Audience still being sought for legislative webcasts
DES MOINES — Gov. Terry Branstad’s “Condition of the State” address drew the most eyeballs to the live video feed from the Iowa House of Representatives this year. This was the first year that either legislative chamber went online with live, streaming video. The move, which cost the state $130,000 to install six video cameras, [...]
Changing the world — it’s a work in progress in the news business
A bunch of former newspaper executive editors responded recently to a request by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University to answer this question: What would you change if you were back in charge? Answers ran the gamut. Trust that news still sells papers. Care about the journalism above all else. Focus more on digital delivery [...]
Gazette introducing eighth-graders to journalism with a free summer camp
I have a few things to take care of before moving on after 25 years at the Gazette. One of them is to make one last pitch about the merits of a worthwhile summer writing program we do with Quota International of Cedar Rapids Inc. — the Neighborhood Beat Program. I am writing about the program [...]
The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA) adds a D.C. correspondent
The Gazette has hired a new Washington, D.C., correspondent — J. Taylor Rushing. Rushing is a 22-year reporting veteran whose experience before reporting in Washington as a freelancer and at The Hill newspaper was as the Florida state capital bureau chief for the Florida Times-Union and in reporting gigs in Fort Worth, Texas; Baton Rouge, [...]
Live chats planned to discuss Gazette commenting
We hear often from people who say there is no way they would write a comment after news stories at TheGazette.com because of the negative, personal tone they’d have to endure. Suggest an idea and the personal attack on you can be swift, readers tell us, so they stay out of the conversation. Plus, anything [...]
Responses to reader comments about what they see in The Gazette
A reader sent me a clipping of two-paragraph brief that was inside The Gazette one March day. The brief told about President Obama’s proposed budget, which projects a $1.3 trillion deficit that would drop to $575 billion in 2018 with tax increases and tighter spending that Obama seeks. Why is this not on front page? [...]
E-mail to The Gazette staff about new post at IowaWatch.org
Today (Tues., March 20) I told the newsroom at The Gazette and KCRG-TV9 that I am leaving the company as Gazette editor to become executive director of the non-profit Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, which runs the IowaWatch.org web site that displays original investigative and public affairs reporting. The center also seeks reporting partnerships [...]
Integrity report to shed light on how open Iowa government is
UPDATED MONDAY, MARCH 19: Go here for the State Integrity Investigation story that ran in The Gazette. The IowaWatch.org story is here. * * * The Monday, March 19, copy of The Gazette will report a new national study of the safeguards states have in place to fight corruption in state government. Called the State [...]
Gazette to run ‘Doonesbury’ abortion law comics on Saturday, March 17, Opinion Page
The Saturday, March 17, Gazette opinion page will run the “Doonesbury” comics for March 13-17 that deal with the Texas abortion law sonogram requirements. Accompanying the strips will be a column by The Gazette’s Jennifer Hemmingsen and a guest opinion, with an expectation of letters to the editor to follow UPDATE: A guest column was [...]
The Gazette’s plans for Doonesbury’s controversial comics March 12-17
UPDATE 3/15/12: Some interesting stories have been written during the week about this week’s “Doonesbury” comics. Here are a few links: Garry Trudeau: ‘Doonesbury’ Abortion Furor ‘Good for Business’; Wall Street Journal If ‘Doonesbury’ skipped abortion law controversy, it would be ‘comedy malpractice,’ says cartoonist Gary Trudeau What’s all the fuss about? Doonesbury and the [...]
