I wrote an article published last weekend on the front page—yes, page, as in paper—of the Sunday Des Moines Register. After some deliberation I accepted a freelance assignment to write an essay on the 175th anniversary of the Register. My basic job—as a journalist who spent 24 years of his career in that newsroom—was to consider the full arc of all that has transpired with Iowa society and Register coverage since 1849 and lend meaning to that history.
I deliberated not because I fear crafting such sweeping narratives; that’s candy to most writers. The tricky part is finding a way to thread the needle on a narrative about why people still should care about quality nonpartisan reporting when so many across the political spectrum are grinding axes against the “mainstream media.”
I’ll let the essay speak for itself: “Des Moines Register at 175: Pursuing rigorous reporting amid technological, societal change.”
To quote one section, I observed that the Register’s founding era and partisan roots of the 19th century …
… was a fight among political factions involving a press that was getting used to its cheaper, more efficient printing to reach the masses. Eventually it became more lucrative for publishers to speak to all the residents in a given metro — of all political persuasions — as a geographically distinct and captive advertising audience.
Then social media and big tech swept in to disrupt curated newspaper front pages with messy mobile feeds — a digital frontier where, for many outlets, aggregating eyeballs along political persuasions and special interests is back in fashion. And in 2024, rapidly evolving artificial intelligence and ever more sophisticated deep fakes threaten to further complicate sorting fact from fiction and undermine trust in legitimate reporting.
Suffice it to say that our modern alarm over an increasingly polarized, partisan media is nothing new. We can decide to repeat history for all the wrong reasons, or we can find ways to support responsible news that prioritizes real-world communities over partisan agendas.
Welcome ‘Shifting Gears’ into our fleet
The Register (1849) predates the first automobile (1886), which is relevant to my next item.
It’s hard to keep up with all the continuously moving pieces of our Iowa Writers Collaborative Roundup. One new voice of note: Register alum Phoebe Wall Howard, who most recently covered the automotive beat for the Detroit Free Press, has launched her new “Shifting Gears” newsletter as part of the collaborative.
To quote Phoebe from her brief introductory post: “This is not a column about cars. This is a column about life. It’s written for people who are NOT gearheads. But gearheads will like it.”
I’m not a gearhead, and I tend to believe the bicycle, not the car, is the most perfect form of transportation. But I’m looking forward to Phoebe’s newsletter.
Phishing for ways to maintain a childlike mind
Billy Joel holds the record for sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York, with a staggering 150 nights since 1978 (as best as I can determine without doing the sort of exhaustive reporting you’d expect from a full-time journalist employed in a thriving newsroom with rigorous standards and a robust copy desk).
Second on the list? Jam band Phish, with a tally of 84 nights in the last 30 years. That includes a “Baker’s Dozen” residency in 2017 of 13 consecutive shows during which the band performed 237 different songs.
There’s no one, correct way to entertain an arena or cultivate a musical career. You can play “Piano Man” over and over and evoke a specific era, or you can aspire to never play the same song exactly the same way twice. Truly, I’ve been delighted by both methods, depending on the situation.
I mention this because I heard an interview this week with Phish frontman Trey Anastasio on the Canadian interview podcast Q with Tom Power. Anastasio was hawking his band’s 16th studio album, “Evolve.” He spoke to the restless creativity that drives his band to not only write new songs but never stop reimagining their back catalog.
“It makes you feel young, or fresh, or—you know, the childlike mind, but not the childish mind, hopefully,” he said.
I’ve been obsessed with that quote all week. Finding more rituals and pursuits to cultivate the childlike mind—not the childish mind—is on my (nonpartisan) agenda.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative roster
The Iowa Writers Collaborative has grown to include more than 50 members and a Letters From Iowans column. Each member is an independent columnist who shares two things in common: They have made a living as writers and are interested in the state of Iowa. Subscribe to the main account for a convenient way to be notified each Sunday about most posts by most members. You can support individual members according to your unique interests by becoming a paid subscriber to any newsletter. We are also proud to be affiliated with Iowa Capital Dispatch, where some of our content is regularly republished.