Arnold Garson is a semi-retired journalist and executive who worked for 46 years in the newspaper industry, including almost 20 years at The Des Moines Register. He writes the Substack newsletter Second Thoughts, where this article first appeared.

Presidential endorsements in American newspapers had a good run—more than 150 years—and America is the better for it.

Their disappearance, beginning five to ten years ago and mushrooming this year, has been a product of changing times for newspapers and newspaper ownership, and the increasing divisiveness in our society. Though explainable, it is sad and unfortunate. 

It is worth remembering that newspapers got into the endorsement business because the owners and editors knew an informed electorate would be advantageous to the country as well as the newspaper industry.  

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

To illustrate problems with the news coverage of the 2024 presidential campaign, this essay begins with a comparison and ends with a contrast.

First, the comparison:

Much of the news coverage of this year’s presidential race can be likened to stewards on the Titanic arranging the deck chairs in 1912 so passengers could get a better view of icebergs.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

James Madison, a key figure in adopting our Bill of Rights and our fourth president from 1809 to 1817, seemed to foresee the Donald Trump phenomenon and the farce and looming tragedy of the 2024 election.

In 1822, Madison wrote, “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will for ever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own Governours, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Journalists cite Madison’s concerns as an argument for access to government meetings and public records so a “watchdog press” can hold government accountable and also serve as “The Fourth Estate” of government.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

With the September 10 debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump soon upon us, here are three quotes that summarize where we stand in the 2024 presidential election, and also the likely nature of the campaign going forward.

Two quotes have graced Bleeding Heartland posts so often you may be able to recite them by heart.

The first is from presidential candidate Donald Trump in Sioux Center, Iowa, in January 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”

Matthew T. Lee is a lifelong Iowa resident and University of Dubuque graduate who follows local and national politics.

The American media encountered a strange new challenge in the summer of 2015: how to keep up with and hold accountable a public figure who lies at a breathtaking rate? How to fact check, how to cover, how to pierce through the disinformation? 

Most political reporters never figured that out. As time went on, their problem was compounded. That disingenuous public figure took over one of the two major U.S. political parties and became president—and he did so on the back of discrediting the the “fake news media.”

Fast forward to 2024. This man is once again running for president. The political party he usurped is even more under his sway (his daughter-in-law now co-chairs the Republican National Committee). And the media has apparently learned nothing in the ensuing nine years.

The morning after Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, the Cedar Rapids Gazette published a lengthy article about an explosive claim. Republican Party of Iowa state chair Jeff Kaufmann asserted that it was “blatantly antisemitic” for Harris to pass over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

Thanks to the Gazette’s content-sharing arrangement with the Lee Newspaper group, the story inspired by a GOP event in Cedar Rapids reached thousands more readers through the Quad-City Times, Sioux City Journal, Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier, and Mason City Globe Gazette.

The piece was an editorial failure on several levels.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Two comments should continue to haunt us with regard to the 2024 election and the fate of democracy. Donald Trump memorably said while campaigning in Iowa in 2015: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”

And from then CBS executive chair and CEO Les Moonves, in assessing Trump’s 2016 campaign and TV coverage and revenues: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” 

In that vein we may opt for presidential candidates grappling with one another in a cage match, instead of grappling with the issues.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com

I’ve said it before, Governor Kim Reynolds is a smart politician. She won’t tell you the truth, but she’s a smart politician.

I’ve been thinking of this lately because of news stories about a federal judge dismissing a lawsuit that challenged the Iowa governor’s decision to cut off additional pandemic-related unemployment benefits three years ago. (Plaintiffs are appealing that decision.)

Associated Press teletype image, via Wikimedia Commons

Dave Busiek spent 43 years in Iowa radio and TV newsrooms, the last 30 years as news director at KCCI-TV in Des Moines. He writes the Substack newsletter Dave Busiek on Media, where this essay first appeared.

