The Des Moines Register

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The May 3, 2006 front page of The Des Moines Register
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	Gannett Company
Publisher	Mary Stier
Editor	Carolyn Washburn
Founded	1849 (as The Iowa Star)
Headquarters	715 Locust St. Des Moines, IA 50309 United States
Circulation	151,336 Daily 240,912 Sunday

Website: www.desmoinesregister.com

The Des Moines Register is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa, in the United States. A separate edition of the Register is sold throughout much of Iowa. As of March 31, 2006, the Register has a circulation of 151,336 for the daily edition and 240,912 for the Sunday edition.

1 History
2 Columnists
3 Awards
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

The first newspaper in Des Moines, the Iowa Star, was founded in 1849. In 1855 the Iowa Citizen began publication; it was renamed the Iowa State Register in 1860. In 1902 the Register merged with the Des Moines Leader, a descendant of the Star, to become the Des Moines Register and Leader. In 1903, Des Moines banker Gardner Cowles purchased the Register and Leader; the name became The Des Moines Register in 1915. (Cowles also acquired the Des Moines Tribune in 1908. The Tribune, which merged with the rival Des Moines News in 1924 and the Des Moines Capital in 1927, served as the evening paper for the Des Moines area until it ended publication on September 25, 1982.)

Under the ownership of the Cowles family, the Register became Iowa's largest and most influential newspaper, eventually adopting the slogan "The Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon." Newspapers were distributed to all four corners of the state by train and later by truck as Iowa's highway system was improving. The Register employed reporters in cities and towns throughout Iowa, and it covered national and international news stories from an Iowa perspective, even setting up its own news bureau in Washington, D.C. in 1933. During the 1960s, circulation of the Register peaked at nearly 250,000 for the daily edition and 500,000 for the Sunday edition – more than the population of Des Moines at the time. In 1935, The Register & Tribune Company founded radio station KRNT-AM, named after the newspapers' nickname, "the R 'n T." In 1955, the company, renamed Cowles Communications some years earlier, founded Des Moines' third television station, KRNT-TV, which was renamed KCCI after the radio station was sold in 1974. Cowles eventually acquired other newspapers, radio stations and television stations, but almost all of them were sold to other companies by 1985.

In 1906 the first front-page editorial cartoon, illustrated by Jay Norwood Darling, was published; the tradition of front-page editorial cartoons continues today under Brian Duffy. In 1943 the Register became the first newspaper to sponsor a statewide opinion poll when it introduced the Iowa Poll, modeled after the national Gallup poll. Sports coverage was increased under sports editor Garner "Sec" Taylor – for whom Sec Taylor Field at Principal Park is named – in the 1920s. For many years the Register printed its sports sections on peach-colored paper, but that tradition ended for the daily paper in 1981 and for the Sunday Register's "Big Peach" in 1999. Another Register tradition – the sponsorship of RAGBRAI – began in 1973 when writer John Karras challenged columnist Donald Kaul to do a border-to-border bicycle ride across Iowa.

In 1985, faced with declining circulation and revenues, the Cowles family sold off its various properties to different owners, with the Register going to Gannett. In 1990 the Register began to reduce its coverage of news outside of the Des Moines area by closing most of its Iowa news bureaus and ending carrier distribution to outlying counties. Although an "Iowa Edition" of the Register is still distributed throughout the state, many of the Register's news stories and editorials focus on Des Moines and its suburbs.

The Register opened a new printing and distribution facility on the south side of Des Moines in 2000. The newspaper's offices are located in downtown Des Moines. On June 1, 2005, the Register launched a weekly tabloid publication, Juice, which features entertainment and lifestyle stories targeted at the 25- to 34-year-old demographic. They also launched dmJuice.com in conjunction to the free weekly publication.

Editorially, the Register has long supported the Democratic Party. This dates at least to the days of the Cowles' ownership; many family members held high posts in Democratic presidential administrations. The paper was a severe critic of George W. Bush's wireless wiretapping strategy, claiming that in doing so, "President Bush has declared war on the American people."

[edit] Columnists

Dawn Sagario and Lawrence Ballard alternate in writing "WorkBytes", a weekly Gen X take on the world of corporations, cubicles, coworkers, computers and cafeterias. Other current Register columnists include Rehka Basu, John Carlson, and Marc Hansen; sports columnists Nancy Clark and Sean Keeler; and political columnist David Yepsen. Former columnist Rob Borsellino, who authored the book So I'm Talkin' To This Guy... (ISBN 1-888223-66-9), died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on May 27, 2006.

[edit] Awards

The Register has won 15 Pulitzer Prizes over the years: [1] [2]

6 for National Reporting: 1954, 1958, 1968, 1976, 1979, and 1985
3 for Editorial Writing: 1938, 1943, and 1956
3 for Editorial Cartooning: 1924, 1943, and 1963
1 for Photography: 1952
1 for Feature Photography: 1987
1 for Public Service: 1991

Most recently, Register writer Clark Kauffman was one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for his exposure of glaring injustice in the handling of traffic tickets by public officials in Iowa.

[edit] References

Friedricks, William B., Covering Iowa: The History of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Company, 1849-1985 (ISBN 0-8138-2620-9). Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 2000.
About Gannett: The Des Moines Register. Gannett Co., Inc.. Retrieved on March 1, 2007.
Daily and Sunday Newspaper Circulation. Newspapers First (2006-03-31). Retrieved on March 1, 2007.