The urgent fight for a shared reality in Ames, Iowa

Artwork generated by Douglas Burns and Leonardo.Ai

The brilliant American author Neal Stephenson, an Ames (Iowa) High School alum, sees the slipping national grip on a shared reality as a grave threat to democracy, to life on the planet — perhaps our most urgent challenge.

Douglas Brunt, host of the popular podcast "Dedicated," in which he interviews prominent authors, asked Stephenson: What is the "the greatest threat to humanity?”

"It's either too much carbon in the atmosphere or the fact that we cannot agree on what is real," Stephenson, best-selling author of science and historical fiction, including "Cryptonomicon," "Snow Crash" and "Polostan," said in the eye-opening podcast Dec. 3.

Which gets us to Ames, Iowa, where Stephenson moved with his scientist parents in 1966, graduating from Ames High in 1977.

The non-profit Ames Voice, a digital newsroom, plans to launch in the first quarter of 2025. It's been in the works for a year and has a range of businesspeople and community leaders and educators and others, supporting it. The mission: local, local, local coverage. Just the facts. Full coverage of life in Story County, home to Ames and Iowa State University.

Local, independent news organizations are the last bastion of collective reality. These sources, local papers, local radio, the growing number of local non-profit news sites, report news that people can actually see. So they know it to be true. The local paper is the last space for a tribal detente in the misinformations wars.

"Mid-Iowa Community News is dedicated to being the primary source of news and information for the Ames area, focusing on complete coverage that values local insights, diverse voices, and ethical reporting, while prioritizing community engagement and empowerment," says the non-profit organization producing the Ames Voice.

Read full details on the Ames Voice and Mid-Iowa Community News.

A story on road work. It's a fact because you detoured around the construction.

Obituaries. You were at the funeral or one to two to three degrees of separation from a person you know to be dead.

The score of the game. 14 to 10. You know it is true. You saw the three touchdowns or work with the mother of the high school quarterback who threw two of them.

We can build trust and reality back from community newspapers up, not The New York Times and presidential candidates down.

Stories or ads, just content in general, on state and national news, accrues credibility by proximity to the local truth when it is published on the same pages, same publications as the local news.

Local truth is verified by the eyes. In person.

It's important that this non-profit news organization is shaping up in Ames, a centrally located university town in Iowa and the beating heart of agricultural innovation and education. The Ames Voice is intent on providing thorough and balanced coverage of Iowa agriculture.

Schools are the center of life in Iowa. Iowa State University and the Ames and surrounding rural schools will be a priority for reporters.

Elevating small businesses, keeping people connected to the stores and merchants who pay the local property taxes, collect the sales taxes, is vital.

And then there is the news you can use on events, whether civic and government, or entertainment and arts. The community will know what is happening around the corner, downtown and on campus.

Overall, the mission is to build trust, one story at a time. As that happens we will retrieve some of the collective reality, the shared truths, that have been shattered by cynical social media giants that have chased decency and credentials from our lives.

The foresighted Neal Stephenson, a clairvoyant writer whose mind seems to be years ahead of most of us, diagnosed the problem: Americans, Iowans can't agree on what is real.

The Ames Voice will work tirelessly to address this, to bring clarity and community back. It's not too late.

Please make a tax-deductible contribution to The Ames Voice. You will be donating to reality itself.

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(Douglas Burns, founder of The Iowa Mercury and a fourth-generation Iowa journalist from Carroll, is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Read dozens of the most talented writers in Iowa in just one place. The Iowa Writers' Collaborative spans the full state. It’s one of the biggest things going in Iowa journalism and writing now — and you don’t want to miss. This collaborative is — as the outstanding Quad Cities journalist Ed Tibbetts says — YOUR SUNDAY IOWA newspaper. )