Another brick fell out of the wall of traditional newspaper coverage when Gannett announced it will drop Associated Press coverage next week. Gannett is the nation’s largest chain of local newspapers, including the Des Moines Register and USA Today.

You can read background in several places, like the New York Times story or directly from an Associated Press story. The goal of this column is to discuss what it all means for news consumers. It will impact not only newspaper readers, but also radio news listeners and TV news viewers across the country.

Some Iowa news headlines misrepresented an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on February 27, which resolved a long-running lawsuit over Iowa’s 2021 law banning schools from requiring masks.

“Federal appeals court upholds Iowa law banning school mask mandates,” read the headline on a Cedar Rapids Gazette story, also published in some of the Lee Newspapers.

KCRG-TV’s version (carried by other television stations with the same owner) was titled “Federal appeals court upholds Iowa ban on mask mandates.”

“Appeals court upholds law banning mask mandates in schools,” read the headline on Iowa Capital Dispatch, a website that allows Iowa newspapers to republish its reporting at no charge.

The framing closely tracked written statements from Governor Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird, who hailed the Eighth Circuit decision.

There was just one problem: the appeals court did not “uphold” the law.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

If you’re looking for something to quench your thirst for a measure of hope in our democracy, don’t turn to Iowa caucus news for a figurative drink. That well is polluted—to put it mildly—perhaps poisoned, to take a more worrisome view. Given the nature of the campaigns, it looks like the January 15 Iowa Republican caucuses will only make things worse. We may have to hope for redemption of democracy in the November 2024 election.

What’s at stake: the earth’s mightiest nation may have a major-party presidential nominee facing 91 federal or state criminal charges across five indictments. For Donald Trump’s supporters, that rap sheet is not only not disqualifying—it generates more sympathy for the candidate and boos for media coverage of his baggage.

Zach Spindler-Krage is a reporter for the Scarlet & Black, the student-run newspaper for Grinnell College. He is a third year political science student from Rochester, Minnesota and has written for the Minnesota Reformer, MinnPost, Post Bulletin, and Duluth News Tribune.

An exceptionally conservative presidential candidate. A distinctly liberal college. I probably should have recognized that Vivek Ramaswamy’s event in Grinnell was a recipe for disaster. 

If I had to hypothesize, I would guess Ramaswamy was prepared to capitalize on the politically-charged situation, strategically thinking of ways to engage young people who don’t hesitate to speak out against perceived injustices.

His interactions with students appeared to follow a formula. His goal was to evoke a reaction, often by remaining unemotional and uncaring while discussing important topics to students. Whether it was LGBTQ+ activists, public school supporters, or Ukrainian students, he knew how to solicit visceral responses, carefully documented by campaign staffers recording every interaction from multiple camera angles. With content in hand, he could take to social media, mischaracterizing interactions and ignoring facts.

Fake newspapers designed to drive Illinois voters away from Democratic candidates are being printed at the Des Moines Register’s plant, Gannett staff confirmed to Bleeding Heartland.

At least eleven printed publications, which are part of the conservative network Local Government Information Services (LGIS), have been distributed to Illinois residents since August. Sometimes known as “pink slime” journalism, such publications combine political advocacy with stories resembling neutral coverage of local news or sports. The material has the look and feel of a newspaper, but the content is more like political advertising.

Jem Bartholomew of the Columbia Journalism Review was first to report in early October that Gannett had taken over printing of the LGIS products. The previous publisher, which also owns the suburban Chicago newspaper Daily Herald, canceled its commercial printing contract with LGIS in late September, saying “Many critics cannot or refuse to differentiate between a commercial printing operation” and the Herald’s “editorial mission to be unbiased and fair.”

The Des Moines Register’s executive editor, Carol Hunter, had no comment beyond confirming in a November 4 email that “these are commercial print clients.” She provided a statement from Gannett’s corporate communications staff: “We do not discuss our commercial print clients and have no further comment.”

