An Iowa Mercury milestone: Why Iowa Mercury? Why Now?

A young newspaperman in the making. Douglas Burns in the arms of his late uncle, James B. Wilson, standing next to the press at the Carroll Daily Times Herald with the then-publisher in 1974, James W. Wilson, grandfather of Burns, and the founder of the family newspaper with roots dating back to 1929.

A few minutes ago, thanks to referrals from friends and colleagues and consistent posting with The Iowa Writers' Collaborative, The Iowa Mercury hit 1,000 subscribers — and growing. Thank you.

I'm Douglas Burns, a fourth-generation Iowa journalist, one of the founders of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation. We fought to keep the Carroll Times Herald in our family but faced a hurricane of well-known challenges to local media.

So I started The Iowa Mercury. And it can do more with your help.

If you are a free Iowa Mercury subscriber, please consider becoming a paid one at a modest $7/month. And urge others to subscribe. I'll do my part to make sure you are all informed about our full state, and the often overlooked and misunderstood western part of Iowa I know and love. We will keep all stories available for free so those who cannot afford subscriptions still have access.

We are out there in western Iowa covering stories, elevating the good, exposing the bad.

I've covered politics with a western Iowa eye for a quarter century. That continues. As an independent whose politics could perhaps best be described as unpredictable, I work to bring you perspectives of Democrats and Republicans — and independents like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. whom I interviewed twice in the last year. I interviewed former President Barack Obama 10 times, and once asked then-candidate Donald Trump, "If you love Iowa so much, why haven't you built anything here?"

Sadly, in one of the more challenging days in my career, I joined colleague Lorena Lopez, editor of La Prensa Iowa Spanish language newspaper in covering the school shootings in Perry in early January.

On the positive side: Arts and culture and business and entrepreneurs are thriving in rural reaches of Iowa. You just have to find them. Iowa Mercury knows where to look.

It's painful not to be the publisher of the Carroll Times Herald. I miss it every day. But destiny has me in vital supporting roles for some of the journalists I most admire in Iowa as I write for and promote two essential Iowa media leaders — Lorena Lopez and the estimable La Prensa Spanish Language Newspaper and Dana James, who operates a statewide community newspaper that reminds me so much of my family's paper —  Black Iowa News. And of course, I am here to support the peerless Julie Gammack who brilliantly, fearlessly constructed the Iowa Writers' Collaborative. Gammack is one of the more influential leaders in Iowa journalism and arts and culture.

Additionally, I regularly write the Political Mercury column for Des Moines Cityview and continue to contribute to our old paper, The Carroll Times Herald. I’ve pinch hit for several other papers around the state in the last year — a cobbled-together career.

I'm working a lot these days out of the Hub 712 in Carroll, an innovation and start-up center in western Iowa, which aims to boost entrepreneurs, especially in the rural and Latino communities, the lifeblood of western Iowa.

I have never pushed for paid subscriptions here before, which is why only 5 percent of subscribers are paid. Helping me get to 20 percent paid would allow Iowa Mercury to cover more, post more, travel to more parts of Iowa.

Thank you for indulging.

Douglas Burns in his former office in the Carroll Times Herald.