Reporting facts as facts is heartening in these times The headline over the Associated Press article in the Des Moines Register Tuesday was straightforward: “Auschwitz letter/is found in wall.” But I was surprised by one graph and even more so by my reaction to it. The story told how a construction crew in Poland found [...]

When the economy slumps, the news media serve readers and viewers with all kinds of tips on how to make one’s money go farther, how to trim spending, where to get the best buys, etc. If your local media are like Iowa’s, most of these hints are just plain common sense — do comparative shopping, [...]

Des Moines–As readers probably know, the seven-member Iowa Supreme Court on Friday found unconstitutional a 1998 state law that defined marriage as a union of man and woman. The unanimous decision said that law violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution. Given that the decision will have social and political ramifications for years [...]

When it comes to rhetoric National Sunshine Week is alive and well. Programs and news articles on freedom of information — understood to mean access to government information and to meetings of public agencies — are flourishing this week. The practice of freedom of information — the time and resources journalists devote to hounding government [...]

Sometimes you need to draw a distinction between “the changing of the guard” and what might be called “the end of the guard.” That’s the case with the announcement that David Yepsen, the political columnist for the Des Moines Register, will leave the paper in April to become director of the Paul Simon Public Policy [...]

As you likely have been told, time and again, Thursday, Feb. 12, marks the bicentennial of the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin — two men who “changed the world forever,” as Smithsonian magazine notes. The National Geographic joins in with a tribute just to Darwin. Let’s focus on Darwin. The February issues of [...]

Joan went shopping today; picked up what is called a “beach coverup,” something to toss on over a swimsuit. The “COMPARE AT” information on the price tag lists the garment’s value at $168. “OUR PRICE,” says Stein Mart, is $59.99. Joan paid $3.96! I look at the price tag, on my desk as I write [...]

Vice Admiral Richard Carmona is conspicuous by his absence in discussion of CNN’s medical expert, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to be the nation’s Surgeon General. That’s a point worth keeping in mind as part of the transition from the administration of President George W. Bush to the widely anticipated presidency of Barack Obama. Carmona, as you [...]

In its most recent wave of Gannett-mandated cuts, the Des Moines Register ended a century-old tradition — one readers most identified with — and gave walking papers to Brian Duffy, one of the few editorial cartoonists in the paper’s 105 years. For more than 100 years the editorial cartoons of Jay (Ding) Darling, Frank Miller [...]

If you buy the argument that victory in the January 2008 Iowa caucuses was significant in getting Sen. Barack Obama elected president — and lots of people do — then it might be logical to argue that in 2012, the Republican caucuses in Iowa could be equally significant for their party’s candidates. Significant, but scary. [...]