đ Press-Citizen's most viewed post of 2020 (pt. 2)
A final countdown of the articles that drove traffic last year.
January 10, 2021 | Letter No. 21
Reporterâs foreword: The Press-Citizen, my employer, does not pay me to produce this newsletter. I began writing it out of the belief that we need someone locally drawing connections, thinking out loud, taking on messy ideas in our town. And Iâm thankful to say that in 2021, I have had my first subscribers.
If you are finding value in this work, I hope you will consider subscribing to it too.
In case you missed last Sunday, this is the second half of my countdown of the articles that netted the most reader attention on the Press-Citizen in 2020. You can read part one here.
5. Fact Check: University of Iowa hospitals say rumors that ICU was âfull of COVID casesâ not true (Hillary Ojeda)
When the leadership of a party has so embraced unreality, itâs important to not cover both parties like they are symmetrical.
That said, a lie from any party is still a lie. And when a person with a following is spreading misinformation, itâs our job to debunk false claims and hold them accountable.
In July, former U.S. Senate candidate and Indianola attorney Kimberly Graham tweeted Tuesday that the UIHC's intensive care unit was not only full but filled with COVID-19 patients.
"We will probably make it through the night but we are cutting it awfully close,â Graham said the post read.
Graham explained she pulled the information from a shared Facebook post from a person who claimed to be a UIHC employee and to have knowledge about the hospitalâs ICU being close to bursting.
This despite it not being true.
The Press-Citizen tracked down Graham who gave us the name of the person quoting, a name which we found out belonged to no one by the person's name currently works at the hospital.
Graham told me it was an honest mistake. That she would remove it immediately, and she did.
Graham has a Twitter following of nearly 50,000. She gained popularity as a member of the scrum running for the Democratic nomination to take on U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst in November's election. She carried 15% of the June 2 primary vote, losing to central Iowa businesswoman Theresa Greenfield who herself lost to U.S. Sen Joni Ernst later that year.
Following the race, Graham became a loud critic of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, hammering her on her inaction in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising death toll.
I think thatâs part of the reason this story did well. Sure there is an appeal to a politician fact-check, but particularly when theyâre caught spreading false information that fits their narrative.
4. Protesters march through Iowa City on Saturday; Kinnick Stadium, UI hospital spray painted (staff report)
On Sunday, June 7, 2020, we woke up to the video of Iowa City protesters spraypainting the statue of Nile Kinnick. I canât pretend to have sat with the legacy of Kinnick nor to really be a football fan. But I remember this being early in the summer.
Large groups of protesters were gathering daily at the Pentacrest. Two nights before that hundreds sat cross-legged on the Interstate. Two nights before that, ICPD assisted Iowa State Patrol in deploying tear gas on protesters as they were approaching the interstate. There were curfews. Counterprotesters. Arrests. In some ways, weâre still responding to the actions and commitments taken last summer with the work to restructure the police department.
Throughout the protest, the Press-Citizen had daily coverage talking to protesters, city officials, people watching what was happening. We had analysis of policy plans and frankly worked ourselves into a stupor that defined the rest of the year.
Maybe itâs not surprising that this is the story that performed well. After all, Kinnick remains a huge name throughout the region. And featuring property destruction played on peopleâs fears of Black Lives Matter protesters.
I find the performance of this particular article deeply telling.
[Above: Todayâs deal from Gannett. It changes from time to time.]
3. The Paywall
An important thing happened in a meeting before the New Year. Gannett Corporate said they are zeroing in on subscriber growth as a key part of the companies future financial stability.
Gannett owns the Iowa City Press-Citizen, the Des Moines Register, USA Today and more than 140 local media brands, including the Detroit Free Press, Arizona Republic, and Austin American-Statesman. After its merger with fellow giant GateHouse, it became the largest newspaper publisher in the United States.
Our industry has been keenly focused on how it can get advertisers to pay for ads. Past focus on page views and page engagement time, was about measuring attention.
Our value proposition is âWe have this many people looking at this page for this long. Give us money to put your company on that page.â Not only do we know that advertisers pay a lot less for digital ads, a source of customer intel that informs those ad buys is set to sunset this year.
Since the innovation of the third party cookie, marketers online have used them to track customer behavior and inform value propositions. Suddenly, companies wonât be able to track users across websites. While companies like Safari and Firefox block cookies by default, Googleâs Chrome platform maintains a large user base. Still, they are phasing out third-party cookies too.
Gannettâs pivot here is no doubt a reaction to this coming cookie cliff. Itâs a realization that the subscriber revenue will have to make a larger portion of the companies revenue. For Gannett, thatâs probably a scary move. But for readers, I think itâs going to be a positive one.
