RAGBRAI riders making the trek from Sioux City to Storm Lake on July 23, 2023. Love-hate best describes my feelings about RAGBRAI which, in case you didn’t notice, retraced its first route of 50 years ago and rolled through Storm Lake on Sunday.Art Cullen’s Notebook is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The consolidators took advantage of the public -- not only newspapers but also the broadcast media. Some were good. Most were interested in getting the most outlets, stripping them to the bones, and selling the carcasses for cents on the dollar. Many Iowa communities had their local media voices -- print and broadcast. Those days it seems to me are gone, unless there are some young pups with idealism and a willingness to breathe life into the carcasses. Sorry to be in a dark place, but Iowa is a less informed and educated place as a result of what has happened with the consolidators.
Dateline 1957, Grinnell College, Comparative Journalism. This remains one of my favorite and most useful courses. The lessons learned are still valuable in sorting out slant from fact across media. I well remember the earned reputation of the DM Register (& Tribune?) at that time! Colonel McCormick? Not so much.
(...Other fond memories are running the Scarlet & Black copy to the local printer.)
Regarding corporate ownership of the Register: Dare we ask whether the Shakespeare quote "The fault, dear Brutus..." is appropriate?
I'm attaching here a link to the Feb. 1, 1985 article in The New York Times on Gannett's $200 million purchase of the Register. Near the end of the article, these paragraphs are found:
"The sale of the Register and Tribune Company was set in motion in early November by a surprise offer of $112 million by Dow Jones & Company and four individuals, including Michael G. Gartner, the Register and Tribune's president, and Gary G. Gerlach, publisher of The Register. That offer prompted others of up to $156 million, all of which were rejected by the board."
Mr. Gartner worked 14 years at The Wall Street Journal, owned by Dow Jones, before going to the Register.
"Mr. Gartner and Mr. Gerlach, who are on the (Register and Tribune) board of directors, were placed on paid leaves of absence by Mr. (David) Kruidenier (Register and Tribune chairman) shortly after making their offer. Mr. Kruidenier said at today's press conference that there had been no change in their status and that no decision had been made regarding their future status with the company."
Mr. Gartner, as we know, then went to work for Gannett as news executive and then editor of the Gannett-owned Louisville Courier-Journal.
And there's this from a Nov. 13, 1984 New York Times article:
"Mr. Gartner...issued a statement saying that Mr. Kruidenier's action (placing him and Gerlach on leave) was a 'cordial' one intended to remove any conflict-of-interest questions from consideration of the offer.
"Mr. Gartner also said Sunday of himself and Mr. Gerlach: 'We share the goals and principles that we learned from David. If the manner of our approach was wrong, we apologize publicly for that.'
"Despite the words of conciliation, however, a source familiar with the Register company characterized the participation of the two executives in the buyout offer as 'a palace coup' motivated in part by their loss of confidence in Mr. Kruidenier and their concern that the company was vulnerable to a takeover."
In a 2013 article in Cityview magazine on his reminisences of the old Register building at 715 Locust St. in downtown Des Moines, Mr. Gartner wrote: "I killed a great newspaper, The Des Moines Tribune, fought hard in a Pyrrhic victory to keep the Register from being subsumed into the Cowles-family-owned Minneapolis newspaper company."
Aptly put. Mr. Gartner, who went on to become president of NBC News, co-owner of the Ames Tribune (where he won a Pulitzer) and owner of the Iowa Cubs, is a great journalist, and also an astute and very resilient businessman.
Maybe the decline of the Register with the rest of the industry in general was inevitable, but as Art points out here, the fortunes of Register's now locally owned former Cowles sister paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, seem to indicate it ain't necessarily so.
The Feb. 1, 1985 New York Times article also noted that one of the unsuccesssful bids for the Register and Tribune at that time was from Lee Enterprises of Davenport, which has recently cut back print publication of all its Iowa newspapers, except its flagship Quad-City Times, to three days a week, as well as many papers in other states.
As Marty Feldman said in "Young Frankenstein:" "Could be worse. Could be raining..."
Wow! Thanks, Mr. Cullen--in sync with every sentiment except, of course, the appeal to government ownership.
Idea for Iowa: the Salt Lake Tribune, a legacy newspaper dating to the 1870's, is an online daily newspaper serving Utah. Now organized as a non-profit 501(c)3 with five-member board including Paul (Jon, Jr's brother) Huntsman who is its driving force. Staunchly independent with a current critical relationship with the dominant organized religion.
