Time for Cedar Rapids to get pushy

Leaders at all levels are failing Cedar Rapids. We need to get tough. We need to get mean. And we need to do it now. I remember after last June’s floods, I got tired of all the e-mails I would receive, both from Iowans and from people outside the state, who found some sort of [...]

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Uncertainty fuels rumors and questions

Rumors and questions are inevitable when a company is restructuring. Sometimes the rumors are quicker and more accurate than news reports. Sometimes they are wishful thinking or fears from friends or critics. Sometimes they are grounded in fact but grow in the retelling. The restructuring of The Gazette is feeding the rumor mill. When I [...]

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Gazette working on transformation

Every reporter or editor should have the experience of dealing with the news media. We are a pushy lot who ask difficult questions, often just the questions you can’t answer. I have spent much of the past week dealing with the news media. The easiest questions came from a television reporter for KWWL, wondering what’s [...]

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So this is the Iowa winter

In my first column as editor of the Minot Daily News in 1991, I asked readers to tell me about Minot. I didn’t want to know that it was cold or friendly. I had already heard that and I wanted to know something deeper. If they had to tell me about the cold or the [...]

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Gazette products offer a new calendar

Calendars are one of the oldest staples of the newspaper business. As proud as we are of our news reporting, photojournalism and columns, one of the most important jobs we do for the community is to help you know what’s going on and decide what to do and where to go. The calendar is a [...]

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Check out the Journalist’s Toolbox

I am glad to see the Journalist’s Toolbox has completed its move from the American Press Institute web site to the Society of Professional Journalists. I helped make this match earlier this year when I was still at API. I heartily recommend it to journalists. It’s well-organized, with topical material on subjects you might report [...]

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Lots left to learn after a year of learning

My Sunday column: As a young adult, I had this misguided notion that someday I would move from learning to knowing. Haven’t reached that day yet. As the calendar turns from one year to the next, many of us savor the year past and wonder what the year ahead might hold. As I look back [...]

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