From personal observations, I have concluded that the most attention the national media gives Iowa and Iowans is during those all-important weeks before the Iowa caucuses. During caucus time, it would not surprise me to see one of my family members, a family pet, neighbors, professors or classmates on the front page of The New York Times standing next to America’s future president.

A photograph of the reigning Iowa Pork Queen on the front page of the June 6 Wall Street Journal, however, was a bit confusing to me. It’s not January, and Iowans aren’t crusading to the caucuses, so why is an Iowan who attends this university on the front page of The Wall Street Journal?

In the photograph that accompanies the front-page story, ISU student and reigning Iowa Pork Queen Cassidy Greiman and her mother Soo Greiman stand in front of a banner that reads, “Pork production is good for Iowa.”

The headline above the photo confesses, “It isn’t easy being Pork Queen if Iowa turns cold shoulder.”

The Wall Street Journal article attributes the decline of agricultural queens of honey, cherries, lambs and melons to the decline of family farms across the United States. According to the article, young women are showing less interest in being agricultural queens of these regionally produced fruits and animals.

How and why did The Wall Street Journal editors decide to place this particular story about the Iowa Pork Queen on page one? What will The Wall Street Journal readers think about the state of Iowa after reading it? More importantly, what stereotypes of the state does this story perpetuate?

These are important questions to ask, because after living in Washington D.C. for two years, I confronted many of the stereotypes that exist about Iowa. When I was living in D.C., I quickly grew weary of the responses I received after the topic of Iowa was broached in conversation. One woman simply laughed in my face when I told her that I was from Iowa. A more common reply was, “Idaho, don’t you grow potatoes out there?”

Idaho, Ohio and Iowa were insignificant enough to be interchangeable to many of my acquaintances from Massachusetts, New Jersey or Connecticut. These acquaintances could not understand how I had lived so many years of my life in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by pigs, cows and rows and rows of crops they could not properly identify. I once saw a T-shirt that read, “The University of Iowa, Ohio City, Idaho,” and I understood the joke.

How are stereotypes of ignorant Midwestern, bib overall wearing, rural country folk born and nurtured? Many stereotypes are thriving because in part to the media. The Wall Street Journal article did not help Iowa’s image much.

The author of the article, Janet Adamy, writes that, “The crown’s tarnish is a sensitive subject in Iowa, the nation’s No. 1 pork-producing state, with about five pigs for each of its 2.9 million residents.”

Adamy goes on to explain that, “Cassidy Greiman grew up [in Iowa] washing barns, castrating pigs and hoping she might one day be the Pork Queen.” Cassidy Greiman herself is quoted as saying, “A lot of your beauty products even have hog in them.”

Imagine what people in New York City, Boston or San Francisco might think about Iowa after they finish reading this article. If these city folks generalize the information in The Wall Street Journal’s article to every man, woman and child living within Iowa’s borders, stereotypes multiply like victims of a fatal epidemic. If Adamy’s figures are correct, pigs outnumber humans five to one in Iowa. I assure you, that is one piece of information that readers will remember.

Dwindling numbers of family owned farms in Iowa is a serious topic, and I have often heard Iowans somberly discussing it; however, the topic of the Iowa Pork Queen’s crown is a fluffy feature story that has the potential to reinforce stereotypes about people who live in this state.