THE DES MOINES REGISTER

'''The Des Moines Register''' is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa, in the United States. A separate edition of the ''Register'' is sold throughout much of Iowa.

Contents

History

CIETC Lawsuit

Iowa Student Loan lawsuit

Columnists

Awards

References

External links

History

The first newspaper in Des Moines, the ''Iowa Star,'' was founded in 1849. In 1855 the ''Iowa Citizen'' began publication; it was renamed the ''Iowa State Register'' in 1860. In 1902 the ''Register'' merged with the ''Des Moines Leader'', a descendant of the ''Star'', to become the ''Des Moines Register and Leader''. In 1903, Des Moines banker Gardner Cowles purchased the ''Register and Leader''; the name became ''The Des Moines Register'' in 1915. (Cowles also acquired the ''Des Moines Tribune'' in 1908. The ''Tribune'', which merged with the rival ''Des Moines News'' in 1924 and the ''Des Moines Capital'' in 1927, served as the evening paper for the Des Moines area until it ended publication on September 25, 1982.)
Under the ownership of the Cowles family, the ''Register'' became Iowa's largest and most influential newspaper, eventually adopting the slogan "The Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon." Newspapers were distributed to all four corners of the state by train and later by truck as Iowa's highway system was improving. The ''Register'' employed reporters in cities and towns throughout Iowa, and it covered national and international news stories from an Iowa perspective, even setting up its own news bureau in Washington, D.C. in 1933. During the 1960s, circulation of the ''Register'' peaked at nearly 250,000 for the daily edition and 500,000 for the Sunday edition – more than the population of Des Moines at the time. In 1935 , The Register & Tribune Company founded radio station KRNT-AM, named after the newspapers' nickname, "the R 'n T." In 1955 , the company, renamed Cowles Communications some years earlier, founded Des Moines' third television station, KRNT-TV, which was renamed KCCI after the radio station was sold in 1974 . Cowles eventually acquired other newspapers, radio stations and television stations, but almost all of them were sold to other companies by 1985.
In 1906 the first front-page editorial cartoon, illustrated by Jay Norwood Darling, was published; the tradition of front-page editorial cartoons continues today under Brian Duffy. In 1943 the ''Register'' became the first newspaper to sponsor a statewide opinion poll when it introduced the Iowa Poll, modeled after Iowan George Gallup's national Gallup poll. Sports coverage was increased under sports editor Garner "Sec" Taylor – for whom Sec Taylor Field at Principal Park is named – in the 1920s. For many years the ''Register'' printed its sports sections on peach-colored paper, but that tradition ended for the daily paper in 1981 and for the ''Sunday Register's'' "Big Peach" in 1999. Another ''Register'' tradition – the sponsorship of RAGBRAI – began in 1973 when writer John Karras challenged columnist Donald Kaul to do a border-to-border bicycle ride across Iowa.
In 1985, faced with declining circulation and revenues, the Cowles family sold off its various properties to different owners, with the ''Register'' going to Gannett. In 1990 the ''Register'' began to reduce its coverage of news outside of the Des Moines area by closing most of its Iowa news bureaus and ending carrier distribution to outlying counties. Although an "Iowa Edition" of the ''Register'' is still distributed throughout the state, many of the ''Register's'' news stories and editorials focus on Des Moines and its suburbs.
The ''Register'' opened a new printing and distribution facility on the south side of Des Moines in 2000. The newspaper's offices are located in downtown Des Moines. On June 1, 2005, the ''Register'' launched a weekly tabloid publication, ''Juice'', which features entertainment and lifestyle stories targeted at the 25- to 34-year-old demographic. They also launched dmJuice.com in conjunction to the free weekly publication.
Editorially, the ''Register'' has long supported the Democratic Party. This dates at least to the days of the Cowles' ownership; many family members held high posts in Democratic presidential administrations. The paper was a severe critic of George W. Bush's wireless wiretapping strategy, claiming that in doing so, "President Bush has declared war on the American people."

CIETC Lawsuit

The ''Register'' has been critically covering a scandal in which the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium (CIETC) allegedly misspent $1.2 million dollars of state money, and a subsidiary scandal with regards to CIETC's failing to meet the requirements of Iowa's open meeting laws. The ''Register'' filed suit against CIETC in 2006, claiming it violated open meeting laws when it closed certain meetings to the public. On May 30, 2007, the lawsuit was amended to included twenty-three current and former board members of CIETC as defendants in the suit, including thirteen elected officials.

Iowa Student Loan lawsuit

On August 24, 2007 Iowa Student Loan settled a lawsuit filed by the Des Moines Register, agreeing to provide the paper with nearly all the public documents it had requested beginning in April 2007. Under Iowa's open records law, the Register sought copies of emails in the possession of state employee Greg Nichols, an employee of the Iowa Board of Regents and a member of the board of directors of Iowa Student Loan.
Iowa Student Loan subsequently sought an injunction that would have blocked the Iowa Board of Regents from releasing the emails in question to the newspaper.
The Des Moines Register also sought emails from the Iowa Division of Banking, a state agency, in the possession of Tom Gronstal, also a member of the Iowa Student Loan board of directors. Iowa Student Loan also sought an injunction to prevent the release of those emails.
Iowa Assistant Attorney General Robert Porter said on August 24 that both parties had agreed out-of-court to the release of most of the documents without any redactions.

Columnists

Karen Mracek and Larry Ballard alternate in writing "WorkBytes", a weekly Gen X take on the world of corporations, cubicles, coworkers, computers and cafeterias. Other current ''Register'' columnists include Jane Norman, Rehka Basu, John Carlson, and Marc Hansen; sports columnists Nancy Clark and Sean Keeler; and political columnist David Yepsen. Former columnist Rob Borsellino, who authored the book ''So I'm Talkin' To This Guy...'' (ISBN 1-888223-66-9), died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on May 27, 2006.

Awards

The ''Register'' has won 15 Pulitzer Prizes over the years: [2] [3]

★ 6 for National Reporting: 1954, 1958, 1968, 1976, 1979, and 1985

★ 3 for Editorial Writing: 1938, 1943, and 1956

★ 3 for Editorial Cartooning: 1924, 1943, and 1963

★ 1 for Photography: 1952

★ 1 for Feature Photography: 1987

★ 1 for Public Service: 1991
Most recently, ''Register'' writer Clark Kauffman was one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for his exposure of glaring injustice in the handling of traffic tickets by public officials in Iowa.

References

★ 2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation

★ Friedricks, William B., ''Covering Iowa: The History of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Company, 1849-1985'' (ISBN 0-8138-2620-9). Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 2000.

★ About Gannett: The Des Moines Register

★ Daily and Sunday Newspaper Circulation

★ CIETC scandal's cost vexes lawmakers: Iowans have been asked to repay $1.2 million of federal funding

★ CIETC in violation of publication law: For six months, the beleaguered state agency hasn't published minutes or expense reports, as it must do

★ Des Moines Register articles related to the CIETC scandal

★ Register adds 23 officials in CIETC lawsuit

★ Iowa Student Loan settles suit over document access

External links

★ Des Moines Register web site

★ Juice's web site

★ Iowa Newspaper Association