Section 1: Q: We're with Pat Jensen at her home at -
what is your home address, Pat?
A: 13 Lakeview Drive, Northeast.
Q: Today is February 19, 2000, and we're
talking about the time that you were with the
Register and the Tribune. Pat, maybe you
could just describe some of the process of
you coming from the University of Iowa, where
you graduated in 1955, to your hiring at the
Des Moines Register, because first of all,
you were hired as not the editor, but you
were a writer and reporter in the women's
section?
A: That's right.
Q: What was it? You were sending out
resumes?
A: No, I have to back up and tell you a
little story, actually. When we were in our
senior year at the University in the School
of Journalism, a whole group of people - as I
recall, from the Daily Iowan, had a field
trip to the Register. We were divided into
different groups and met with different
editors and so forth. I was in a group of
three or four people when we met with Frank
Eyerly. And in the course of him talking to
us and our asking questions and so forth, he
held up the morning newspaper. As I recall,
we were with people who had been working on
the Rim, you know, and doing the editing and
so forth. And I remember he held up the
Register and he said, "Would you have played
this story the same way we did this morning?"
Everybody else kind of looked and yeah, yes,
they thought so. I hadn't spoken and he
said, "How about you?" I said, "No, I
wouldn't have. I would have played number
one and number two differently. I would have
played the number two" - you know, you always
do the banner and this was the main story and
the second story was on the left hand side.
I said I would have reversed them. And he
smiled and said, "So would I!" So I thought,
oh, okay, that's interesting to know. But
just in the way of background.
Q: At the time though, you had been at the
DI?
A: Yes, right. In fact, it may have been
the time we were still editing the DI or it
may have been the second semester. I'm not
sure.
Q: What was your position at the DI?
A: News editor. I was news editor, which
was like second in command, kind of thing,
and oversaw mostly the work - all of the
editing and the layout and the publishing,
when it went to bed and that kind of thing.
So when Dwight went to work for the Register
-
Q: Dwight is your husband?
A: Dwight is my husband, yes. In April of
1956, I was not working. We came from the
university and he left graduate school for us
to go to work. I was looking for work and I
had also, as a minor, gotten a degree in
education, a minor in education. So, I
thought well, maybe I can get a teaching job
more readily because the Register is the only
place to work here.
I actually had an interview lined up with the
Carlisle School District and I got a call the
day before my interview and it was Frank
Eyerly's secretary. She said, "Mr. Eyerly
wonders if you could come in tomorrow. He'd
like to talk to you." I thought, hmmm. So I
put off my school interview until the next
week, went into see Mr. Eyerly, sat down and
he offered me a job. I had not talked to him
about a job at the Register at all at that
point. But I think - the reason I told you
the other story - he knew me and he hired
Dwight. But I think he remembered me and I
think that, because it struck him as a
positive. So anyway, he offered me the job
and I started in May of 1956.
Q: He wasn't your immediate supervisor,
though?
A: No.
Q: Who was that?
A: Russ Schoch, as I recall, was his name.
It was in the women's department and I
remember at the time I always thought, I will
never go to work in a women's department. I
want to be a reporter! A real journalist.
It's a goal, certainly more than the women's
department, but the reality was, and there we
were. It was the only newspaper in town and
I much preferred doing a newspaper job, even
if it wasn't the one I had, than going and
doing something else. So I went to the
women's department. --
Section 2: Q: What were your duties?
A: Initially, I did some editing of - in
those days, they called it "society writing."
I did some editing of that but I also did
some feature work. I would go out and do -
I'm trying to remember some stories. I did
one on Women in the Civil Air Patrol and
Dizzy Dean came to town and I went and
interviewed his wife and that kind of feature
sorts of writing.
Q: But everything you wrote, then, ended
up in the women's section?
A: Yes. It was all in the women's
section. I did that for - let's see, I went
to work in May, I think it was about November
when the woman who was editor of the Sunday
women's section left and then I moved into
that position. At that time, the Register -
well, they had a society page or women's page
in the Register and in the Tribune, as I
recall, daily. And then we had a Sunday
section which was 8-12 pages. The other
thing I did when I was writing was wedding,
engagement announcements, all that sort of
thing. Then, when I moved to do the editing
of the Sunday section, then essentially,
that's what I did. All of the editing.
Other people would write and I would do the
editing and the layout and the production
work for that.
Q: For younger members of our audience,
what is society reporting?
A: Well, at that time, there would be a
lot of stories on engagements and weddings
and they weren't just what people handed in,
necessarily, although you took that, too.
But there were certain families who were
considered - well, I guess you'd say society.
And they would get maybe better coverage and
you'd try and get more information. There
were also columns and there were several
people who wrote columns and it would be "The
Goings On." Some of it you will still see in
papers today, it's just not called the same
thing. Special parties or affairs or
fundraisers or civic kinds of activities or
the theatre and so on. We had one column
that was from Washington, D.C., written by
Elizabeth "Beanie" Zwart. That was one we
didn't edit. But she lived in Washington and
she would report back on the people, the Iowa
people, usually, connected with the
congressional delegations.
