The quality of a state-wide industry doesn’t usually change so abruptly. But Iowa journalism took a huge hit in a short time last week when it became clear the Iowa Independent would shut down.

Last Wednesday, news broke that that Iowa Independent’s sister sites in Minnesota and Michigan would close. Shortly thereafter, Iowa Independent Editor Lynda Waddington wrote that “The decision, as it was explained to me, is not one of will I stay or will I go, but is centered on the timing of my departure.” That comes less than a year after the organization announced it would close its outlet in New Mexico and its national bureau in D.C.

I spent the summer at the Iowa Independent in 2010, chasing Chet Culver and Terry Branstad and hounding the state’s public universities about open records law (I’d link to some of my work, but it looks as though they’ve begun to dismantle iowaindependent.com so the search function isn’t working very well). The biggest thing I most took away from the Iowa Independent is that there’s no use in redoing other reporters’ work. At a mainstream news organization, the protocol is to call all of your competitor’s sources and get the same quotes they got. At the Iowa Independent, we would just cite the other guys and spend our time coming up with new information.

That allowed the Iowa Indy to push stories forward instead of regurgitating what the Des Moines Register and Cedar Rapids Gazette were writing. The site was generally seen as left-leaning (which was a bit awkward for a registered Republican like myself) and wasn’t classically “objective,” but it was definitely fair and it reported stories the other guys ignored.

Go here for Lynda’s sign-off. And for more history on the organization than I can provide, check out this post by former Indy blogger John Deeth.

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This video shows Herman Cain’s staffers calling questions about sexual harassment “gossip.”

A reporter finally gets Cain to talk about the allegations long enough to say he doesn’t plan to ever answer questions about them: “We are getting back on message. End of story. Back on message. Read all the other accounts. Read all the other accounts where everything has been answered.”
An aide jumps in to say the presidential candidate is out of time. I’ve seen Cain campaign, though, and he’s never out of time. He always has time for another handshake or another question from a reporter…unless the question doesn’t lend itself to a cheap talking point, apparently.

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It’s widely known among politicos and journalists that if you write anything bad about U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, you’ll be viciously rebutted in the comments section. Paulites use their social networks and message boards to pass around links to negative coverage and dozens of people log in to tell the author why he or she is wrong.

Earlier this year at The Daily Iowan, we ran a guest op from a local teacher who criticized Paul for supposedly misunderstanding the Constitution. It quickly earned a spot as our second-highest web traffic article ever and garnered hundreds of comments bashing the author. Some of those comments included the author’s personal information and threats and after talking to the author and my colleagues, I decided to shut down comments.

To be fair, Paulites sometimes swamp pro-Paul pieces with positive points, but bombarding negative coverage seems much more common.

From a web editor’s perspective, negative Paul coverage is great. If favorable coverage might drive slightly above-average traffic and unfavorable coverage will almost definitely draw near-record traffic and if your top priority is page impressions, you’re much more likely to run the anti-Paul article. I don’t live and die by web traffic and I have very little — actually zero — pressure to please our web advertisers so this isn’t part of my thought process, but I don’t doubt it comes into play in other newsrooms.

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I wrote a Daily Iowan column earlier this week about how dubbing front-runners this early in the nomination season is silly. After all, at this point in 2007, Rudy Giuliani and Hilary Clinton were polling far ahead of the rest of the field and Fred Thompson and John Edwards looked like probable runners-up. Covering the horse race, I argue, distracts from issues-based reporting.

I also wrote in the column that the DI doesn’t write about polls. My friend and DI alum Jeff Patch dropped me a line objecting to that policy:

Aren’t there good polls and bad polls? What’s the rationale behind a blanket judgment that all polls have no news value? I understand and respect the disinclination to focus on the horse race aspect of politics, but it also seems that the extreme opposite approach is a disservice to readers because it omits newsworthy information.

I don’t understand why it’s not newsworthy to provide credible reports about snapshots of public opinion relating to issues and, yes, even the horse race. A national GOP nomination poll in summer 2011 doesn’t have much predictive value for determining the 2012 GOP nominee. But wouldn’t a monthly poll of likely GOP caucus-goers in Iowa, including what issues are most important to likely caucus-goers, be worthwhile to share with your readers—especially as it gets closer to caucus-time?

I wrote Patch back explaining my three biggest reasons for avoiding poll coverage:

• Knowing who’s the most popular doesn’t (or shouldn’t) inform anyone’s vote.
• We have limited resources and they’re best fit exploring issues rather than aggregating poll results.
• We’re not going to beat bigger news organizations at poll coverage so we might as well focus elsewhere.

I stand by those points, but Patch makes a good point that if we’re public surrogates rather than gatekeepers of information, we need to disseminate information about polls and let voters decide what to do with that information.

Right now I’m leaning towards maintaining our current informal policy against any horse race coverage whatsoever, but I’d like some more input. Should locally-focused newspapers with young staffers and modest resources spend any time and space on who’s-on-top coverage? Or should we continue to dig into the issues and leave that stuff to the other guys?

