Oh, do we have things to talk about on Monday regarding journalism and media...
...but first, an announcement re: Rekha Basu
Welcome to our new subscribers!
Good news today:
’s column, “Rekha’s Shouts and Whispers,” is up and running, and she is now a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.
Rekha and I are suspending the podcast we launched with the lofty goal of answering the question: what the hell happened to Iowa? It was a fascinating experiment, but it proved overly complicated and difficult to coordinate, and the question remains elusive. We’ll continue our quest for answers in these respective formats.
For those who have not had the privilege of reading the former Des Moines Register columnist, you are in for a wild ride. She is provocative, thoughtful, and passionate about human rights, social justice, and - let’s say - you would not want to be on her wrong side if you’re an elected official.
In her decades-long career as an opinion writer, she was a change agent who illuminated ‘what was right, what was wrong, and what was up’ in her community.
I’ve known and loved this woman since she joined the newsroom, causing quite a stir in a world where few knew how to pronounce her Indian name. I made it my mission to defy the odds that she would be a short-timer in Iowa and ‘move back to where she came from,’ New York.
Our boys, now men, have grown up together, and I dare say reluctantly, so have we.
Almost.
Please welcome Rekha!
Monday Potluck Zoom Call
On Mondays, I host Julie Gammack’s Potluck, and our upcoming guest is
,Mark was a daily newspaper editor for four decades, most recently at the Chicago Tribune, where he was metro editor in charge of the largest department in the biggest newsroom in the Midwest.
Mark writes Stop the Presses, a free weekly newsletter that examines media and politics. He is the co-author of 10 books, including the upcoming Everybody Needs an Editor, a writing guide in which he served as editor, and Globetrotter: How Abe Saperstein Shook Up the World of Sports, a biography of the Harlem Globetrotters founder that he wrote with his brother Matthew. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.
What does he think about ‘horse race’ journalism, and what is happening to traditional journalism in this relatively new cyber frontier?
You can join the discussion if you subscribe to his column (free or paid). To access the Zoom call, click the button below. We start promptly at noon central time. Participants are invited to join the conversation, which is recorded and uploaded into podcast format.
I didn’t listen to your podcast because I don’t listen to any podcasts. However, the question you asked “What the hell happened to Iowa” is the question I’ve asked myself for the last three years after retiring and moving back to Iowa. I hope you will continue to pursue the answers in your written work.