Q: Why wouldn't you edit that?
A: She didn't want you to edit. She
didn't like being edited. I learned that you
had to be careful with her stuff but
initially, I just thought if it was bad, I
edited it. And she called me a couple times
from Washington and said, "You're not
supposed to change my copy."
Q: Was that a condition of you taking the
column?
A: No, I think it was because she was kind
of a favored columnist and some kind of
arrangement she had with, I suppose, with
Eyerly, because at the time, I thought, now
wait a minute! As I recall, I talked to Russ
and he said, no, you just leave it.
Q: After the fact or before you had edited
it?
A: I think the first time I actually
edited it and ran it and that's when she
called me. Because I had changed some
things.
Q: Is that when Russ talked to you? Or
she was just calling you directly and saying
-
A: She called me directly. She called me
directly and told me. And I don't remember
all the particulars, but I remember at the
time thinking, nobody is so good that they
can't be edited!
Q: Society being the well-to-do folks, in
your coverage area, did you ever have a
problem with that? Did you ever think back,
saying, we're excluding people or these
people are getting coverage because of the
amount of money they make or because of their
standing in the society?
A: I don't know that I did. I'm trying to
remember. Some of it, I remember thinking
some of them were a little phony, you know.
I had more problems, and certainly in
retrospect, with how the women at the
newspaper were treated than I did with that.
I mean, that was a different situation. But
it's an interesting question, because I don't
remember that I did react that way,
particularly.
Q: Because part of the way you recorded
this was you went to these benefits and galas
and things.
A: Not really. Not really very much. We
had one woman who was kind of - I won't call
it a gossip column - or you might call it a
gossip column. She usually put that sort of
thing in. With the fancier weddings and
things, we didn't go any of those. We just
got more information about them. I really
can't remember how we made the decisions as
to how much you would run, but some of them
got larger pictures, you know, and so forth.
But I honestly don't remember just what it
was that determined that. --
Section 3: Q: How did you get your information? Was
it from people who had attended these things?
A: Well, or just when we got information
from the families, we would ask more
questions and get more out of them to put in,
into the detail of the kind of wedding cake
or the kind of flowers. I never did like
that sort of thing, honestly, because I
thought it wasn't particularly necessary and
I preferred doing what we called the feature
stories. We did cooking stories off and on.
We had Jean Tallman, who was the food editor.
She did all of our editing in that field and
we ran that kind of thing and stories about
children. But the "society" stuff was there,
too, to a greater degree than it is now.
Q: But there was a heck of a readership
for that, even though you didn't particularly
like all of that.
A: Yes, there was.
Q: Did you get feedback, positive or
negative, from the families? Or just readers
in general?
A: Gosh, it's been such a long time. I
don't remember getting any negative feedback.
I'm sure we must have gotten some. But in
retrospect, I think we did a pretty good job
of what we did. I don't recall that we had a
lot of negative feedback.
Q: Talk a little bit about those human
interest feature stories that you said you
enjoyed doing. What were some of your more
memorable stories? And what was the process
of the assignment, the story selection and
you going out and actually covering some of
this stuff.
A: I'm trying to remember because there
weren't that many that I did because I only
did the writing for about six months or so.
And as I recall, Russ made the assignments.
I remember the Dizzy Dean thing because,
growing up, I knew the name Dizzy Dean. I
knew who he was. I don't remember why he and
his wife were in town, but I went to the
hotel, to their suite, and went in and
interviewed. This was a big deal to me
because I hadn't done these kinds of people
before. I remember he was just a real old
shoe, a real old shoe. His wife was very
nice. I enjoyed doing that. I should have
looked in my files. It's been so many years.
Q: Was it a kind of profile?
A: Yes, it was just, 'what's it like,
being the wife of a famous man' kind of
story, as well as, 'why are you here' kind of
thing. I honestly can't remember other
stories. I do remember the one on the Civil
Air Patrol because I was impressed with these
young women who were flying. And because
when I was kid during World War II, I wanted
to fly. So, I remember thinking, "Gee, these
are neat ladies."
Q: Where was that? Where did you go to
get that story? Did the story come to you or
you went?
A: No, I did, because I remember a
photographer going along and getting some
pictures. I don't remember if Fort Des
Moines was still operating then and there was
still a unit of some kind there. Boy, way
back in the memory. I just don't recall,
Brian. --
Section 4: Q: As for your hiring, what did they hire
you at? What was your pay?
A: Sixty-five dollars a week.
Q: And did it increase later when you
became editor?
A: What they did at that time was, if you
were satisfactory, you got a $5 a week raise.
This is one thing that I didn't care for.
On the news side, I think most of the men,
including Dwight, got a $5 raise after three
months. In the women's department, we got it
after six months. So, after six months you
got $5 and in other six months, you got $5
raise and that was your - you were doing
better and that was it. A little side story.