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Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich dished up an excellent media critique at this week’s FOX News Republican presidential debate in Ames. Asked a question about campaign staff jumping ship, Gingrich told moderators they were playing “Mickey Mouse games”:

Gingrich: I took seriously Brett [Baier]‘s injunction to put aside the talking points and I wish you would put aside the gotcha questions. … I intend to run on ideas. Congress should come back on Monday. They should repeal the Dodd-Frank bill. They should repeat Sarbanes–Oxley. They should repeal Obamacare. They should institute Lean Six Sigma across the entire federal government — a hard idea for Washington reporters to cover but an important idea because it’s the key to American manufacturing success.

I’d love to see the rest of tonight’s debate asking us about what we would do to lead in America, whose president has failed to lead, instead of playing Mickey Mouse games.

Chris Wallace: Speaker Gingrich, if you think questions about your records are mickey mouse, I’m sorry, i think those are questions many people want to hear answers to and you’re responsible for your record, sir.

I think that there’s too much attention paid by the press corps about the campaign minutia and not enough paid by the press corps about the basic ideas that distinguish us from Barack Obama.

Gingrich is exactly right. As I’ve written before, the huge majority of caucus coverage has dealt with campaign drama and political viability, with embarrassingly little attention paid to issues and candidate’s positions.

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AOL’s local news network is building operations in three new states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Undoubtedly not coincidentally, those states have three of the first presidential nomination contests.

Patch is circulating an employment ad to journalism students that begins, “We’re in desperate need of a bunch of reporters who are in or are willing to move to Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina — but predominantly Iowa.”

A friend of mine recently applied for the local editor spot at the forthcoming West Des Moines bureau. He said the interviewers at the company told him his focus would be primarily on caucus candidates coming through that part of the state.

Patch also plans to launch operations in nine other Iowa cities. None of the sites are West of the Des Moines area. There’s not much population on that half of the state, but it’s the Republican-est part of the state, so it seems odd not to put some reporters on the ground there during a Republican caucus season.

Also, what’s Patch going to do with 10 Iowa bureaus after the presidential season (especially with six outlets concentrated in the Polk-Dallas-Story area)? After the presidential candidates leave in January 2012, I doubt there’s going to be enough to keep a full-time staffer busy.

Update:

Tyler Kingkade passed along a blog post from Gerogetown Patch. Shaun Courtney writes:

In the next few months you will find 33 new primary state sites that will reflect the traditional Patch model of local news, information, and community interaction. There we’ll provide a platform for citizens, candidates, and influencers to discuss local issues and events, including the impact of national and state issues on the local landscape heading into the 2012 election season.

Unlike the merry band of reporters who swarm into primary states in the weeks or days before, Patch reporters will already be a part of the community, offering comprehensive coverage instead of a “horse race” approach to reporting.

Sounds good…Except that Patch is encouraging applicants to relocate to Iowa — how exactly will the new reporters be “part of the community”?

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In just a couple weeks I’ll officially take over as editor-in-chief of The Daily Iowan — a daily newspaper, website, and TV newscast based on the University of Iowa campus. As part of my commitment to transparency, I thought it would be useful to post a draft of my staff handbook here. Any questions, suggestions, or criticisms would be much appreciated. To foster transparency and collaboration, I’d prefer input as a comment to this post, but if you’d prefer, feel free to email me at Sullivan.AB@gmail.com.

My biggest goal with the handbook was to make it short and clear. Section manager are encouraged to develop specific guidelines for their departments, so this handbook is meant to be the big ideas that apply to the whole staff. Much of this is based on the previous manual, so credit to my predecessors who have put that together over several years.


Editorial philosophy: The Daily Iowan is a mutli-faceted media organization which provides accurate coverage of the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and the state of Iowa that fairly reflects current events of local interest.

Daily Iowan staffers will recognize and seek to avoid the echo-chamber effect prevalent among mainstream media outlets — competing outlets providing similar coverage of events and issues. That goal is best met by seeking out new perspectives, providing more background, and establishing the impact of the events and issues we cover. One of The Daily Iowan’s highest priorities must be advancing the public’s collective knowledge. Duplicating coverage from our rivals offers no new information to the public.

Innovative coverage: All reporters are required to produce content for the print edition, the online edition, and the television newscast. Daily Iowan staffers will also use social media and The Daily Iowan’s web outlets to quickly offer information to our community. Employing staffers who can complete multiple tasks is part of the organization’s commitment to expending resources efficiently.

Public affairs coverage: Watchdog coverage of government, elections, and business are The Daily Iowan’s highest priorities. Metro, TV, and Opinions staffers will always operate with this in mind, but Sports, Arts, Photo, and Design staffers will also strive to meet this expectation.

The Daily Iowan’s focus is informing our community on the policies and proposals which effect them, not on determining their political viability. Staffers will avoid “horse race” coverage and instead explore the merits of candidates’ proposals and officials’ policies.

Daily Iowan staffers will recognize the value of intellectual diversity. The staff will make an effort to report ideas and perspectives which fall outside the mainstream paradigm and which challenge tacit philosophical beliefs. Doing so helps foster an environment conducive to the exchange of meaningful ideas.

