Uh oh
...this is a big deal and you might not see it covered elsewhere.
Gannett Cuts Opinion Content
Gannett newspapers (Gatehouse bought Gannett but adopted the Gannett name) are dramatically shrinking their editorial sections. Even political endorsements are being scaled back.
This month, The Des Moines Register did not make an endorsement in the highly contested primary(s) for the U.S. Senate, even though they invited candidates in for an interview.
The Washington Post obtained an internal presentation to Gannett editors that claimed readers don’t want to be told what to think. Read it and weep: https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/06/09/gannett-opinion-pages/?fbclid=IwAR2zThr7XseJAwxpYsMpJhLLa0dnybIX_ERICJRg_DtaQ0E-zvnk2fNZ4bQ
Well, well, well.
I remember a readership survey conducted in the 1980’s when the irascible political reporter James Flansburg wrote a column that regularly appeared in The Register’s editorial pages. Office holders feared Flans. Hell, we all feared Flans. He could ferret out something that stunk even before it began to rot. No one dared do anything untoward for fear of making it in his column.
But his readership scores were the lowest of all other columnists. It did not matter, nor should it have. His impact was substantial because the people who read Flansburg were decision-makers, or as we say now in 2022: influencers.
Those were the days when clicks did not count more than impact. And those were the days when the newspaper was still owned and operated by the Cowles family. And those were the days when newspapers were cash-cows, and not a small part of a large roll-up, swimming in debt with declining revenues.
Those were the days of abundance, not scarcity. Decisions made out of scarcity are often bad.
Under the circumstances, I am a fan of The Registers’ editor, Carol Hunter. Although cutting back on Opinion, she hasn’t gone as far as some of her Gannett peers. She recently invested in hiring Rachelle Chase, to write opinions and a column. We need to support Hunter, if not the corporate decisions made by the owners.
We seem resigned to what’s happening around us, from politics to the news to climate change to toxins in the water. Of all the changes in our midst, I’m not sure we realize how significant editorials have been to the history of the state, nation, and world. So I asked folks who have been intimately involved in writing and producing The Des Moines Register to weigh in. The people below arguably set the Gold Standard for excellence in journalism through the years. And they all responded within 48 hours of being asked for comment.
Below are responses to the cuts in editorial content from a broad timeline of Des Moines Register stewards, ending with the current guardian and keeper of the flame. May it never be extinguished.
Julie
Dennis Ryerson
Because of The Des Moines Register’s editorial pages, the Loess Hills in Western Iowa are protected. Because of The Des Moines Register’s editorial pages, Iowa does not have capital punishment. I could go on and on. Good editorial pages do something the news columns can’t: Pose intelligent solutions, put the fear of god in local politicians who go astray, serve as the focal point of community conversation, and with cartoonists like Ding Darling, Frank Miller, and Brian Duffy, make us think hard about the foibles around us, make us laugh at ourselves and captured what I called “Iowana.” Okay, forget presidential endorsements, but for gawd’s sake, can’t we have strong and — despite what critics claim — well-researched and game-changing (hats off to Pulitzer winner Andie Dominick) community leadership and caring? Nope. Edit pages don’t earn revenue, and being well-staffed with smart people is expensive. What a pity to see Wall Street and a new generation of editors sacrificing guts before the altar of shareholder pocketbooks.
Ryerson added in a follow-up email:
I remember when public officials and business people and others would run over each other to get an audience with the editorial board, wanting support or, to the contrary, pleading to avoid criticism from editorials. And that's the way it should be. Editorial writers, good ones, did their research and the edit board acted as a supreme court, hearing arguments, then coming down with a position that the board felt was in the community's best interests. When the Principal Park was built years ago, the edit board of The Register likened early designs to a suburban strip mall; the design was changed to reflect the curves of Des Moines River bridges; a huge improvement. To be sure, presidential endorsements didn't have a huge impact, but endorsements on local races/issues did have an impact. Letters to the editor gave ordinary people a voice and a chance to let off steam. Columns, be they syndicated, staff-written, or submitted by local people with a special interest or expertise, generated community conversation and contributed to the community good.
It was leadership -- thoughtful and reasoned, and leadership that looked out for the community's interests with the tenacity of a mother cat.
Rather than defending such work, newspaper companies -- not just Gannett -- are jettisoning that leadership that also was an important watchdog over misdeeds and poor decisions. Small wonder that studies have shown that the quality of local decision-making is declining along with the decline of newspapers.