Jean Tallman, who was the food editor, her
husband was an editor on the Tribune, in
fact, an assistant news editor or something,
and I remember over coffee one day her
talking about how decisions on how women were
paid where, if there were couples, and there
were the Brysons, the Tallmans, us - I can't
remember who else, but there were several
couples - that Frank Eyerly looked at the
total income of what the family made and that
the men certainly would make more than the
women regardless of the positions. I had not
faced that kind of thing before, so it was
kind of surprising. But then, as I watched
it evolve, I was aware that indeed, that's
the way it went.
Q: Then you had an opinion about that?
A: Yes, I did! You know, it was not as
unusual. You know, we didn't have equal pay
or anything. I think that women were more
inclined to accept the discrimination. I
would not today, not in any stretch of the
imagination. But things were very different
in the sixties and before that.
Q: How about working conditions? How were
they for you or other women?
A: I think the conditions were pretty
good. I think that - I'm trying to remember
how many women - most of the women were in
the news department. There were several
female reporters, but not many. In fact, I
remember -
Q: General assignment?
A: General assignment reporters, yes.
Lula Mae Coe was, I believe, in the Tribune.
There was a younger woman, Julie Zelenka, I
think, was her last name, and I may be wrong.
She was a general assignment reporter and
Lula Mae did, as I recall, more feature kinds
of things. But I don't recall that there
were any women in editor's positions at that
time or on the Rim - any of that sort of
thing. Most of us were in the women's
department. So there were a lot more men. I
don't remember specific, any kind of what you
would call sexual harassment and that kind of
thing. But I might not have been sensitized
to it at that time, either.
Generally, I think the work environment was a
good one. I worked - I had Sundays and
Mondays off. I worked Monday through
Saturday because of putting the Sunday
edition out. I do remember on Saturdays,
when the Sunday section would be finished and
I would sign off on the final proof, of going
down one or more times to the composing room
and the union guys up there not wanting me
down there. But the men that I worked
directly with said it was all right. I don't
know if there was a rule or if it was because
I was a woman or whatever it was, but they
didn't want me to come down there and it was
on like a deadline situation or something.
But generally, I think that the work
environment was rather pleasant. A lot of
smoke, retrospect. (Laughing) A lot of
smoke! Everybody smoked in those days.
Q: As for the women in the newsroom, do
you know hearsay or from what they told you,
how much they were getting paid? Was it more
than what you were getting?
A: I don't know. No, I don't know because
I did not talk to them about that. I think
that maybe some of us within the women's
department, talked about it and we were all
in the same kind of range and we all thought
that we deserved more, of course. But I
don't remember ever talking to the others
about that.
Q: Did you socialize with the women news
reporters?
A: Yes. Overall, I think there was quite
a lot of socialization in the news end of
things. Of course, with Dwight being a
reporter on the Register, we knew people from
the Register, the Tribune, some of them from
the university, contacts. There was, I
think, a fair amount of socialization. In
fact, probably most of our social activity
was with those people, initially, when we
moved to Des Moines. I had grown up in Des
Moines, but really didn't go back to those
friends as much as socialized with the news
people. --
Section 5: Q: I'm going to ask you to take us back
here to the newsroom. Can you describe the
physical configuration of what it looked
like? The newsroom, editorial department,
women's department. Was it separate? What
did it look like at that time?
A: We were all in one huge, huge room or
floor. From the south, the old morgue, or
library was at the front, which would have
been the east side. The editorial writers
would have been at the front of the building
on the west side. The sports department,
then, was kind of in between those. The
women's department was next to the sports
department. We didn't have cubicles or
anything like you have now. We had desks and
file cabinets and so forth and you kind of
cordoned off, but still, you were open to
everybody. The women's department was
directly outside of Frank Eyerly and Ken
MacDonald's offices. In fact, I remember my
desk looked at right at where their
secretaries were. They were along what would
have been 8th Street on the west side, with a
secretary outside of each office as I recall.
Then, as you moved north into the room, at
that time, as I recall, the Tribune and
Register people were kind of clustered. The
Tribune people closer to us and to Eyerly's
office and then the Register people beyond
them toward the north. The Rim, where the
copy editing was done, was generally in the
center of the room. And I'm trying to
remember if there was something more along
the east side and I can't recall. I just
can't recall for sure, but I can visualize
seeing certain people working at certain
places. The city editor's desks were kind of
along the - as you looked to the north from
the women's department, the Tribune city
editors, the Register's city editors and then
the Rim, as I recall. I think there were
some photographers, some layout people along
that north wall. Gosh, I hadn't thought
about it for so long. I think maybe they
were, but I can't remember for sure where the
photographers were. They were over there.
They probably told you where they were.
Q: Okay, that's fascinating. You can kind
of get a picture of what this whole place
looked like. And there are several floors in
the Register building, too.
