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The economic pressure killing the news industry is coming for Iowa's paper of record.
No publication has done more to capture the characters, narratives and rhythms of the Iowa caucuses than the Des Moines Register, but the economic pressure that is killing the news industry is coming for Iowa’s paper of record
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THE FRIDAY COVER
Inside the Shrinking Newsroom of the Paper That Shapes the Primaries
The great media disruption comes for the Des Moines Register.
By TIM ALBERTA April 26, 2019
Tony Leys is a newspaperman. He has covered murders. He has worked the copy desk. He has knocked on doors and taken verbal battering. Most reporters evolve to become editors, but Leys, bored behind a desk 20 years ago, did the opposite. After spending much of his career assigning stories—as city editor, state editor, politics editor—he returned to writing them. His beat became health care, and he owned it, reporting with soul-wringing realism on the flaws of the American medical apparatus. He has won numerous awards, including two years ago for reporting on the impact of Medicaid privatization, as told through the eyes of poor, suffering patients, and last year for authoring a stellar package of Sunday print edition stories about mental health.
There will be no such series this year. Not because Leys has lost his job, but because he’s being reassigned—sort of. He’ll continue to cover health-related stories. But for the next 10 months, his priority will be covering presidential politics. Leys is used to this. It happens every four years. Because this is Iowa. Because this is the Des Moines Register.
Since the dawn of the modern nominating process, no single event has done more to winnow the field of aspiring presidents than the Iowa caucuses—and no single publication has done more to capture its characters, narratives and rhythms than the Register. But the scythe of technological change and economic pressure that is killing the news industry, and especially local journalism, is coming for Iowa’s paper of record, too. There are fewer and fewer political gatekeepers like the Register these days: influential publications staffed by reporters who live among the voters they cover, understanding their lifestyles and livelihoods in ways that can’t be mimicked by their peers parachuting in from Washington or New York or Los Angeles.
....
Inside the Shrinking Newsroom of the Paper That Shapes the Primaries
The great media disruption comes for the Des Moines Register.
By TIM ALBERTA April 26, 2019
Tony Leys is a newspaperman. He has covered murders. He has worked the copy desk. He has knocked on doors and taken verbal battering. Most reporters evolve to become editors, but Leys, bored behind a desk 20 years ago, did the opposite. After spending much of his career assigning stories—as city editor, state editor, politics editor—he returned to writing them. His beat became health care, and he owned it, reporting with soul-wringing realism on the flaws of the American medical apparatus. He has won numerous awards, including two years ago for reporting on the impact of Medicaid privatization, as told through the eyes of poor, suffering patients, and last year for authoring a stellar package of Sunday print edition stories about mental health.
There will be no such series this year. Not because Leys has lost his job, but because he’s being reassigned—sort of. He’ll continue to cover health-related stories. But for the next 10 months, his priority will be covering presidential politics. Leys is used to this. It happens every four years. Because this is Iowa. Because this is the Des Moines Register.
Since the dawn of the modern nominating process, no single event has done more to winnow the field of aspiring presidents than the Iowa caucuses—and no single publication has done more to capture its characters, narratives and rhythms than the Register. But the scythe of technological change and economic pressure that is killing the news industry, and especially local journalism, is coming for Iowa’s paper of record, too. There are fewer and fewer political gatekeepers like the Register these days: influential publications staffed by reporters who live among the voters they cover, understanding their lifestyles and livelihoods in ways that can’t be mimicked by their peers parachuting in from Washington or New York or Los Angeles.
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