It's a wonderful — and informed — life in Donna Reed's Denison, Iowa — thanks to a bold Latina journalist
DENISON, Iowa
It's as if the movie came to life.
Only this time, in real life, the small town folks came to save truth itself from going over the bridge into the rivers of misinformation.
In one the largest turnouts for a chamber of commerce event local officials can recall, nearly 100 people attended a recent ribbon cutting and fundraiser here for La Prensa Spanish Newspaper's English language start-up, The Denison Free Press, the local journalism many expect to survive in an increasingly fraught landscape.
Dozens of people donated a total of nearly $4,000 on just one recent Friday night. They filled a basket with checks and cash in, of all places, The Donna Reed Theatre in downtown Denison, Iowa. The late Reed, a native of Denison, starred in the holiday staple "It's A Wonderful Life," in which she plays the despondent George Bailey's (Jimmy Stewart) wife, Mary, who in the film engineers a fundraiser among townsfolk to save George from ruin.
Hit the real button, and that's what happened in Denison for community newspapers.
With the legacy English-language newspaper, the Denison Bulletin-Review, shattered at the hands of its chain ownership, Lee Enterprises, Lorena López, the founder and publisher of Denison-based La Prensa, launched The Denison Free Press earlier this month, bringing on board two emigres from the legacy paper — editor Gordon Wolf and writer Dan Mundt.
To make the Wonderful Life parallel sweeter, the La Prensa and Denison Free Press offices are located in a loft space above the Donna Reed Theatre.
The Western Iowa Journalism Foundation is playing a role in funding three positions to keep local news alive in the Denison, Iowa area. Crawford County natives Ron and Jane Olson catalyzed the bilingual reach and collaborative of La Prensa and Mundt and Wolf with a challenge grant to fund local journalism.
Click here to support La Prensa and The Denison Free Press with a tax-deductible contribution to The Western Iowa Journalism Foundation. If you care about truth and facts take the time to do this, even with just a few dollars.
But so are local residents as evidenced by donations and demand for The Denison Free Press.
Residents of all backgrounds have approached Lorena López around the county.
“You are the lady who is saving our local news,” one man said before writing a check to support The Denison Free Press.
Lorena López is humble about the efforts. The paper is all about the community, not any one single person, she says.
That said, her work ethic and winning entrepreneurship and respect among colleagues in the state’s journalism circles are keeping local news alive here.
La Prensa has shown remarkable sustainability in the roiling newspaper industry as it has published since 2006 when López, an immigrant from Nicaragua who held a national television reporting role in her native country, started the paper, now a force in Iowa journalism with a national reputation for excellence.
"I love this community and its people, my friends and neighbors, deserve to be the most informed Iowans — and we intend to give them two newspapers to allow them to be just that — super informed," López said. "The more immigrants know about the historical community, and the more generational families know about those of us who arrived more recently, the more harmony and understanding we will have — and that makes life more enjoyable and businesses more profitable — which is what this great country is all about, right?"
Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist. He is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please follow other members of the collaborative. Click here to sign up for the weekly round-up column of all the writers in the collaborative.
Great Story Doug. 👍