A: Yes. This was the fourth floor we were
on. Of course, it was the manual
typewriters, carried the copy over. Nothing
was not only computerized, we didn't have
electric typewriters, so all the editing was
done by hand - in fact, I still like it best
- a sheet of paper with a pencil - so there
was a lot of racket. And at certain times,
because the deadlines were different for the
Tribune and the Register, the Tribune people
would be in there writing in the morning and
then be gone by mid-afternoon. The Register
folks would come in later and be still going.
We had a situation where I worked, as I said,
Monday through Saturday. Dwight worked - and
I worked like 8 to 5, generally, except
sometimes it would be a little later. Dwight
worked Monday through Friday but he worked
2:00 p.m. to midnight. And we had one child,
so we had a situation like a lot of people do
today, where he'd be with her in the morning
and then he would take her to my folks and
she would stay with my mother in the
afternoon, then I would pick her up and have
her in the evening and this kind of thing.
So, the hours were different, but it wasn't
that long that I worked before we had our
second child and I stopped working at that
time.
Q: What did they do on the other floors?
I don't know if the terms are right - where
was the copy, the layout and pasting?
A: The advertising, I think, was on one
floor. Hmm, actually, all the big presses at
the Register were on the ground floor. You
could look in off the street and I think they
actually went up to the second floor. Then -
I can't remember for sure if advertising was
on the third - where people would go in and
do their ads. They did the layout. I
honestly can't recall. I can tell you what
the hallway looked like where we went into
work because you got off the elevator and it
curved around and they had all those old,
they had framed pictures of some of the major
stories of the century, framed from the
Register coverage of them. Because that's
the way we went in all the time.
Q: When you wrote a piece of copy, what
happened to it? Did it just go to the Rim?
A: It did not. We handled all of that
ourselves. When a story would be written -
for instance, if I would write a story, and
then give it to Norma if it was for the
Sunday paper.
Q: Who is Norma?
A: Norma Matthews was the woman who had
been the Sunday editor, Sunday women's
section editor before I was. Then it went
directly down to the typeset, as I recall.
Then we would get the galley proofs back up
to read and we did the reading of the galley
proofs and then those go down and you'd do
the layout. Of course, the layout - you'd do
all the layout design by hand. Then it would
go down and then you'd get the page proofs,
the final page proofs, and that was the way
we handled it.
I think that we had - I'm trying to remember
if we had chutes that we sent the copy down.
Yes! I can't remember for sure now. Or if
we had copy people that actually took it.
I'm just drawing a blank as to how we did it.
I remember sitting and editing, but I don't
remember for sure. But we did not go through
the main Rim for the news stuff. Ours was
all separate.
Q: Even for the features?
A: Yes. --
Section 6: Q: Did you ever have a desire to write
hard news? Did you ever want to get into the
newsroom?
A: Yes, yes.
Q: And did you try?
A: No. I didn't. Mainly because - or did
I? Wait a minute. I may have talked to
Frank Eyerly a time or two about it, but
situations were different then. As I said,
we accepted some things and I also knew that
we wanted to have more family and that I was
not going to be working that long. So, while
I wasn't always satisfied with it, I thought,
well, you know, for this amount of time. And
I knew if I got into the news side, it would
make it more complicated in terms of hours
and coverage and all that sort of thing. So,
I did not fight it, no. I did, at one point,
and this may have been - maybe it was before
I became the Sunday editor. I applied for a
job at Better Homes and Gardens.
Q: Oh, you did?
A: Just kind of out of curiosity. One of
the questions I was asked was, do you intend
to have more family and when, which was a
question nobody would get by asking today.
But I very honestly said, "Yes, I do intend
to have more family and probably in the next
several years." Well, then they were not
interested in me and they told me that just
straight out. I mean, its pure
discrimination but it existed and I didn't
like it. But that's the way it was.
Q: Had you considered that they might ask
that question and had you considered saying
something else?
A: No. I really hadn't thought about it.
I mean, it hadn't occurred to me because I
was focusing on the position and that I was
capable of doing the position and it never
occurred to me that they would ask me that at
the time. But I'm quite blunt and honest and
so I answered and there I was. Which is all
right, because I ended up, you know, for the
time, at the Register, which I think I
probably liked better than I might have at
the Better Homes and Gardens.
Q: Given the circumstances, did you have
in mind a career after your family in
journalism?
A: I really don't think I had thought it
through that far. And I ended up not working
for a good many years, just doing volunteer
work, but I'm sure I always kind of had it in
the back of my mind that if I did something,
I would prefer going back to newspaper work
because I liked the environment very much of
the newsroom. It was a very comfortable
environment to me.
Q: The newsroom?
A: The newsroom - any newsroom. But I
liked the environment at the Register, too,
in terms of being where the news is being
covered and knowing what is going on and
having the excitement of different stories
all the time and that kind of thing.
Q: Because you had that at the Daily
Iowan, but you really didn't have it -
A: Yes. I didn't have that in the same
way, although because you're there, you can
hear what's going on, you know what's going
on, you're talking to people so that you're
connected, but you're still a little removed
from it in the women's department. Needless
to say, I'm just as glad they don't have them
anymore. --
Section 7: Q: Did you realize at the time that you
were hired, or at the time that you were
working at the Register, that it was one of
the most - it was one of the best papers in
the country?
