The Des Moines Register is failing to cover the most important story in central Iowa:
Itself.
Circulation is plummeting. Ownership is changing. Coverage is scattershot. Morale is rock-bottom. Readers, advertisers — and, especially, employees — have no idea what’s going on.
Nor, apparently, do the Register’s leaders.
“Believe me, [publisher Rick Green] and I wish we did have more details to provide to everyone,” Amalie Nash, the new editor and “vice president for audience engagement,” said in a fact-free memo to the staff recently.
[Example: “We are committed to proceeding in a thoughtful, clear-minded manner that takes into account our local mission and what we hear and learn from others. That is non-negotiable.” What does that mean?]
She sent the memo from a Gannett newspaper in North Carolina, “which is giving me a first-hand look at what is unfolding here, which is very valuable, but we don’t yet know whether what’s happening here will happen there or that it will be the same process in Des Moines.”
She added: “We will learn more when we head to corporate next week…and what we may or may not do here.”
So the publisher and the editor are awaiting instructions from “corporate.” “Corporate” is in suburban Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, everyone in Iowa is in the dark — and groping around. Business leaders are wondering if a group could be put together to buy The Register, but no one is stepping forward. Judges and politicians and municipal officials are wondering where the reporters are; two top county officials told Cityview newspaper last week they can’t remember the last time a reporter showed up to cover their doings.
Editors are assuming they are going to lose their jobs; the evolving Gannett template seems to be one without sub-editors — the unsung men and women who shine and polish the stories, chop out the mistakes and write the headlines. Reporters are wondering if their pay will be cut — it appears folks will have to reapply for their own jobs, but the job descriptions might call for less pay.
And everyone is mailing out resumes.
If this were the Iowa Juvenile Home or Polk County or the state Department of Administrative Services, the newspaper would be all over it. But it’s the Register, so nothing is being written. When Gannett announced it was spinning off the newspapers, the Register wrote that story and included a bit of pablum from the publisher. But there was no talk of what actually would, or might, happen.
Where is Clark Kauffman when the readers need him? (Actually, Kauffman, the well-regarded investigative reporter, is getting ready to join the editorial-page staff, where he will take up duties early next month.) Where is the reporting asking questions about the unbelievable drop in circulation, the screwed-up pricing schemes, the cutback in coverage, the stream of layoffs, the goofy web site that one person likens to Hollywood Squares?
It’s one thing to devote hundreds of inches and five front-page stories to the plight of a couple trying to have a baby. It’s another thing to cover the news.
And, these days, the Register is the news.
* * *
Nash’s memo to the staff said, “I’ve seen the stories coming out locally from other sites and the speculation (some of it incredibly false and incomplete) about what will, won’t or has unfolded at The Register. Our newsroom team will be informed first of any strategic initiatives, new approaches or staffing moves — not Michael Gartner, Dave Elbert or the Business Record.”
Question: If “we don’t yet know whether what’s happening here will happen there” and if “Rick and I wish we did have more details to provide to everyone” — if that’s the case, then how do they know that the information in Cityview and the Business Record “is incredibly false and incomplete?”
Just asking.
* * *
“Transparency is essential,” Nash said in her memo.
Oh.
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