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

“It could be worse.”

At the start of 2022, friends may have uttered those four words to console or comfort us.

As the midterm elections approach, those four words may be prophetic.

Every election in a democracy —from township to presidency — is threatened by voters who are ill-informed, misinformed, and/or uninformed.

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

Polling is fundamentally broken, and political forecasting is broken as a result. As a result reporting on politics is broken and focuses on minor differences in polling, rather than discussing what the candidates believe and want to accomplish in office.

Some of the biggest misses in 2016 and 2020 came from what were once thought to be gold-standard pollsters. The most accurate pollsters turned out to be firms with right-wing associations like Trafalgar. The 2020 polling misses were not uniform—they were not as large in Nevada or Georgia—and no one is really sure why. There are various theories.

Let’s start with the data.

You have to hand it to Deidre DeJear.

Governor Kim Reynolds has all the advantages of incumbency. She has spent most of the year avoiding unscripted questions and taking credit for projects that President Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress made possible. While the challenger has struggled to get her message in front of voters, Reynolds enjoys free media coverage almost daily and has blanketed the state with (sometimes racist) television commercials for the past six weeks.

The day before the only scheduled debate between the candidates for governor—Reynolds would not agree to the traditional three—the Des Moines Register published a new Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co showing the incumbent ahead by 52 percent to 35 percent among likely voters.

In other words, the odds facing DeJear could hardly be longer.

Nevertheless, the challenger spoke with clarity and confidence throughout the hour-long “Iowa Press” appearance, using facts and personal stories to great effect. She refused to take the bait when Reynolds fell back on divisive talking points about what “they” (Democrats) supposedly want to do.

I hope voters will take the time to watch the whole program, or read the transcript on the Iowa PBS site. Eight exchanges struck me as particularly revealing.

Republican members of the U.S. House and Senate introduced companion bills this week that would ban abortion nationally after 15 weeks, with few exceptions.

The three Republicans representing Iowa in the lower chamber—Ashley Hinson (IA-01), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04)—all co-sponsored the national abortion ban on the day the bill was introduced.

U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst dodged questions about whether they would support their colleague’s bill. And leading Iowa news organizations gave them exactly the coverage they wanted.

Herb Strentz laments how little news media content is geared toward having an informed electorate capable of self-government.

If the politics of the day make you uneasy or concerned with journalism aimed at entertaining, not informing, please join in this therapy session.

In the grand sweep of things, we start when, according to Shakespeare, a fatally wounded Julius Caesar uttered, “Et tu Brute?” and we end in contemporary times, as those upset with accurate reporting scream “fake news.”

Herb Strentz: The essence of copy editing was not catching errors in spelling or grammar, but making the news more understandable.

When writing posts for Bleeding Heartland, I’ve learned that if you don’t have a good way to introduce a topic, you can find someone who does.

This commentary is about how much we’ve lost as many newspapers have all but eliminated copy editors—people who helped reporters provide the answers and clarity you expect to find in news stories, and saved them from publishing work that raised questions and confusion.

How to sum it up? Consider Michael Gartner’s recollection from when he had just begun working at the Wall Street Journal. (This was some fifteen years before he became editor of the Des Moines Register and Tribune; later he was president of NBC News and won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing as an owner and editor of the Ames Tribune.)

He recalled: “The setting is early July 1960 in the newsroom of the Wall Street Journal:

Herb Strentz: Treating obituaries as news cemented ties between the newspaper and the community, and was great training for young reporters.

People may pay from hundreds to thousands of dollars these days to have loved ones’ obituaries published in local newspapers. But few if any ponder the impact “paid obits” have had on the newsroom.

As an old man (83) who grew up in a newsroom that routinely ran an obit as a news story, and published obits on everyone who died in town, I want to share some costs of today’s approach to obituaries.

All three U.S. House Republicans from Iowa voted this week against a bill that would provide a federal guarantee of access to contraception.