A: Oh, yes!
Q: What were your feelings about that?
A: I was -
Q: In fact, was it the best paper?
A: No, I didn't think it was the best, but
I thought it was one of the best, certainly.
I think you had the feeling - there was a
feeling of pride, I think, working at that
paper, even if it was in the women's section.
Still, it was better than anything else,
certainly, around. I think there was a
general feeling of camaraderie, with the
people that worked there, of being proud of
being connected with that newspaper. So, all
in all, yes I did know that it was - I don't
believe it is today, but it was at that time,
yes.
Q: Now, from the time before you were
hired, and then after you were hired, were
your feelings the same? I mean, did you see
something different after you got there?
A: I think my observation, generally, was
that it was a still a very good newspaper.
The people that worked there - there were all
kinds of personalities, but they were very
professional, demanded quality work, that it
was a good place. There was no - you didn't
do things in a slipshod way, you tried to
achieve the best you could and I think the
people that worked there were that way. I
liked that.
Q: Anything else that made that a good
newspaper? I mean, it was different in the
sense that it covered the entire state of
Iowa.
A: It was very different. In fact, now
that you mention that, we did two editions of
the Sunday section. I had forgotten about
one - one was out and one was the Des Moines
area. I had forgotten that we did that, so
we had two versions of it. I guess I came
out of the university and journalism school
thinking that newspaper work was a high
calling and journalism was a noble profession
and while, certainly, you know, there were
things that maybe you saw that you didn't
like as well. I don't believe when I left
that I felt any different about it in terms
of having served at the Register, been at the
Register. In fact, I still think that. I
mean, I still think journalism is a high
calling.
Q: What makes journalism a high calling?
Why is journalism so important?
A: It's the old Fourth Estate. I'm very
interested in government and politics and in
societal life and what happens and all of
that kind of thing. Journalists and quality
journalists play an important role in the
whole aspect of government and people
understanding the government. Now, with the
Internet, everything is changing, so I don't
know what's going to happen there. But I
think it's directly that journalists have
played a very important role and right now,
with what's going on in the political arena,
in the Republican primaries, it's very
significant. I think that the way the play
is right now between [Senator] John McCain
and George [W.] Bush and with the press
coverage and so forth, but if there were no
people in journalism who believed that you
must report with as much objectivity as you
can manage, and they try to honestly pursue
that, I think we'd be in a real - it would be
much more difficult in this country.
I think that, for the most part, people who
are in journalism, particularly those who go
up the ladder and work for the best papers
and have the best beats and so forth, are
good people and they care. They're involved
and they try and do a good job. To me, it's
better than selling shirts or whatever you
might do. I just think it still is.
Q: You cited the Republican primaries in
South Carolina and the role the media may be
playing. What is your opinion about that? I
mean, it is stepping over the bounds or is it
doing what it should be doing?
A: Both. Because John McCain has provided
such access to the media. I think that there
is a certain pack mentality with the
political coverage at the national level.
Because of the access and because of the way
he has managed his campaign, the press right
now is particularly smitten with him and they
see the contrast between a McCain who is very
open and a [George W.] Bush who is very
programmed or a [Vice President Al] Gore who
is, I think, also very programmed, or a
[Senator Benjamin] Bradley, who is not as
open to them. So, they like that because
they can get the news, they can be part of
it. I think there is an excitement for a lot
of them to cover all of it, of course. You
know, you get to know all the big players. I
pay a lot of attention to - you know, our
favorite news program is the "NewsHour
with..." Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour" and other
news stations like CNN with stories about
politics and so forth. And there is a lot of
discussion now about has the media gone
overboard for John McCain and I think maybe
it has a little bit, but at the same time,
part of it, he's created, because of the way
he handles things. But I think it's played a
lot of - in fact, I heard the other night,
Geneva Overholser saying, "Well the media
would not be following him if the public...if
the people, weren't listening to him, the
media wouldn't be doing the same thing."
Because Bradley is saying a lot of things,
too, and he's off in the wilderness over here
right now. But, yes, it's not all perfect by
any means and I sometimes get very mad at
some of the people in the press. Sometimes
when you here them talking like on
"Washington Week" or something like that, you
can pick up where the biases are, certainly.
But they are human beings. I think for the
most part, it's a good thing.
Q: So journalism looks good to you, still?
A: Actually, I tend to relate more to the
print, to listen to a David Broder or a Jack
Germond or the NPR people, Elizabeth Arnold.
Some of those people I think are really very
good. David Broder is somebody - in fact,
he's a friend of ours. We've known him for
years and he's at the top of the list,
almost, in terms of objectivity. The print
people I tend to listen to a little more than
the broadcasts, because, well, I'm biased. --
Section 8: Q: You touched on it a little bit ago,
about what the Register has become. So,
here's your soap box! Compared to what it
was.
