Buddhist monastery finds home near Decorah

By |

In the rolling hills of northeast Iowa, amid fields of cattle and corn, sits a simple, cream-colored building. The gravel road leading to the dwelling climbs an incline. A weathered wooden sign surrounded by flowers and tall grass reads “Ryumonji Zen Monastery.”

A Buddhist monastery, the only one of its kind in the state. Buddhism, an Eastern religion that began in India, follows the teachings of the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama. It focuses on participating in good to reach enlightenment.

Center News

Sunset on the Farm returns to support IowaWatch’s mission

By |

Iowa City, Iowa – Corridor area residents are invited to enjoy great food, wine, music, and scenery at an annual fundraiser to support IowaWatch.org. Get tickets here. Sunset on the Farm will take place Thursday, September 23rd, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Walker Homestead just outside of Iowa City. 

This event will consist of unlimited pizza and salad, s’mores for dessert, access to a cash bar, a silent auction, and live music from the Mission Bluegrass Band. Tickets are $40 for adults and $20 for children over 5. 

IowaWatch.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that provides Iowa’s news outlets with top-quality in-depth reporting for free while training future journalists. Tickets and other donations at Sunset on the Farm go toward supporting Iowa-focused investigative journalism such as the recent “Small Town Solutions” project. This is the first Sunset on the Farm since September 2019.

Center News

IowaWatch names new editor and adds veteran fundraiser

By |

IowaWatch, or the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, has named Suzanne Behnke as its new editor, marking a transition for Behnke from executive director to a new role focused on developing high-impact investigative news and fostering collaborations. Mary Ungs-Sogaard

IowaWatch also has hired Mary Ungs-Sogaard, a proven fundraiser and long-time newspaper publisher in Eastern Iowa, as the news nonprofit’s business developer. The leaders will boost IowaWatch’s capacity to provide high-quality public affairs news and information that improves civic life and public policy outcomes across Iowa. “I am grateful to have a role with IowaWatch that allows me to focus on in-depth journalism and working with talented reporters and writers,” said Behnke. “This change plays to my strengths and to Mary’s.

Center News

IowaWatch joins national collaboration on rural education during COVID-19

By |

The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism – IowaWatch.org has been selected as a partner to report on how COVID-19 is changing and challenging rural school districts, the Institute for Nonprofit News reported. It is IowaWatch’s third reporting collaboration in the past year. “Our goal is to look at the smaller districts that have fewer resources and how they are meeting the challenges of learning during a global pandemic,” said Executive Director Suzanne Behnke. The Walton Family Foundation is providing a grant that will allow IowaWatch and other collaboration members, El Paso Matters, The Nevada Independent, New Mexico In-Depth, Scalawag, Underscore Media and Wisconsin Watch, to report and write on rural schools in their respective states during the 2020-2021 school year. The project will produce three reports by IowaWatch and by each member over the six months of the grant, at the start of the school year, toward the middle of the fall and a last installment toward the end of 2020.

Center News

Simpson podcast features IowaWatch’s work with students

By |

Simpson students get to practice journalism of statewide impact when they report and write at IowaWatch, the nonprofit news source that covers public affairs in the Hawkeye State, shares Brian Steffen, chair of the journalism department at Simpson College. Suzanne Behnke, the executive director of the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism and an adjunct instructor of Multimedia Communication at Simpson, comes on the “Speaking of Simpson” podcast this week to talk about her work with IowaWatch and how it involves student journalists with real journalism that has real impact. Listen here.

freedom of information

IowaWatch Co-Founder Returning To Iowa To Headline Sept. 27 Celebrating A Free Press And Open Government Banquet

By |

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Stephen J. Berry, whose push for journalists to work thoroughly and ethically led him to co-found the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch, will be the annual Celebrating a Free Press and Open Government Banquet’s guest speaker in Des Moines on Thursday, September 27, 2018.

Fundraising

Help Us Support Student Work

By |

Does a limit on speech and expression exist on Iowa’s college campuses, where you expect the free flow of ideas to broaden education? Help a team of Iowa college student journalists working with IowaWatch answer that question by giving a tax-deductible donation that supports the students’ efforts. Don’t wait. The deadline to donate is Friday, April 8, 2016.

Application

SPJ To Support IowaWatch Intern

By |

IowaWatch was selected as one of two locations for a summer 2016 fellowship through the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, the educational foundation for the Society of Professional Journalists.

Accountability

Iowa’s Judicial Branch Flunks Transparency Survey Despite Landmark Reports Availability

By |

Iowa’s Judicial Branch flunked a recent transparency and accountability study because of barriers to public access to information, a lack of legal requirements for judicial evaluations and issues surrounding potential conflicts of interest. They include limited access judicial officers’ asset disclosures and a lack of restrictions on judges returning to the private sector after the bench.

Center News

This #GivingTuesday, Consider IowaWatch

By |

Dear Friends of IowaWatch,

I know you are being bombarded today with #GivingTuesday requests for support for your favorite charities. But I’d like to ask you to please consider giving a tax-deductible donation of $25, $50, $100 or more today to our nonprofit, nonpartisan center so that we can continue good work that has been recognized this past year by groups such as the Iowa Broadcast News Association and Society of Professional Journalists. Thank you for helping us celebrate our fifth anniversary in 2015. This one-time experiment has published more than 290 explanatory and investigative, multimedia stories at IowaWatch.org and share those stories with others. Through November of this year 41 Iowa newspapers, 25 radio stations in our IowaWatch Connection radio network, two commercial television stations, Iowa Public Television, Iowa Public Radio and 52 news websites have republished or aired 33 IowaWatch stories 1,319 times.