And We’re Back (For Now)

Iowa Starting Line has some temporary good news to share with our readers — we are restarting the website and publishing for at least the next two months. We acquired some funding to keep Starting Line active for February and March while we work through some bigger decisions and seek out a long-term plan for our news site.

Our reporters Isabella Murray and Claudia Thrane are back to work today, and we’ll be posting again shortly on a regular basis. It probably won’t be like late in the campaign cycle in 2020 or the Iowa Caucus where we were putting out five to ten stories a day, but you’ll still get your fill of unique Iowa politics stories here at Starting Line. I also should have more time to write myself in these weeks — I have an endless collection of thoughts on the election, though I’ll probably focus more on the road ahead.

We are currently planning out what topics to focus on during the next two months — there’s certainly no lack of options right now, but we’d prefer to key in on certain beats. Claudia will resume her work on immigrants and communities of color coverage. I myself largely checked out of following the news the past few weeks as I wrapped up a lot of business and home projects so I could better focus on the work once we got back to it — and because a mental break after six years of nonstop work was definitely needed.

While we’re back to producing content for the time being, I’m having some discussions to figure out if there’s a way to keep this operation sustainable for the longterm — and am always happy to hear ideas or from folks who’d like to support Starting Line. It may all work out, it may not. But we at least have the funding to report out on important Iowa news through the end of March and to continue to contribute to the great collection of journalism done in this state.

I’d also like to thank everyone who reached out with very kind words after we announced our hiatus at the beginning of January. And please accept my apologies for the many of you who I wasn’t able to get back to personally — I just really needed a break for a while.

As always, send us your tips and story ideas. Starting Line is back to work.

by Pat Rynard
Posted 2/1/21

Iowa Starting Line is an independently owned progressive news outlet devoted to providing unique, insightful coverage on Iowa news and politics. We need reader support to continue operating — please donate here. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more coverage.