A: Compared to what it was, I think that -
I mean I understand that the selling to
Gannett, but I think that is when it started
really going downhill. And it is a Gannett
newspaper, like the Press Citizen is a
Gannett newspaper, was good and bad, the Iowa
City Press Citizen, but they made the
decision to stop trying to cover the state
and went to being the "golden circle," a
central Iowa newspaper. And what we in other
parts of the state get in terms of coverage
from the Register, I think, is very scant.
We can get legislative coverage. They have a
good editorial page still, I think. But the
kind of coverage compared to what it used to
be in terms of to get a feel for the whole
state, it is just not there at all anymore.
I don't think that their political coverage
is as good as it used to be, either.
You know, I don't necessarily disagree with
them editorially at all, because I think they
are probably the best editorial - well, I
wouldn't say the best editorial page in the
state. But then I don't read all of them. I
don't read the Sioux City and so forth. But
it's just a shadow of its former self, I
think. The daily Register used to be a nice,
thick newspaper with some in-depth news.
There is almost no national news in the
Register anymore. In fact, often the Iowa
City Press Citizen has picked up a piece out
of the Washington Post or the LA Times that
is far superior to something you can get in
the Register, which I thought I would never
say. But I just think the coverage is very
narrow compared to what it was.
Q: Defenders might say as we have more and
more competition of other media outlets and
we've seen a decline in the circulation of
print newspapers, it's an absolute necessity.
How would you answer that?
A: They may be right. They may very well
be right. But I don't know. I haven't
focused, in terms of sitting down and looking
at the Register every day and evaluating how
would I have done something different, but I
personally could do with a lot fewer of the
stories about somebody's murder. I know they
cover that and the local television stations
cover this kind of stuff, too, and I guess
most people like it. It's not what I like.
I want hard news, I want political news, I
want governmental news, I want to know what's
going on in the country. And it's harder to
get from these sources.
Q: We also touched on this a little bit
ago, but could you talk a little bit about
the way the Register saw Iowa as its entire
news coverage area, because that really was
rare, back in the fifties and sixties.
A: It was, and they had stringers all over
the state. In fact, when we were at the
university, I think Dwight did some stringing
for the Register for a period, as I recall.
Because they wanted the news stories from all
of the communities in the different areas of
the state and they covered them as news. It
wasn't just some poor farmer's problem with
the hog lot at a certain place or some child
runaway or whatever it may be. You would
know what was going on in Sioux City or Mason
City or Ames or whatever. Well, you still
can get Ames, because Ames is part of the
"golden circle," you get a little more of it
there. But you really had more of a feel for
what was going on overall in those
communities because there were people out
there reporting back to the Register and they
were running it.
I can understand the corporate decisions.
I've heard discussions about if the print
media even going to exist not far down the
road and maybe it won't. But if it doesn't,
it's too bad, because there are a lot of us
who still like to feel the newspaper and read
it. But we're disappearing, I know that.
Q: Okay, we talked about the importance of
having a paper like that, that serves Iowa
and now all the closing of these bureaus and
the lack of stringers and all. What have we
lost? I mean, we've got the Internet, and
we've got small town newspapers. In fact, if
you wanted to go find out what the news was
there. What's wrong with that?
A: That's a good question, because maybe
it's just that some of who liked it the old
way don't like to see the change. That's
always a possibility we have to admit to.
But we are - within the state of Iowa, we all
are Iowans. We're not just eastern Iowans,
we're not just central Iowans. I think that
part of what has happened in the Register is
that the people, the journalists, the
management, the editors, the decision-makers
there, have tended to begin to think that
central Iowa is Iowa. They focus so strongly
on the greater Des Moines metropolitan area
and all that goes on there that they tend to
think that what they've got is, central Iowa
and then some farmers out there. And they
have lost the perspective of the total entity
of Iowa, if that makes sense. Their focus
has just become too narrow in their
perspective. I think, has gotten a little bit
lost.
Q: You start reading the editorials.
A: You might find that the editorials are
nowhere in scope, that they developed a
position, an editorial position, based on
something that is more narrowly focused on
the Des Moines metropolitan area than it if
they had the broader state perspective. I
don't know, for instance, if very many of the
reporters at the Register go out in the state
and do much, travel around and get more of a
feel, other than like during political
campaigns or for some certain big story that
may develop. I'm not sure how much they go
out.
Q: I'm still trying to get a feel for how
you think why that is important, because are
Iowans something different that a Missourian
or a Minnesotan and do they need to be
covered differently than someone else? You
know, central Iowa is just a defined news
area. They changed the coverage area. What
makes it an Iowa news story?
A: I don't know. I guess you raise an
interesting question because maybe it doesn't
matter. Maybe it doesn't make any difference
at all to most people. I guess those of us
who used read the old Register that covered
more were more personal with it. Maybe it's
a reaction, but I still think that the
Register would be a better newspaper if it
had a broader perspective than it has. I
guess that's the best way to describe it. I
read the Cedar Rapids Gazette now, because it
covers eastern Iowa and I can get things here
that I don't get in the Register. And I
think the Gazette, today, gives the Des
Moines Register a run for its money certainly
in terms of news coverage. --
Section 9: Q: Getting back to the day-to-day stuff at
the Register when you worked, did you come
across any 'sacred cows' or ethical dilemmas,
as in stories you might want to cover but you
kind of got the feeling maybe you shouldn't
because you'd offend editors or even clients
of the Register?
