Moderators

• Indie Lens Pop-Up

  Indie Lens Pop-Up is a neighborhood series that brings people together for in-person and virtual film screenings and community-driven conversations. Featuring documentaries seen on PBS's Independent Lens, Indie Lens Pop-Up draws local residents, leaders and organizations to discuss what matters most, from newsworthy topics and social issues, to family and community relationships.

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  Zoe Stahl

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  Beatriz

Participants

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  Alison Bethel

  Moderator

  Alison Bethel is Vice President of Corps Excellence for Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. An award-winning, veteran journalist and a Southerner, she has worked in senior-level editorial positions at The Boston Globe, The Detroit News, Legal Times, the Poughkeepsie Journal and the Nassau Guardian (The Bahamas). She is the former Washington Bureau Chief for The Detroit News and was executive director of the Society for Professional Journalists and the International Press Institute in Vienna. Alison was also a Knight Fellow for the International Center for Journalists and a visiting professor of print and investigative journalism at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media.

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  Art Cullen

  Panelist

  Art Cullen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, editor of "The Storm Lake Times" (a family-run weekly newspaper in small-town Iowa), and author of the new book, "Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper." Art has made it his life’s work to ask the big questions, speak truth to power, and share the struggles and successes of his unique community of Storm Lake, Iowa (Census pop. 10,076). His new book is part cultural history, part memoir — it explores the themes of family, community, immigration and diversity, the meaning of home, and the Heartland’s turbulent history and promising progressive future. Drawing from the stories of one special small town on the “broken prairie,” and his family’s perspectives from their small-town newspaper business, Art hopes to inspire a broader sense of dialogue, renewal and understanding of rural places. In politically divisive times, when Americans from Red States and Blue States often feel estranged from each other, Art Cullen’s book attempts to show an optimistic way forward — that there is still abundant hope in the Heartland. This is a book that America needs now, written by a small-town newspaper editor who has earned journalism’s highest honor.

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  Tom Cullen

  Panelist

  Tom Cullen is a general assignment reporter at The Storm Lake Times since 2014. He came to The Times after graduating from University of Northern Iowa with a degree in economics. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, the Des Moines Register and the South Bend Tribune on subjects ranging from immigration to college athletics. His work for The Times focuses on environmental pollution and investigations. He also serves as The Times’ representative to the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, an organization that advocates for the public’s access to governmental meetings and open records in Iowa. He lives in Storm Lake.

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  Errin Haines

  Panelist

  Errin Haines is a Founding Mother and Editor at Large for The 19th, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering the intersection of women, politics and policy, and an MSNBC Contributor. An award-winning political journalist focused on issues of race, gender and politics, Errin was previously the Associated Press' National Writer on Race and Ethnicity. She has also worked at The Washington Post, The Orlando Sentinel and The Los Angeles Times. Errin was a Fall 2019 Ferris Professor at Princeton University, teaching a class on black women and the 2020 election. She joins Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics as a fellow in their fifth anniversary class in Fall 2020.

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  Lorena Ester López Altamirano

  Panelist

  A native of Estelí, Nicaragua, Lorena E. López is a seasoned journalist. López started in television journalism in Nicaragua and hosted a popular talk-show for Channel 6, a primary station in her native nation. López, who is bilingual, emigrated to the United States in the 1990s. She worked in a variety of positions, including as a nurse, before launching Denison, Iowa-based LA PRENSA Spanish Language Newspaper with her son, Carlos Arguello, a Des Moines entrepreneur. López, the owner and primary writer and photographer for LA PRENSA, is frequently a guest or source for major national publications and news outlets, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and Univision, where her views on Latinos in rural areas and observations on the Iowa presidential nominating process are highly sought. She lives in Denison, and her office is located in same downtown building as the Donna Reed Center for The Performing Arts.

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  Beth Levison

  Chat Expert

  NYC-based Beth Levison’s (director/producer) recent producing credits include Women in Blue (Independent Lens, 2020), Emmy-nominated Made in Boise (Independent Lens, 2019), and 32 Pills (HBO, 2017). Storm Lake, which she also produced, marks her return to directing. She is a co-founder of the Documentary Producers Alliance and an AMPAS member.

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  Jerry Risius

  Chat Expert

  Iowa-born and raised, Jerry Risius (director/DP) brings over 25 years experience as a Director of Photography on such projects as the Anthony Bourdain series Parts Unknown (CNN) and No Reservations (Travel Channel), The Kingmaker (Showtime, 2019), Generation Wealth (Amazon Prime, 2018), and Seeing Allred (Netflix, 2018) to Storm Lake, his directorial debut.

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  PBS Hawaiʻi

  Panelist

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  Emmalee Hackshaw

  Panelist

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  Beth Spezia

  Panelist

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  Jennifer Preston

  Panelist

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  Jerry

  Panelist

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  Beth Spezia

  Panelist

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  Beth Levison

  Panelist

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  Jerry

  Panelist

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  Jerry

  Panelist

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  Jerry

  Panelist

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  Jerry

  Panelist

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  Beth Spezia

  Panelist

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  Beth Spezia

  Panelist

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  Beth Spezia

  Panelist