The consolidators took advantage of the public -- not only newspapers but also the broadcast media. Some were good. Most were interested in getting the most outlets, stripping them to the bones, and selling the carcasses for cents on the dollar. Many Iowa communities had their local media voices -- print and broadcast. Those days it seems to me are gone, unless there are some young pups with idealism and a willingness to breathe life into the carcasses. Sorry to be in a dark place, but Iowa is a less informed and educated place as a result of what has happened with the consolidators.
As always, spot on.
Nostalgia? Maybe so. But great idea to put on the table!
Dateline 1957, Grinnell College, Comparative Journalism. This remains one of my favorite and most useful courses. The lessons learned are still valuable in sorting out slant from fact across media. I well remember the earned reputation of the DM Register (& Tribune?) at that time! Colonel McCormick? Not so much.
(...Other fond memories are running the Scarlet & Black copy to the local printer.)
Regarding corporate ownership of the Register: Dare we ask whether the Shakespeare quote "The fault, dear Brutus..." is appropriate?
I'm attaching here a link to the Feb. 1, 1985 article in The New York Times on Gannett's $200 million purchase of the Register. Near the end of the article, these paragraphs are found:
"The sale of the Register and Tribune Company was set in motion in early November by a surprise offer of $112 million by Dow Jones & Company and four individuals, including Michael G. Gartner, the Register and Tribune's president, and Gary G. Gerlach, publisher of The Register. That offer prompted others of up to $156 million, all of which were rejected by the board."
Mr. Gartner worked 14 years at The Wall Street Journal, owned by Dow Jones, before going to the Register.
"Mr. Gartner and Mr. Gerlach, who are on the (Register and Tribune) board of directors, were placed on paid leaves of absence by Mr. (David) Kruidenier (Register and Tribune chairman) shortly after making their offer. Mr. Kruidenier said at today's press conference that there had been no change in their status and that no decision had been made regarding their future status with the company."
Mr. Gartner, as we know, then went to work for Gannett as news executive and then editor of the Gannett-owned Louisville Courier-Journal.
And there's this from a Nov. 13, 1984 New York Times article:
"Mr. Gartner...issued a statement saying that Mr. Kruidenier's action (placing him and Gerlach on leave) was a 'cordial' one intended to remove any conflict-of-interest questions from consideration of the offer.
"Mr. Gartner also said Sunday of himself and Mr. Gerlach: 'We share the goals and principles that we learned from David. If the manner of our approach was wrong, we apologize publicly for that.'
"Despite the words of conciliation, however, a source familiar with the Register company characterized the participation of the two executives in the buyout offer as 'a palace coup' motivated in part by their loss of confidence in Mr. Kruidenier and their concern that the company was vulnerable to a takeover."
In a 2013 article in Cityview magazine on his reminisences of the old Register building at 715 Locust St. in downtown Des Moines, Mr. Gartner wrote: "I killed a great newspaper, The Des Moines Tribune, fought hard in a Pyrrhic victory to keep the Register from being subsumed into the Cowles-family-owned Minneapolis newspaper company."
Aptly put. Mr. Gartner, who went on to become president of NBC News, co-owner of the Ames Tribune (where he won a Pulitzer) and owner of the Iowa Cubs, is a great journalist, and also an astute and very resilient businessman.
Maybe the decline of the Register with the rest of the industry in general was inevitable, but as Art points out here, the fortunes of Register's now locally owned former Cowles sister paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, seem to indicate it ain't necessarily so.
The Feb. 1, 1985 New York Times article also noted that one of the unsuccesssful bids for the Register and Tribune at that time was from Lee Enterprises of Davenport, which has recently cut back print publication of all its Iowa newspapers, except its flagship Quad-City Times, to three days a week, as well as many papers in other states.
As Marty Feldman said in "Young Frankenstein:" "Could be worse. Could be raining..."
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/01/business/des-moines-register-to-be-purchased-by-gannett.html
Wow! Thanks, Mr. Cullen--in sync with every sentiment except, of course, the appeal to government ownership.
Idea for Iowa: the Salt Lake Tribune, a legacy newspaper dating to the 1870's, is an online daily newspaper serving Utah. Now organized as a non-profit 501(c)3 with five-member board including Paul (Jon, Jr's brother) Huntsman who is its driving force. Staunchly independent with a current critical relationship with the dominant organized religion.