A: I don't recall that. The only thing,
as I mentioned before was the one columnist
that was 'don't bother her stuff.' But other
than that, no, I don't remember running into
that at all.
Q: We talked about the Rim. Give me some
more of the lingo that was used back then.
A: Oh, gosh!
Q: A lot of that is kind of forgotten.
A: It's all gone. It's gone now. Gosh!
I can't think of the lingo, but I can think
of things that have changed in terms of how
we used to handle things. I think the whole
design of newspapers certainly has changed.
I mentioned that we were taught you have one
banner headline and the main story is on the
right hand side and the other one, the second
one, is on the left and you go from there. I
think that has pretty much gone out the
window by now. We used to very carefully
when we wrote, headlines had to be very
careful and not put a preposition at the end
of a line and all that. I mean, all sorts of
things like that - you could do it, but that
wasn't a good one if you did it that way.
You could always re-write it and come up with
a headline that made more sense than that.
But the lingo, gosh. It will probably come
popping out and I can't think of anything at
this stage. The Rim was - I've explained it
to so many people over the years, of what it
used to be like. But I'm just drawing a
blank.
Q: I know Dwight is just bubbling over
there.
A: Are you trying to get into the lingo?
You can do it when it's your turn!
Q: What are some those? Maybe you can jog
her memory.
DJ: I was making a list as you were
talking.
A: That's not fair! [Laughter].
DJ: You are talking about the Rim, how
about slots?
A: Oh, yes! Yes, you're right. The slug
in the line.
Q: What was it?
A: It was the spacing between lines of
type. Now you just run it out automatically.
Then you'd set the type and if the story
wasn't long enough, you'd put extra space in
the slugs. The matrix, which was a hot tub,
the lettering that came from the linotype
machine and all that stuff. We had to learn
how to do some of that when we were at the
university. We had to take at least one
course - I can't think of what it was called
- where we learned to set type, we learned to
do the pages, put the slugs in, the
headlines, the whole thing. That was part of
what you learned how to do, so you would
understand what was going on in the composing
room. And all of that is gone, as well as I
think the editors have all disappeared today.
As far as I know, it looks like a reporter
goes in, writes a story and it goes it,
period, sometimes without even a spell check.
Q: I was going to bring that up. It seems
like we can increase our efficiency, but
there might be a downside too, where you lost
the checks and balances.
A: I've always believed that even the very
best writer can stand an editor. Everybody
can. Often, something will happen now, when
you read in the paper. In fact, I saw one
this morning, where the writer started to
write something and changed their mind, but
they forgot to take out a word. So all of
the sudden, you've got a word in there that
doesn't belong. Then you have a word that
they typed in, and I do this myself on the
computer, that is still a word, but it's the
wrong word. You know, it's "that" instead of
"than" or something.
Q: So spell check doesn't do that.
A: Spell check doesn't catch it. We had
editors really working the stories. When you
wrote a story, you could expect that whoever
edited it would come back with some
questions, probably, or some changes or some
rearrangement of something and it was just a
natural process and it usually improved the
story. I think they could use more of that
now. --
Section 10: Q: Do you read the paper today?
A: Oh, yes.
Q: With an eye to story selection and the
in-depth reporting, or lack of, and how they
are actually written, what is your impression
of what you are seeing compared to what your
experience was when you were there?
A: It's a little bit hard, because the
Register we get is not the local edition, so
we don't get the local news. So it's hard to
measure. When we were there, we were seeing
everything from the courthouse to City Hall
to the local school system and all the rest
of it, none of which we see in the papers
that we get, so it's hard to measure that. I
had the feeling in terms of legislative
coverage and coverage out of the state house
in general, that it's brief. That they've
taken a story and cut it down to half or a
third of what the story might be if we were
looking at the Des Moines edition. It's
generally superficial, I think.
The editorial pages are the one reason that I
still like to read the Register. The rest of
it I can get as much or more news -we read
the Iowa City Press Citizen and the Cedar
Rapids Gazette and the Des Moines Register
every day and I can get more hard news and
probably just as good political coverage out
of the other two as I can out of the
Register. But the editorial page is still a
gem, to me.
Q: What do you like about the editorial
page? You're speaking about the Register,
right?
A: Yes. I like their selection of
columnists for the most part.
Q: You mean national?
A: National columnists. Well, I like
their local columnists, too. I like Don
Kaul. We've known Don Kaul for years. He's
kind of a character, but I like him. But I
like the editorials. I mostly agree with
their editorials and, of course, you're
comfortable when you read an editorial that
you like and you agree with. But just this
morning, they had a couple very good columns,
I thought. I think it's more to my political
liking and leaning.
