Holiday party cancelled - plus two quick mentions

Apologies for the second post today but wanted everyone aware that tonight’s Iowa Writers’ Collaborative holiday party at the Harkin Institute has been cancelled due to the expected icy winter weather. It’s a tough call, but Julie Gammack has made the call out of an abundance of caution for our readers. She’s looking for a new date in the spring. In the words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues:

Meantime, two other quick mentions:

Register editor to retire

Des Moines Register executive editor Carol Hunter has announced her retirement. Here’s a link to the story in today’s Register.

I had the pleasure of working with Hunter on a number of occasions, particularly in planning political debates jointly sponsored by my former station, KCCI-TV and the Register. She’s a soft-spoken, competent news manager who clearly cares deeply about journalism. Every newspaper editor in the country has struggled with challenging headwinds and has had to make difficult compromises to align newsroom expenses with dwindling revenues.

Hunter has a lot of institutional knowledge - and Iowa knowledge - that will be hard to replace. She will be missed.

Brenna Bird does a good thing

This column has taken well-deserved shots at Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird but I actually agree with something she did yesterday.

I’ve criticized her for parading off to New York City to take cheap shots at the criminal justice system during Trump’s hush-money trial. I criticized her in a column earlier today for pressuring Senator Joni Ernst to support Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary. She has joined every lawsuit possible against the Biden administration while seemingly paying less attention to her duties in Iowa.

Yesterday, Bird took on an outrageous decision by the Iowa Supreme Court earlier this year that forces child abuse and sexual assault victims to confront their alleged abusers in court face-to-face. The court overturned a conviction of a man when two kids he was charged with abusing testified from the trial judge’s chamber over closed-circuit television. The defendant could clearly see and hear the kids. His lawyer was in the judge’s chambers to cross-examine the child witnesses. But in a 4-3 ruling, the Iowa Supreme Court said the abused kids have to testify right in the same room with the guy who allegedly abused them.

The solution Bird announced yesterday is not a quick fix for this awful court decision. She proposed an amendment to the Iowa constitution, which requires passage by two successive two-year sessions of the Iowa legislature and then goes to a vote of Iowans. Constitutional amendments are designed to be slow and difficult, so it could be years before the court’s insensitive ruling is invalidated.

Given Bird’s track record so far, there will be many more opportunities to criticize her but when praise is due, she should get it. Kudos to Attorney General Bird for doing the right thing for Iowa kids.