So sad.
Dennis Ryerson
Rox Laird
Rox Laird: [began at the Tribune in 1972 but was on The Register's editorial page staff from 1981 until he retired in 2015.]
First, the best example of an editorial that changed the world was Lauren Soth's editorial inviting Nikita Khrushchev to come to Iowa to see how farming is done in the Midwest. It happened, and Soth won the Pulitzer Prize.
More recently, Andie Dominick won a Pulitzer for her indefatigable editorials pushing for health care reform before Obama got it done.
When the original sponsor of the World Food Prize (founded by Iowa's own Nobel Prize-winner Norman Borlaug) ended its support, the Register made the case in an editorial for moving it to Iowa, and John Ruan jumped on the idea. It is still a major annual event that brings experts worldwide to Des Moines each fall.
Bill Leonard wrote passionately and eloquently about preserving the environment and campaigned tirelessly to get the Loess Hills in western Iowa declared a national park. That almost happened -- and still should.
Gil Cranberg, the greatest Register editorial page editor, built and led an amazing staff that numbered a dozen at one point, including a writer (or maybe two) based in Washington, D.C. He had copy editors, page designers, and a full-time person editing the letters to the editor. Of course, he had the solid support of Publisher David Kruidenier and editor Michael Gartner, who believed deeply in keeping their hands off the editorial page and maintaining a wall of separation between the news and editorial departments.
In those days, there were two editorial pages -- one each day in the Register and one in the Tribune -- that published as many as three daily editorials in each paper. The Register had a daily op-ed page and a four-page Sunday section.
Of course, Donald Kaul was a fixture on the op-ed page three times a week. Rekha Basu still contributes thoughtful and passionate commentary each week.
As for shaping the dialogue in Iowa, I think the Register's and Tribune's political endorsements, from the president down to Des Moines City Council, were among the most important contributions to the state. Candidates' interviews with the Register's editorial board often made state and national news.
In general, the Des Moines Register's editorials fiercely advocated for civil liberties, civil rights, criminal justice, open government, First Amendment freedom, excellent public schools, non-partisan selection of judges, historic preservation, economic development, and economic equality.
Well, I could go on, but you get the idea.
Rox
Randy Evans
Randy Evans: The best-known editorial was Lauren Soth's invitation to Nikita Khrushchev to come to Iowa and see how agriculture can successfully feed people. That led to the Soviet leader's visit to Iowa and Roswell Garst's farm outside Coon Rapids.
Then there was Rox Laird's editorial after General Mills decided to end its sponsorship of the World Food Prize. Rox wrote that Iowa was the best place for the prize to reside. The Iowa Legislature and John Ruan stepped up, and, as they say, the rest is history.
But there were plenty of others, too. The Register's editorial voice and Bob Ray's political leadership led to the resettlement of thousands of Southeast Asia refugees in Iowa. Ken Quinn* tells a story that will bring tears to your eyes of Ray visiting refugee camps after his invitation and after the Register editorial organized the "Iowa Cares" program to gather much-needed assistance for those refugees still stranded back in the camps.
Ray walked into a large tent with an Iowa map pinned to the back canvas wall. That was where the refugees wanted to go.
Arnold Garson
Lauren Soth's editorial would be at the top of my list. His editorial inviting a Soviet farm delegation to visit Iowa was more than the Khruschev visit. The visit represented the first major shift in U.S.-Soviet relations since the beginning of the cold war on the heels of the end of WWII. The cold war lasted another 30 years, but Khruschev’s Iowa visit marked a major turning point.
Michael Gartner's Best Man Lost editorial on the occasion of Dick Clark's loss of his Senate seat to Roger Jepsen deserves mention. The editorial drew an enormous negative response. Maybe the largest negative response to an editorial I saw during my 20 years at The Register. But this was an editorial that, more than any other I remember, set a framework for The Register's liberal agenda through the Gartner-Gannon years. Yes, the newspaper had a long history of being progressive. But this editorial made clear that even as the Reagan era was approaching, The Register would stand its ground as a liberal voice. Years later, Flansburg told me that he thought there were only two liberal newspapers left in America: The Register and The Washington Post. A footnote on the Best Man Lost editorial: One of the points it made was that Clark may have lost the election on the abortion - anti-abortion issue. Jepsen's anti-abortion voice just five years or so into Roe v. Wade was a harbinger for the half-century uphill battle that the anti-abortion forces in America launched, now likely and sadly reaching an awful conclusion.