Q: Who were some of your influences in
journalism? Was it at the university? Or
was it once you were at the Register?
A: At the university, there were several
different people, I guess, at the university.
Charlie Barnett, is that right, Dwight?
DJ: Barnum.
A: Barnum was one of our professors. He
had come, as I recall, from Northwestern, but
I liked him very much. He was a good teacher
and I just thought, a quality individual.
They had one professor that was a lot of fun,
named Walt Steigleman. I don't know if
you've heard of Walt Steigleman? He used to,
when you joined the class, if you answered a
question, he'd give you a candy bar. So
that's what I remember about Steigleman. But
he taught history of journalism and
journalism law, as I recall. Then, Virginia
Coverdale was one that I think probably was
as good, as much an influence as anybody.
Her name later was Mather, here. She's been
dead for quite a few years, but she taught
reporting. You wrote your stories and then
she told you what was wrong with them and she
was a real taskmaster. I think I probably
learned as much about how to write and be
accurate and so forth, from her, as from
anybody.
Then, when we got to the Daily Iowan, Bill
Zima was the advisor. But I don't remember
learning as much from him as I did maybe,
from the others, but I could be wrong. But I
know Bill, so.
Q: Do you still write?
A: Well, I do, but mainly my volunteer
work. I'm active in the League of Women
Voters, so I'll do writing and maybe pieces
or reports from research that we've done and
that kind of thing. Yes, I do a fair amount
of writing, but not a lot.
Q: Locally? Is that freelance?
A: No, locally maybe for the Press Citizen
or the Gazette. A lot of the writing is done
internally, you know, for our membership.
Back-grounding kind of reports. And then
we've been very active in studying county
government for the last five years and we've
written reports that we have presented to the
Board of Supervisors and that kind of thing.
So it's nothing grand, but I still do some. --
Section 11: Q: We'll get to that, but I do want to ask
you one other question first. Why did you
leave the Register?
A: Because I got pregnant with our second
child and in those days, not very many women
worked up through pregnancy and because - I
mean, it was something to work with one
child. We had one little child. Not very
many women worked after they had any children
in the fifties. You tended not to do it. And
so when I got pregnant with our second child,
then I stopped working.
Q: Obviously, the arrival of a new child
is going to be very exciting. But as for
your career, was this was a struggle for you
to make that decision to leave?
A: No, it wasn't, at that time. If I had
faced it maybe fifteen or twenty years later,
it would have been a major struggle for me
because I got very active in women's rights
when we lived in the east and did lobbying of
legislature and tried to get the ERA passed
in Virginia and all sort of things like that.
So it would have been. Had I been at a
different point in my life in terms of
feminist issues and so forth, it would have
been a real struggle for me, I think.
Q: If you were further along.
A: Further along in my development, I
guess, yes. But at that time, no, and I
really thought that children needed to have
the home influence the first years of their
life, so I always thought that I would be
home when children were small, until they
went to school, anyway. So at that point,
that was not a struggle for me. --
Section 12: Q: Any final comments you'd like to make
about the field of journalism or your time at
the Register? Or speculate about what's
different or what's ahead?
A: I don't know. I worry sometimes about
what's ahead. I worry about the fact that
more people do not read the print media now.
I think that is very unfortunate because
there is no way that you can get much depth
in the broadcast or Internet. I mean, you
can get it on the Internet, but I guess I'm
maybe old fashioned enough that I don't trust
the Internet to the same degree that I trust
the Register or the Washington Post or
whatever. I hate to see what may be
happening to some of these newspapers. They
may be gone. I think it would be a real loss
to the country as a whole, if that happened.
And I hope it doesn't. But I do see real
problems looming on the horizon with the
Internet and with the changes and with how
fast everything moves. You can't print that
fast, I mean, not in the kind of print medium
that we used to. It's going to be a
struggle.
Q: You suggested that some of the Register
reporting and coverage may be superficial.
Are there any papers that you see that do
provide what the citizens, the readers,
should need?
A: When we lived in the Washington, D.C.
area, I read the Washington Post and I got
spoiled. I really enjoyed the Washington
Post and the New York Times, too, which I
don't read regularly. We do take the
Washington Post Magazine, so we can odd bit
pieces and so forth, that are broader. But I
really was spoiled, I think, with that
newspaper every day. I think it would be
wonderful if everybody could have access to
that kind of a publication. Of course, being
in the Washington area, you got a larger dose
of the political and governmental arena,
which was I am most interested in.
Q: With that in mind, is there hope? Are
there papers?
A: I think, that as newspapers begin to
disappear, the last ones to go would probably
be the ones out of major metropolitan areas,
the Post, the New York Times, the LA. And I
really think that you would still have at
least one major paper, probably in each
state. You still need to have coverage of
state government someplace by somebody. And
in all the states, they have at least one
"major" paper that covers things. But I
don't know what's ahead. It's beyond me,
that's all I have to say.
Q: All right, Pat, thanks very much.
A: Well, you're very welcome.
