Darts and Laurels
Democrats killing off the Iowa caucuses is the 12th most important story?
With a nod to the Columbia Journalism Review, which used to do a Darts and Laurels column, here’s an occasional column on the good and not-so-good work by journalists I’ve observed this past week. First, the Darts.
Darts
The 12th most important story of the day?
On Friday, December 2nd, the DNC Rules Committee voted to, for all practical purposes, kill the Iowa caucuses forever and start instead in South Carolina. That evening, the death of the Iowa caucuses was the top story on the news apps of both the New York Times and the Washington Post. After 50 years of Iowa being first, this is a huge national and local story, right? Our local paper, The Des Moines Register surely must have a lead story, multiple sidebars, and reaction from across the state. However, when I looked at the Register’s app Friday evening, the caucus story was the TWELFTH story down the page. How the digital editor on duty could drop the ball on this is beyond me and why a higher-up didn’t look at their own app and perhaps suggest fixing things is difficult to understand.
I’ll continue with the theme of editors not paying attention to their own news apps.
Yesterday’s weather forecast
Saturday, December 3rd, 3:28 pm shows a story on the front page of WHO-TV’s news app with the headline “50+ mph winds hitting Iowa Friday night”. Thanks for warning us all about last night’s high winds! Again, just because it’s Saturday, there’s no excuse to have old stories on your app.
Soccer star cleared to play – in a game the US has already lost
KCCI’s news app, again on Saturday, December 3rd about 3:30 pm has the good news headline “Christian Pulisic cleared to pay for US in World Cub against the Netherlands”. Wonderful news. Only problem is the US lost to the Netherlands about five hours earlier, which is nowhere to be found on the front page of the app. Lesson to be learned? See above.
I’ve heard of slow news days, but…
The print edition of Friday’s Des Moines Register has a grand total of three local stories in the Metro & Iowa section. Can we really call ourselves a metro if there are only three local stories going on?
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, there was some good news to report this week.
Laurels
Glenwood Resource Center investigation
Kudos to the Register and reporter Michaela Ramm for Friday’s excellent story on the consent decree between the US Department of Justice and the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services over how to correct the big mess at the Glenwood Resource Center, a state facility in southwest Iowa that serves residents with severe disabilities. The Register has doggedly investigated Glenwood for several years, documenting a high number of patient deaths, under-staffing and even sexual arousal experiments done on patients. This is what good journalists do – hold accountable officials who are in power over people who are less fortunate.
Caucus coverage kudos
Kudos to KCCI-TV and reporter Amanda Rooker, who was one of the few Iowa-based reporters to travel to Washington for the DNC Rules Committee meeting that ended in the death of the caucuses. Rooker got the quote of the day from Iowa’s delegate to the committee, Scott Brennan, who told her during live coverage Thursday night at 10 pm that he felt like he’d been “kicked in the teeth” when he read President Biden’s letter that night calling for Iowa to be dropped and the presidential selection process to start in South Carolina. Some stories can’t be covered over the phone or Zoom. There’s no substitute for having a reporter on site. Nice work.
Reynolds continues to stiff-arm reporters
Thanks to excellent reporting by Bleeding Heartland’s Laura Belin, we learn that Governor Reynolds hasn’t held a news conference in 20 weeks. Belin reports that Reynolds broke a 2018 campaign promise to meet with reporters weekly. She went radio-silent for weeks prior to her 2018 election, and she did it again – for months – prior to the 2022 election. Now some three weeks after her re-election, she’s still not met with reporters and has only one or two public appearances per week on her schedule. As is their custom, Reynolds’ taxpayer-funded spokesman did not respond to Belin’s inquiries.
A question for readers. Is this Darts and Laurels column something you’d like to read? I’d appreciate some feedback. Please comment below. And, if you notice some particularly good or bad journalism, please send it to me so I can check it out. Thanks!
Dave Busiek on Media is part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Check out some of our other writers:
Yes! Keep it coming, Dave!
Definitely continue darts and laurels. Another CJR feature was “The Lower Case”. Humorous headlines and bloopers from journalism. That would be good too.