A Pulitzer Prize for the "Storm Lake Times"

The 2017 Pulitzer Prizes were presented in a festive ceremony at Columbia University in New York at the end of May. You can recognize Art Cullen in the group photo of the prizewinners - even if he modestly placed himself in the back row.

You don't know Art Cullen? That's quite possible. The 59-year-old is a reporter for the Storm Lake Times, a small local newspaper in the US state of Iowa. He owns the paper together with his brother John. A good 3,000 copies of the Storm Lake Times are printed twice a week and distributed to subscribers in the small rural town of Storm Lake. So good, so ordinary.

What is extraordinary, however, is that Art Cullen was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the most important journalistic award of all, for his work. And for his editorials in which he likes to denounce the behavior of large agricultural corporations or other environmental sinners. Never before has a journalist from such a small newspaper received a "Pulitzer".

Interestingly, other small US newspapers were also among this year's winners: the East Bay Times from San Francisco, The Charleston Gazette-Mail and The Salt Lake Tribune. But this should not obscure the fact that local journalism in the USA is probably in the biggest crisis in its history. And not just since the surprising election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. All key figures show a strongly negative trend. The situation is so serious that the Columbia Journalism Review, one of the most important publications on journalism, recently devoted an entire issue to local journalism in the US. Certainly, newspaper circulation and advertising revenues are also falling in Switzerland. However, local and regional newspapers are generally faring much better than national titles. In the USA, local newspapers are suffering particularly badly. "At some point, local journalism was no longer cool," wrote author Michael Oreskes in a fiery appeal, "let's get back to the roots of journalism."

Local journalism was once strongly anchored and respected in the USA. Initially, newspapers took on this role on their own, but later they were supported in their work by local radio and TV stations. Over the years, however, journalism in the USA has lost its local focus. This has to do with the digital transformation and the fact that innovation (and the associated investment) has mainly happened at a national level.

At the same time, hundreds of jobs were cut in local reporting. "Disinvestment in local journalism has been the dominant theme in the media industry over the last decade," noted media analyst and author Ken Doctor. But the negative trend is also continuing at a national level. While local newsrooms have been thinned out, the number of journalists in Washington has increased. But the way they work has changed. Most of these journalists work for digital platforms that serve a niche audience. They pay to be kept up to date on the impact of government work on their industry. By contrast, the number of correspondents working for traditional local newspapers has halved. Who can be surprised that people in Kansas, Nebraska or Nevada feel left behind by government work? The traditional media have played their part in this development.

So is everything bad? A lot, perhaps, but not everything. Smart minds in the USA are trying to capitalize on the mistakes of the traditional media. They sense a business opportunity. Start-ups are launching new digital platforms for local news and dreaming of national networks. Local radio stations have significantly expanded their digital staff. Radio stations benefit in particular from the fact that they can better involve their listeners in reporting via digital platforms.

And then there are the powerful digital corporations such as Google and Facebook, which have been at the forefront of helping to destroy the traditional business model of the media industry. The fact that Google, Facebook & Co. seem to be gradually becoming aware of their social responsibility makes us sit up and take notice. "Strong media is essential to an informed society," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently wrote in an open letter. "Giving people a voice is not enough. We need to support the media in fulfilling their role in society. With more local news, the development of new formats for mobile devices and even new business models." It is not only in the USA that people will be watching closely to see how Facebook follows up these fine words with action.

But enough cultural pessimism. After all, all is not lost as long as the reporter of a small local newspaper can win a Pulitzer Prize. And so back to Art Cullen, the Pulitzer Prize winner from Storm Lake, Iowa. This Art Cullen reacted to the award ceremony with the greatest possible coolness. "We've always worked to make our articles on Storm Lake as good as the New York Times' articles on New York," Cullen said in an interview. "After all, there's no reason why an editorial from Iowa shouldn't be as good as one written in Washington."

The man is right.

Peter Jost is Editor-in-Chief of the BZ Berner Zeitung and Journalistic Director of Berner Oberland Medien AG. From May to September 2017, the 42-year-old is completing further training in data journalism at Columbia University in New York. With a circulation of around 100,000 copies, the BZ Berner Zeitung is one of Switzerland's largest daily newspapers. Its reach is reported together with the Bund, which also belongs to the Tamedia publishing house. The two Bernese daily newspapers reach 339,000 readers every day.