But if Iowans encounter any mainstream news coverage of the issue, they may come away with the mistaken impression that GOP Representatives Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks took a stand for contraception access.

The episode illustrates an ongoing problem in the Iowa media landscape: members of Congress have great influence over how their work is covered.

Ira Lacher‘s open letter to Lucas Grundmeier, opinion editor or The Des Moines Register.

Dear Mr. Grundmeier,

Ordinarily, I would submit this to you as a guest opinion essay. But you’ve announced that the Register, once counted among America’s great newspapers, will no longer consider unsolicited opinion pieces. CORRECTION: The newspaper will continue to consider unsolicited guest columns but will “accept far fewer” of them in the print edition.

So I share my views on this blog, which now exists as apparently the sole outlet for members of the Des Moines community wishing to make their opinions known, civilly and responsibly.

In the print edition dated March 13, 2022, you commented about the addition of a new columnist, saying: “I believe this demonstrates the Register’s continued commitment to providing forums for robust discussion of community topics.” My response, to you and the other top executives of the “media company,” which you now call yourself: No. It doesn’t. More about that later.

U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson gives a lot of television interviews. The first-term Republican is comfortable on the air, thanks to her broadcast journalism background. She is guaranteed friendly treatment from conservative networks like Fox News and Newsmax, and Iowa stations usually let her set the agenda with questions like, “What are you most proud of?” or, “You introduced a bill in the House. Just tell me more about that bill and what it does.”

Last week, KWWL’s morning anchor Daniel Winn went beyond pitching softballs to amplifying Hinson’s talking points. More troubling, Winn twice characterized a controversial Biden administration initiative as “crazy.”

After months of planning, journalists announced the creation of the Iowa Capitol Press Association on November 30. The group’s mission “is to support robust coverage of Iowa state government for the benefit of the public and to promote policies that encourage transparency and access” as well as safe working conditions for reporters.

Association president Erin Murphy of Lee Newspapers said in a news release, “Our members have enjoyed a respectful working relationship with our leaders in state government. We look forward to working with them to foster a climate of transparency and accountability, for the benefit of the people of Iowa.”

For now, Republican legislative leaders and their partisan appointees will have the final say on who can participate in the association.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. -promoted by Laura Belin

After almost 60 years of coping with the concept of “objectivity” in journalism, it finally dawned on me that a key problem is a lot of folks are not objective in discussing “objectivity.”

Consider: The New Yorker magazine offered a 2,026-word essay on why the concept of “moral clarity” might replace “objectivity” in assessing press coverage. The Economist magazine followed a week or so afterward with a 1,530 word essay on today’s status of “objectivity.”

But in those 3,500 words — get this — “Fox” or “Fox News” is nowhere to be found.

Ira Lacher: Too many media leaders still don’t seem to understand that by not calling out Trump for who and what he is, they are perpetuating his legitimacy. -promoted by Laura Belin

Why aren’t we being told what is obvious to anyone with a brain: The president of the United States is a lunatic. A dangerous lunatic.

That inescapable fact was brought home on April 23, when the person holding the office that for decades has been revered by hundreds of millions of people speculated that Americans could inject themselves with chemical disinfectant or submit to exposure of heat and light as a way to cure COVID-19.

Some advice from Ira Lacher, who spent two decades working on newspapers. -promoted by Laura Belin

Quit looking at the news!

That seems to be counterintuitive in an era when we are crying out for the latest information. But that’s the point: We’re mostly not getting good information. What we’re getting is a lot of speculation, and that’s driving us nuts, or, as many mental health professionals assert, into anxiety and depression — which makes us even more susceptible to contracting COVID-19.

Andy Johnson to the news media: There are very real threats to our democracy. A delay in reporting Iowa caucus results is not one of them. -promoted by Laura Belin

What a night at the caucuses! I’m proud as heck to be an Iowa Democrat.

