Introducing the Emerging Journalists Corp
The Iowa Writers' Collaborative launches effort to grow interest in stories about young Iowans, written by young reporters seeking a foothold in journalism
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.
Spread the word. Share posts with others to help build an audience.
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.
This is pretty interesting. Sitting down here in Mexico City, I have had the impression that Iowa journalism is in a pretty desolate state.
I. LOVE.THIS.
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