The Register has won four Pulitzer Prizes for editorial writing stretching over 70 years -- 1938-to-2018. I haven't done the research, but I would be surprised if another newspaper of The Register’s size comes close to this. Several of the DMR winners focused at least broadly on agriculture -- W. W. Waymack in 1938, Forest W. Seymour in 1943, and Soth. The Register's editorial page historically has provided a voice for American farmers. It was a voice that came from the top of the newspaper and was likely equaled by no other institutional voice in America. It ranged from Waymack giving voice to farm tenants to the voice of the Flansburg-led editorial pages during the farm crisis of the 1980s.
It is noteworthy that two other newspapers in Iowa also have won Pulitzer's for editorial writing -- Gartner at the Ames Tribune, of course, and Art Cullen at Storm Lake.
Art Cullen's Pulitizer likely saved his newspaper for another generation. It led to a book and then a documentary film, which, in turn, led at least indirectly to the gift from an anonymous donor that enabled Cullen to not only get out of debt but to buy the competing local newspaper and another weekly in a nearby small town.
Robert Waller also comes to mind in this discussion. I don't recall how Waller and Flansburg first connected. But Waller wrote somewhat regularly, including a major package of stories on a river canoe trip. So, yes, The Register's editorial pages launched Waller's improbable and amazing career as a novelist and awakened America to the charm of covered bridges. Not insignificantly, it also launched a tourism boom for Madison County.
Finally, although it has nothing to do with Iowa, the Christmas season wouldn't be the same without The New York Sun's classic editorial ‘Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus.’ Of course, The Register validated that editorial about a century later via a unique Iowa Poll question, which established that Iowans DO believe in Santa Claus.
Arnie
Michael Gartner
Michael Gartner: Yeah, I read that. How dumb. Certainly, Lauren Soth’s editorial inviting Khrushchev to Iowa had an impact not just on Iowa but on the world. I think the Register — more the Tribune, I think — editorials on Iowa Shares had a huge impact on Iowa (and the world) because I think that without them, Bob Ray and Ken Quinn would have had a much harder time in their noble effort to bring the Southeast Asians to Iowa, which is the greatest thing Bob Ray ever did but which needed the support (political and financial and organizationally) of Iowans throughout the state. I don’t know who wrote the editorials — probably Gil — but they were part of a partnership on that issue that really worked. Maybe Quinn* has a better recollection. Going back a long way, the Register ran a campaign to “get Iowa out of the mud” — to build concrete highways — that was very effective in getting concrete roads built throughout Iowa, again a very important issue that had a major impact on Iowa. (And, of course, the more concrete roads in the state, the easier for the newspaper to deliver its papers throughout the state.) I also think that, in general, Register editorials from Harvey Ingham through Soth to Gil were very important in creating — or keeping alive — the idea that Iowans had a world view, which, of course, influenced everything from ag exports to views on world wars. There are plenty of others, but I can’t think of them offhand.
As an aside, I think a great benefit of editorials is that they often stop stupid or corrupt things from happening. Gil was particularly influential this way, I think, as was Flansburg as a columnist and reporter.
Incidentally, Gil wrote the Best Man Lost editorial, though I believe we collaborated on the headline, which caused all the furor.
I wrote the editorials almost every day for five years at the Ames Tribune, and the one that by far stirred the most praise and outrage, in equal amounts, was just a list of everyone in Story County that had a license to carry a concealed weapon. The headline said simply: “Know Your Neighbor.” I viewed it as a public service.
[Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald said I could copy the list, which was quite long, but he said he’d give me a typed copy of I’d take 15 minutes or so and let him take me on a tour of the jail. He was lobbying the supervisors for money for a new jail and thought it would help if I saw how crappy the jail was. I took the tour. I got the list. I wrote my editorial. Then I wrote an editorial saying Story County needed a new jail, which it did. I was happy. He was happy.
Also, I believe we had a readership survey that showed that the editorial page was the first thing people turned to each day in the Ames Tribune. I suspect the same is true in Storm Lake. A strong editorial page can attract readers as well as give the newspaper a soul.
Cheers, Michael
Carol Hunter
Just a few comments from someone still guiding an editorial page in days of scarcity, as Julie describes the era, and of heightened polarization and skepticism of institutions, including newspaper editorial pages.
