Kenneth MacDonald interview about journalism career, April 24, 1999

Section 1: Q: That sounds good. So it is a great honor to speak with you today, I have been anticipating the interview for several weeks. A: Thank you very much. Q: You have quite a history dating back to 1926 when you joined the Register. A: Yes. Q: And not only do you have insight about journalism in particular, but I'm wondering if you could maybe talk about some of the memories you had working with the folks like Frank Eyerly and Richard Wilson, the city editor. Together when you put out this great paper in the 30s and 40s. Could you just kind of expand on some of the memories that you have about that? A: All right. Frank Eyerly and Dick Wilson were very good friends and colleagues. In our last year at the University of Iowa, we met almost every afternoon and talked about everything in the world. And then we came to work here at the Register. And we maintained a very, very close friendship as long as they both lived. Q: What was the experience working there in the '30s with those people? What do you remember about putting together the paper and the professional relationship with them? A: Well, it was an excellent relationship. We had been very close friends. We had been very close friends at the university and that friendship, of course, continued as we worked on the paper. We all held different jobs at different times, but I guess our last jobs--I was editor, Dick Wilson was the head of the Washington Bureau and Frank was the managing editor. We worked together for many years. Q: You were at the Register when it was considered one of the best papers among journalists and among readers across the country. I wonder if you could talk about why that was. What made it so great? A: Well, it is for others to say, I guess whether it was great or not, I hope it was great, we tried to make it great. To the extent that it was a great deal of credit has to go to Gardner Cowles, the owner, because he wanted a quality product and he wanted a profitable one of course, so he thought the two went together, which indeed they do. And he thought if he had a quality newspaper, it would be a profitable newspaper, which it was. So with that end in view, he was quite willing to supply the resources to put together the kind of the staff that we had to have in order to produce a good newspaper. So I give a great deal of credit to him. Q: Anything else you can say about why the Register was so great. I mean the reporting, the writing, all of that together? The people? Ownership? What was it? A: Well, I have to go back to the ownership originally because the Cowles family, they wanted a profitable operation of course, but they very much wanted a quality product and they were quite willing to spend whatever money was necessary to do it. We never had any budget troubles when I was there. Whatever we needed in the way of staff, the family was happy to provide. So that was an ideal relationship for an editor. Q: And you mentioned that the Register was both a successful business and a quality newspaper. It's either one or the other these days. I'm wondering how did the Register accomplish that? A: That is a hard question to answer because it seems to me that they go together. It seems to me that if you have a really quality newspaper, properly edited and properly managed, it will be profitable. Of course, that is not true in all cases, but I think it was true in our case. Q: It seems these days it's national newspapers that can pull that off, but when you get down to the medium or small size markets, that's not always the case. A: Well, it is not always the case. I think that part of it is due to the fact that, in some cases, not by any means all, but in some cases, I think that the owner is too concentrated on the bottom line and not putting enough resources into the quality of the paper. That's not true all over the country, there are some excellent, excellent small city newspapers, but the two go together. You have to have the staff; you have to have the resources in order to produce a really good newspaper. Q: What do you think the case is now, with the ownership under Gannett for the Register? A: Oh, I don't think I want to go into that. I haven't been a part of it, I'm not close to it, so I think I'll just let that one pass. -- <br><br> Section 2: Q: OK. What did you know about the Register before you were hired? Did you have that idea in your mind that this was a quality paper recognized by journalist across country? A: I recognized that it was a fine newspaper; I had grown up on it. My family had subscribed to it when I was child living up in Jefferson, Iowa, so I was quite familiar with it and all during college. What is the rest of your question? Q: What you remembered about it before you were hired? As a journalist? A: Well, I didn't have an intimate knowledge of it, of course, in those days, but I recognized it was a high-quality newspaper and one I thought I was interested in working for. Q: And you could tell the story about how you were hired because George Mills goes into that in his book. I don't know if you remember you came in and it was Bill Waymack? A: Yes. Bill Waymack was the managing editor and when I had finished at the university, as so many of the journalism students did, I came to Des Moines [IA] to try to get a job. I went in to see Bill Waymack. I was very na•ve about job hunting. I didn't have an appointment. I didn't have a resume. I just walked in absolutely cold and interrupted him. He was working at his typewriter with his back to the door. He didn't have any secretary there so I just walked in on him cold. He was not at all happy about being interrupted. I told him what I was there for. I was looking for a job. And he just said, "We don't have any jobs. Our staff is completely full." And I said, "Well, I'm willing to do almost anything to get started. I can fill in on vacations." And he got a little annoyed at my persistence and he said, "No, no we don't have anything. We don't have any vacancies." And finally he got a little edgy because I was continuing to pester him and he said, "Well, our news editor is looking for a copy editor, but he wants someone with ten years experience. So