Staff structure: The editor-in-chief and managing editors are the newsroom’s leadership team. They oversee and offer advice to section editors and staffers. Section editors are granted a high degree of autonomy to make editorial and management decisions for their staffs, but the editor-in-chief and managing editors reserve the right to override a section editor’s decision.

It is vital the newsroom leaders are responsive to their staffers. It is equally important that staffers make themselves available to their superiors and are receptive to direction. Any breach of either of those responsibilities should be reported to the editor-in-chief or managing editors.

The editor-in-chief and managing editors are committed to creating an environment in which all staffers feel comfortable asking questions, offering input, and bringing concerns.

Ethical standards: Staffers should always discuss real, perceived, and potential ethical issues with their superiors. The Daily Iowan uses the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics as a general guideline but not as a manual of operations. In addition, staffers will observe the following rules:

  • Staffers may not offer review of Daily Iowan material prior to publication to anyone not employed by the organization.
  • The use of anonymous sources is rare and must be approved by a section editor as well as a managing editor or editor-in-chief.
  • The Daily Iowan will avoid conflicts of interest — staffers reporting on issues to which they are closely involved. When conflicts cannot be avoided, conflicts will be disclosed to our community. Staffers also will not interview friends, family members, or other sources who present personal conflicts of interest. Staffers will not accept gifts from sources which are not offered to the general public.
  • The Daily Iowan is committed to avoiding factual inaccuracies. If inaccuracies are published, the staffer will write a correction which will be published prominently with the reporter’s name attached.
  • The Daily Iowan has an ethical obligation to being responsive to its community. All reader comments, questions, and concerns will be taken seriously and routed to the appropriate staffer or editor.
  • Work for any other media organization, including internships and freelance work, must be approved by a managing editor or editor-in-chief. Daily Iowan staffers also cannot comment to or be interviewed by other media organizations without prior approval.
  • The Daily Iowan newsroom and any place reporters work are professional environments at all times. Staffers will dress and act accordingly.
  • Staffers are also required to observe any guidelines and rules put in place by their section editors. Managing editors and the editor-in-chief reserve the right to change any handbook guidelines at any time.
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I always laugh a little bit to myself when I cover an event where there are more reporters than attendees. It’s not a rare occurrence in Iowa City — few towns this size have three daily newspapers, a few broadcast outlets, and a handful of relevant bloggers and citizen journalists.

But it’s also important to remember that the real attendance of those tedious planning and zoning commission meetings is equal to the number of people who read the reporters’ stories the next morning.

I caught this exchange between my Gazette colleague Gregg Hennigan and Johnson County Supervisor Janelle Rettig:


6 people in the audience at the IC school bd meeting. 3 are journalists and 3 are district staff http://yfrog.com/h3ebsstljless than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Favorite Retweet Reply


@ghennigan glad you are there so I don’t have to be. I’ll just read in the morning.less than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Favorite Retweet Reply


@JanelleRettig That’s my job. Here’s your story.Hot off the (virtual) presses: http://is.gd/j7vzbvless than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet Reply

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They’re both resistant to the idea that someone with an idea and a computer can reach an audience.

Cyrus had some harsh words for Rebecca Black, the teen singer made famous when her awful music video went viral.

“It should be harder to be an artist. You shouldn’t just be able to put a song on YouTube and go out on tour,” Cyrus told Australia’s Daily Telegraph.

Startlingly similar to the criticism some old school journalists have for citizen journalism.

Just one example from Paul Knox, a journalism professor at Ryerson University: “It’s more efficient to have that happening by a professional, by people who have had some knowledge on how to do it. We don’t all wire our own houses, so we shouldn’t all write our own news.”

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Don’t feel like doing any research to find out who the best presidential prospects are? Well don’t worry — the mainstream media is ready to do the thinking for you!

When Tim Pawlenty announced this week that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee, the media exploded, acting as though Pawlenty’s announcement is a major milestone in the 2012 race.

Unfortunately, those news organizations are a little bit late to the party. All the way back in July of last year, California Republican Fred Karger was the first to form a presidential exploratory committee for 2012. Since then, businessman Herman Cain and former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer have also formed committees.

I can almost understand the media snubbing Karger and Cain — neither of them has ever won an election. But Roemer was a governor and congressman from a moderately sized state. His potential candidacy should be as big of a deal as Pawlenty’s.

On top of that, Pawlenty’s announcement is utterly unsurprising. It has been generally understood for months that Pawlenty is an all-but-official candidate. If Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin, for instance, formed exploratory committees it would be a big deal because neither of them is seen as almost definitely running like Pawlenty is.

So why has the mainstream media made such a big deal out of Pawlenty’s exploratory announcement? Part of it is that the former Minnesota governor has a better public relations operation. He has staffers who know how to drop media bombs — something that Roemer, Karger, and Cain didn’t so much have.

The bigger reason, though, is that political reporters get a big kick out of being the gatekeepers to political legitimacy. They enjoy the power they get from having control over only granting “realistic contender” status to the generic candidates — most of whom are likely to uphold the status quo. It makes the reporter’s job easier — traditional candidates like Pawlenty are easy to research and write about.

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