We were two of over 400 caucusers where the previous precinct record was about half that. Enthusiasm, intelligent conversation … then high anticipation after the first alignment found Pete Buttigieg in first, followed by Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, with the Joe Biden and Andrew Yang groups not viable.

When Mark Blumenthal called the Iowa caucuses “the pollster’s nightmare,” he could not have imagined the disaster that unfolded on February 1, as the Des Moines Register and CNN prepared to unveil the findings of Selzer & Co’s final Iowa poll before the 2020 caucuses.

Ira Lacher: “To save America and perhaps the world, the media must shuck off its outmoded approach of how to treat the president.” -promoted by Laura Belin

Why does the mainstream media not get it? Why do they continue to publish fake news?

No, not that kind of fake news. The kind that insists that we have a president who is able, competent, and dealing with 12 eggs per dozen.

Gwen Hope examines propaganda and media bias surrounding the El Paso and Dayton shootings as case studies that illuminate a common trend. -promoted by Laura Belin

Nearly a month has passed since the country and world was yet again shaken by news of mass shootings in the United States. The shootings were so chronologically close to each other that our survival instincts want to forever link them in our memories.

Yet the two incidents are much more different than our evolutionary psychology would have us believe. While the wounds have hardly begun healing, these recent tragedies, now twins in our social consciousness, provide perfect case studies into propaganda and the social reaction to these events.

Diane Kolmer initially submitted this letter to the Des Moines Register, which has not published it. -promoted by Laura Belin

On August 18, the Des Moines Sunday Register glorified a criminal who violently assaulted three women, with a five-page cover story detailing his previous experience as a top-rated high school football player.

Dale Alison was managing editor at The Hawk Eye for 27 years before being laid off in 2017, shortly after GateHouse Media bought the Burlington newspaper. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowans should be concerned that Gannett, owner of the newspaper they’re supposed to depend upon, has been swallowed by the smaller, lesser-known GateHouse Media.

Though the new company will adopt the Gannett brand (let’s call it new Gannett, compared to old Gannett), its DNA is certain to be GateHouse through and through. Despite what’s stated in company press releases, the company’s lineage is littered with bankruptcies, antiquated technology and deep staff cuts, particularly on the news side. The old Gannett had its own reputation for cost-cutting, but it was founded by a newspaperman, Frank Gannett, interested in covering his Upstate New York community. GateHouse was created by a Wall Street private equity fund only to make money.

In this essay adapted from his book No Longer Newsworthy: How the Mainstream Media Abandoned the Working Class, Christopher Martin notes that “the whole of the working class is hardly ever presented or imagined by the U.S. news media,” and that Donald Trump benefits from how the media typically cover labor issues. -promoted by Laura Belin

Three weeks after his surprising victory on election day, November 8, 2016, Donald Trump had what might be known one day as the best day of his presidency. And with his swearing-in ceremony still weeks away, he wasn’t officially even president yet.

On November 29, Trump confidently tweeted hints of a dramatic conclusion to reports that he had been in discussion with executives at Carrier Corporation in Indiana to save hundreds of jobs that were scheduled to be exported to a new assembly facility in Mexico: “I will be going to Indiana on Thursday to make a major announcement concerning Carrier A.C. staying in Indianapolis. Great deal for workers!”

That Thursday, December 1, Trump arrived in Indianapolis. The video, which was frequently replayed in TV news stories, shows him among more than twenty men in suits, striding triumphantly through the Carrier furnace assembly floor with his black overcoat and too-long red tie. Trump took the platform in front of a white backdrop dotted with oval blue Carrier logos and announced he was saving a lot of jobs: “Actually the number’s over 1,100 people, which is so great, which is so great.”