you don't think you can fill that job, do you?" I said, "Well, I can try." He said, "No, no, no." And pointed me out, turned his back on me and went back to work. So I walked out into the newsroom and I recognized the news editor because he'd been down to the university a time or two and made talks at our classes. So I introduced myself and I said, "Mr. Waymack tells me you are looking for a copy editor." Which was true up to that point. He stared at me for a minute or two and said, "What experience have you had?" I said, "I'm just out of the university. I've been working for the last semester at the Daily Iowan newspaper at the university." It must have been a very bad morning for him. He stared at me for a minute and he said, "Did they teach you at that university that newspaper men don't make any money?" And I said, "Well, no, we didn't really get into that aspect of it." And he said, "Well, they don't. I'm going to give you some advice. You go down the street a couple of blocks and you'll come to the home office of a life insurance company. You go in there and apply for a job and five years from now you'll thank me." And I said, "I don't want to sell life insurance, I want to be a newspaper man." He stared at me for a minute or two; he had a penetrating stare. He said, "All right, six o'clock here tomorrow night. I'll try you for a couple of weeks." That's how I got started. Q: Who was the editor at the time? A: Bill Waymack was the editor. His title was actually managing editor. Well, hardly any of them actually had the title of editor, which meant in those days that he handled the editorial page and wrote the editorials. He had very little do with the news operation. Those titles have shifted somewhat now; they don't mean quite the same thing. But Waymack was in charge of the whole news operation. Q: Who is the gentleman you talked to, who gave you the job? A: It was, Bill Waymack first and then Rex Large, who was the news editor of the Register. -- <br><br> Section 3: Q: What do you remember about Harvey Ingham? A: I have a wonderful recollection about him. He was a grand old man. He knows that. He's never really retired and he worked up until almost, I think he literally worked until the week he died. He was an actor of course in his later years. He used to come by my office almost every morning to drop off the mail that he didn't want to handle or wanted me to handle. So I knew him well in his old age, but he was a great man in his day. A great man. Handled some very important projects in the state of Iowa. Q: What made him such a great man in your eyes? A: Well, the positions he took on a number of things. He was strongly in favor of woman's suffrage, which may seem strange in this day that that would be a distinguishing mark, but it was in those days. The most influential lobby in the state of Iowa at the time was the railroad lobby and he had no hesitation whatever in combating the railroad lobby. And that always made him something of a hero in my mind because of his courage and because of his wisdom. He was a great editor. Q: You can imagine he got a lot of flack about that, too. A: Oh sure, oh sure. But flack never bothered him. Q: You've said that the hardest thing that you faced was getting the public to understand that the function of a newspaper is news coverage and it isn't to take a side for or against something. What makes that idea hard to get across to folks, I wonder? A: I don't know why it's so hard to get across. I think people regard newspapers as having some influence and therefore if they have any selfish interest, they want to try to use that influence if they can. And it's a little difficult for them to understand the concept that a properly run news operation has no editorial views. It goes right down the middle of being purely objective in covering the news. And that's a little difficult concept for some people to understand. Quite difficult, oddly enough. Q: What do you think needs to be said more to convince them that is the case or what else has to be done? A: Oh, I don't know if there is anything more that can be done. It is just hard for people to accept that concept. They're inclined to think that if you have control of an organization that's molding opinion, then they just suspect that you are going to use it for your own purposes. And it is difficult for them to realize that there is a strict boundary between the news side and the editorial page side. And that the news side is engaged in reporting the news as accurately and as objectively as possible and is not influenced at all by the editorial page. That's a hard concept for many people to understand and I don't think a lot of them ever do understand it. But, nevertheless, that's a fact on a properly run newspaper. Q: With regard to your time at the Register what was important about that boundary? I understand that the sales people couldn't even come into the newsroom and there was really that separation. A: Oh, I wasn't that firm. No, no not that firm. The sales people were welcome enough in the newsroom. They could bring in tips. They could come in with suggestions. And if they had an advertiser who wanted to request something, they were free to come in and present his request. They weren't barred from the newsroom, but they knew they had no control over it. They knew that they could present it, but they couldn't influence it. Which was the way it should be, of course. -- <br><br> Section 4: Q: Were there ever any "sacred cows" at the Register and if so, how were they reported? A: "Sacred cows." I can't think of any. What would you have in mind? Q: I don't know. Perhaps an organization that the publisher belonged to. Maybe there was a question about how an angle would be presented differently. Ethical dilemmas you faced as editor? A: I don't recall any of that kind of thing. The Cowles family, and, as I recall it, particularly the younger son, never interfered in the news coverage at all. They left it entirely to the editors. I can't remember that either Gardner Cowles or his son ever asked me to print anything I didn't want to print or refrain from printing something I did want to print. They left that entirely to the editors, so I guess I don't have any