Our websites will have to be about gaining and keeping trust. Creating work that you canât get anywhere else. Work that demands users to pay the piper (maybe a bad metaphor). Weâre going to do that through local expertise. Weâre going to do that through thoughtful commentary. Weâre going to do that by having the best storytelling in the market.
Thatâs not clickbait. Thatâs a good story well told. A story you canât get anywhere else.
I think thereâs a lot we have to figure out in terms of staffing and compensating people to produce this work. I think we have to really map out what we are doing that canât be done anywhere else. But when I think about my colleagues at the Press-Citizen and Register, I feel like weâre well worth $3 for three months weâre charging right now.
If you donât subscribe to the Press-Citizen, this is a great time to do it. Either way, I want to hear whatâs keeping you subscribing or what made you pull the trigger. My emails below.
To close, 30,000 unique users hit our paywall last year. They wanted to read or watch our work but werenât subscribers. If 1% of those people became digital subscribers in the next year, the Press-Citizen would be securing its place here.
2. Free seeds available for ambitious gardeners (Judy Terry)
Iâve never met Judy Terry. And I never read this story. It is also the second most-read story on our website.
She writes about late-season tomato planting and the Johnson County Master Gardenersâ initiative giving out free seeds during the pandemic.
Itâs short. Itâs written in a sweet voice. And I have no explanation for this. And if getting people to subscribe, maybe I ought to figure that out.
1. 'I just can't do this': UI student who tested positive for COVID-19 recounts school response
Itâs rare that an important story thatâs in the news cycle gets narrative treatment. It takes time, often a great deal of access, and when things are time-sensitive, you risk someone beating you to the story. Iâm deeply happy that in August my editor gave me the time to sit with Annie Gaughanâs story.
The Press-Citizenâs most-read of 2020 was the story of the first student at the University of Iowa to test positive for COVID-19. Gaughan becomes our avatar as we wade through the quarantine infrastructure in place as students came to campus.
Readers were split on the story. Many were enraged that after half a year living with the pandemic, this was the best the Ui admins had prepared. The other half were enraged by this student who tested positive, then hopped onto a charter bus with other people in transit.
Regardless of the reactions, the response cuts deeper my belief that a story well-told matters. That it can grab an audience and keep them there. If we do that more in 2021, I think weâll be on the right track.
Your friendly neighborhood reporter,
Zachary Oren Smith
I sat through an 8-hour budget meeting so you donât have to.
Iowa City is in the process of settling on itâs FY 2022 budget. Iâll have an overview in the Press-Citizen early next week. In the meantime, here are some things to chew on.
Iowa City staff proposes to spend $173 million in FY 2022. These costs range from personnel â which at $47.6 million makes up the largest single portion of the general fund â to debt service.Â
The single larges shaping force on this budget is the hit our budget took due to the pandemic. Twice, the city cut budgets to accommodate lagging revenue: $1.5 million for fiscal year 2020 and $3.7 million for fiscal year 2021.Â
Approved new hires have been stalled. The Parking Fund saw a drop from $7.4 million in fiscal year 2019 to $2.1 million in fiscal year 2020, the result of lost revenue from fees. And the city hopes to make FY 2021 a year to rebuild.
Because its possible, city staff proposed a property levy rate that is actually lower than last year. They set it at $15.673 per $1000 of taxable valuation.
The assessed value of property in Iowa City estimated at $4.3 million. This is a modest increase of 3.24% over last year. The budget proposed by city staff features a small property tax rate decrease of 0.63%.
The city can only tax a portion of the value of property in Iowa City, as the result of 2013 changes made by the Iowa Legislature. Commercial property remains taxable at 90% of its total value, a portion partially compensated by state government through so-called "backfill payments." Iowa City will receive $1.5 million in fiscal year 2022.Â
Residential property taxable valuation has slowly increased since fiscal year 2014 from 52.82% to 56.41% in fiscal year 2022. In the same period, multi-residential property's taxable value has plunged from 100% of valuation in fiscal year 2014 to just 67% in fiscal year 2021. After fiscal year 2023, multi-residential properties will be taxed at the same percentage as residential properties, which dipped to 44% in the 2007 assessment year.Â
For a house valued at $100,000, only $56,409 of its value is taxable. The city's proposed fiscal year 2022 tax levy â despite being slightly lower than last year â results in an increase from $869 in fiscal year 2021 to $884, an increase of $15.
If they keep the levy rate the same, that increase would be closer to $20 because property value did increase. This would generate the city an additional approximate half-million in revenue, an appealing option to some who are looking for more funding for services, climate action, affordable housing and racial justice programs.
Have a story?
Surely Iâm missing something. Send me a news tip with this form.
Subscribe and share
Sign up for this e-newsletter.
[^^No one likes feeling watchedâŚ]
Zachary Oren Smith writes about government, growth and development for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Reach him at zsmith@press-citizen.com, at 319 -339-7354 or on Twitter via @Zacharyos.