Although Trump has been quick to blast the mainstream news media as “fake news” whenever it does not serve his interests, he has greatly benefited from two problematic ways in which the news has recently and historically framed its coverage of the working class. First, the news media usually look at the working class only through the lens of a political news story, not through the lens of a labor or workplace story. Second, the news media typically consider the “working class” not in its entirety, but just in the stereotypical white male form, which nicely serves the purposes of divisive politicians who seek to exploit this image and divide working-class people on every other dimension: race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and citizenship.

Some incumbency advantages in campaigns are inevitable, like higher name ID and greater ability to raise money from interest groups.

Others are undeserved.

Bleeding Heartland has noted before that Iowa members of Congress, especially U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, greatly influence media coverage of their activities. If these elected officials don’t brag about it in a news release or conference call with reporters, Iowans are unlikely ever to hear that it happened. As a result, stories that would shine an unflattering light on the senators largely stay out of the news.

Articles about campaign fundraising shouldn’t suffer from the same dynamic. Journalists can easily do original reporting without being on the ground in Washington. Anyone can access filings on the Federal Election Commission website and convey the key figures to readers.

Yet too often, what Iowans learn about political fundraising is largely written by campaign strategists.

For many years, the Des Moines Register regularly published dispatches from Washington on what the Iowans in Congress were doing. Coverage deteriorated after the newspaper laid off Jane Norman in 2008. To my knowledge, no Iowa-based news organization has had a correspondent in the nation’s capital since the Register let Philip Brasher go in 2011.

In a wide-ranging review of the Register’s political reporting four years ago, I commented, “If a member of Congress didn’t brag about it in a press release, conference call, or social media post, the Register’s readers are not likely ever to learn that it happened.”

The newspaper’s recent coverage of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley illustrates that problem.

“I personally love it when he tweets,” said Bloomberg correspondent Jennifer Jacobs of President Donald Trump during a recent appearance in Des Moines, “just because his Twitter is an uncurtained window into his mind, and we always want to know what’s on his mind, unfiltered from his staff.”

Jacobs opened a window onto her own mindset as she told a room full of journalists “what it’s like to get good information out of the Trump White House.”

Attribution such as “first reported by” is an appropriate way for journalists to acknowledge another media outlet’s role in breaking news. The Center for Investigative Reporting’s Ethics Guide states,

Any information taken from other published or broadcast sources should receive credit within the body of the story. Reporters and editors also should be aware of previously published/broadcast work on the same subject and give those news organizations credit if they have broken new ground or published exclusive material before any others.

One of Iowa’s leading newspapers doesn’t hold its reporters to the same standard.

Craig Robinson is among the go-to Republicans for national press covering the Iowa caucuses. His insights are partly informed by a wealth of experience: as a staffer on Steve Forbes’ presidential campaign before the 2000 caucuses, as political director of the state GOP during the year before the 2008 caucuses, and as publisher of The Iowa Republican blog since 2009.

One salient fact rarely, if ever, makes it into the news stories quoting Robinson about prospects for Republican contenders in Iowa: his company Global Intermediate has been paid to do direct mail for or against certain candidates in the field.

When politicians lie, opponents often echo longtime Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous words: You’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.

Politicians can get away with deception, however, when journalists present conflicting facts as opposing viewpoints in a “he said/she said” frame. So it was when Governor Terry Branstad recently touted phony job creation numbers, and reputable Iowa journalists hid behind “critics say” rather than acknowledging reality: no serious economist would recognize those statistics.

And so it was when the Des Moines Register again covered the Iowa Department of Revenue’s unprecedented attempt to rewrite tax code through the rule-making process. Statehouse reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel’s attention to the topic is welcome. The rule change has been an under-reported Iowa politics story this fall, even though it could have a huge impact on the state budget in coming years. Unfortunately, as was the case in earlier articles for the Register on the same controversy, Pfannenstiel avoided stating some important truths about the Branstad administration’s efforts, attributing such observations to “others” including “Democratic lawmakers.”

The journalist’s reflex to appear impartial by presenting factual statements as partisan opinions is part of what media critic Jay Rosen has called the View from Nowhere.