I would note a few factors about the company’s recent guidance on editorial pages, delivered by editors, to editors. The guidance was directed specifically at editors of smaller papers, many with just a handful of reporters, who were still trying to put out a daily editorial page despite a shrunken staff. Many of those editorials by necessity weren’t much more than “Please give to the United Way” or “Congrats to this years high school and college graduates,” dashed off at the end of an editor’s 12-hour day — not the deeply researched, sharply written editorials the Register has strived to produce through the decades. The guidance recognized the role of editorials in community leadership. The message wasn’t: Don’t write editorials. It was: When you write them, make them matter. Some of the other guidance, such as reducing the number of letters to the editor, is also tied to a realistic assessment of remaining staff. It takes time to verify and vet letters. Many papers in recent years have too often published misinformation passed on unknowingly or intentionally in the disguise of letters, because overworked editors failed to take enough time to fact-check them.
Some of you might note that Art Cullen in Storm Lake or Michael Gartner when he was Ames Tribune editor also dealt with small staffs, but I would counter that their talent, intellect and devotion to the power of the editorial voice make them pretty rare unicorns.
For Gannett’s larger papers, like the Register, part of the consideration is needing to devote time to building an audience for opinion content beyond the printed page. If our editorial voice is going to remain relevant, we must reach readers with content delivered digitally, because that’s how more people are consuming news and information these days. We must invest time in figuring out how to reach audiences that might never look at a traditional editorial. Should we deliver editorials via video? Organize community discussions via Zoom? Convene experts with differing views on important community issues and try to foster finding common ground?
Specifically for the Register, opinion editor Lucas Grundmeier and I remain committed to the importance of the editorial voice, albeit less frequently than before. As I’ve previously written, while we hope to offer up solutions and not just wag fingers, we will not shrink from calling out abuses of power. And we will be unwavering in our advocacy for civil rights and human dignity.
(Also: I would include among the Register’s most impactful editorials the work of editorial page editors in recent years, including Randy Evans and Lynn Hicks, building on the work of Dennis Ryerson, Richard Doak and others, to advocate for and fiercely defend the rights of gay Iowans. Much credit goes to the Iowa Supreme Court for its unanimous 2009 decision legalizing gay marriage, a ruling that cost three of them their jobs. But you can trace in Iowa Polls the steady, gradual shift in Iowans’ public opinion in favor of gay rights. I have to think the Register’s steady drumbeat of forceful editorials had something to do with that.)
Carol Hunter
From Julie: Thank you all so much for contributing to this column and important discussion, especially Carol Hunter, who is currently at the helm of The Register. She is in charge of several Gannett newspapers under unenviable circumstances and took the time to respond. She needs our support more than ever. IMHO.
*Ken Quinn will be our Monday Zoom Lunch guest on June 20. Paid subscribers will be sent a link to join in the discussion. If you want to participate, click the button below and become a paid subscriber. Proceeds fund scholarships to the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat on September 19, 20, and 21.
Let’s hear from you. What do you think? Don’t be shy.
Such a discouraging decision. If there is really a belief that readers cannot distinguish between editorials and opinion, can they not be told?
And particularly discouraging that letters to the editor will not be published online. That effectively silences the voices of those who want to contribute to a wider audience in a way other than social media.
Opinion writers have access to public discourse and policy that others don’t. And their opinions matter.
Some years back colleagues and I did a tour of editorial boards to explain the harmful consequences of a sex offender law. It was a little in the weeds to understand the damage and most people cannot imagine changing a law in a way that would appear to advantage sex offenders. The boards listened carefully, understood the points, all came out in favor of changing the statute, and it was changed in the next session.
I’ve known Rekha for many years and she is usually the first person I think of when wanting to call out something harmful to survivors of sexual assault. She asks thoughtful questions and is not necessarily in immediate agreement, as she should not be. I cannot imagine losing voices like hers.
I’ve been watching the Jan 6 hearings, and the specials on Watergate, which I am old enough to remember. An independent, and thoughtfully opinionated, press, is a critical defense against those determined to overthrow democracy.
Good column Julie! I remember when growing up and as a young adult what a wonderful paper the Des Moines Register was. We also took the Des Moines Tribune. It is so sad to see the decline. We still get the Register, but mostly for the crosswords and the funnies!! 😜