents 13-2 and recorded shutouts in all six wins. Much of UNI’s offensive efficiency can be attributed to forwards from Brynell Yount and Sarah Brandt, who have combined for seven goal and four assists. See SOCCER, page 6
avgs
2 shots
per game
529 mins played
SARAH
BRANDT senior
IRIS FRASHER/Northern Iowan
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