recollection of "sacred cows." (laughs) Q: One of the things that Otto Knauth mentioned that there was a beat reporter, a police reporter there for a long time, I can't remember his name, but he got in so good with the cops that sometimes he couldn't be trusted to cover stories that might be critical of the police department. Do you remember a situation like that? A: Well, I don't remember one particular case, but something that an editor has to guard against is reporters who are covering special beats like that, like a police reporter. An editor has to be aware of the possibility that a reporter is getting too close to the news source and he has to realize that that can happen. Then he has to look out for any evidence that it is happening. I don't recall really any great problems in that respect. Reporters, particularly if you have a competitive situation as we had for a while, reporters like to sew up news sources. They like to get them to agree to break news on their beat so they'll have exclusive use out of it. And so, therefore, they try to give the source some of inducement to hold up a story. And the editor has to be on guard against that kind of thing. But that isn't too difficult to recognize. Q: Were there ever instances where you saw things like that; you'd get clues that that was going on? A: No, I don't, I don't recall any. Most of our reporters were reporters first and didn't try to get too close to their news sources. An editor, the signs are always there quickly if it is happening. An editor can detect it quickly and he can make adjustments, you know. He can switch the reporter onto some other beat or something. It was never any great problem. Q: You talk a little bit about what an editor needs to look for. What does make a good editor? A: That's a very, very broad question. I suppose first of all, you have to have some sensitivity to what people are interested in. (comments to someone in another room.) Q: What do you think makes a good editor? You said obviously that is a broad question. A: Oh yes, that is very, very broad question, but I say first of all you have to be sensitive to the interests and the needs of the audience. He has to have some feeling, one as to what they want to know and, two as to what they ought to know. The reader doesn't know what he doesn't know. You have to provide him with what you think he needs to know. So an editor has to be sensitive to those two needs. Q: How can you get that sensitivity? How can you feel out the, find the things that the reader needs to know? I guess being involved with the community or being in touch with the reader in someway or another? A: Well you certainly have to be in touch with the community. You have to know what's going on in the community and you have to know what the general broad interests of the community are. And you have to have some understanding of what your audience is and, not only what they are interested in knowing, but what they need to know. There may be things that they are not aware that they're interested in because they don't know about them, but they need to be made aware of them. -- <br><br> Section 5: Q: Could you talk also a little bit about the Register newsroom was like back in the '30s and '40s? I mean we talked about the...Otto Knauth talked about the room and the spiking of the story. It's a different type of a newsroom back than, than it is now. A: Well, yes of course I haven't been familiar with it for a long time, but in my day the newsroom, of course, was divided into two divisions really. The reporting end of it and the editing end of it, copy reading as we called it in those days. I think it's called copy editing now. Which was all done by hand then. I think it is done by computer now. And the reporters wrote their stories and they came in through the city editor and then over to the desk where they were edited. And the copy editors then edited them for grammar and punctuation and brevity and all those things. Then they went to the composing room and they were set it in type. Q: And some of the personalities in the Register newsroom. Frank Eyerly. People have talked about him, how he kind of ruled with an iron fist. A: Yes he did. Frank was the managing editor, so he was in charge of the whole news operation. I was at that time, I was, the organization was and I was the editor and under me there was Frank, who ran the news operation, and editorial page operation was run by the editorial page editor, which was, for many years, Lauren Soth. And Frank was very, he was a superb editor. He was extremely well informed himself and had a very keen interest in current affairs and a good background in it. He had very strong ideas about how the newspaper ought to be edited. As the old phrase goes, he didn't suffer fools gladly. He expected the work done well and done promptly and he insisted on it. Q: Those were the standards of his and of the Cowles, I bet? A: Yes, yes indeed. Yes indeed. That is exactly what the Cowles wanted too. Q: What was your relationship professionally and personally with the Cowles family? A: Well, it was a superb relationship. I don't see how an editor could have a better relationship than I had. Professionally, they never interfered with their editors. They gave you complete reign to run the editorial operation. And they never interfered with it. I guess I'm repeating myself, but I don't remember ever being told to print something or not to print something. So, you had complete freedom. And personally, it was a very warm, pleasant personal relationship. I like the family very much. We got on well together. We spent a lot of time together. We quite often did statewide surveys. -- <br><br> Section 6:Q: Can you think back, remember any memorable anecdotes about your early days at the Register. I'm trying to get you back to the '20s and the '30s when you were there in your earliest days. Interesting stories about, perhaps, colleagues, or competitors, or the sources you used to write stories? A: Boy, you're going back a long way. (laughs) You're going back a long way. We had competition for a time of course. The Capital was still in existence in my early days and we were always...if we had any stories that we thought were exclusive, we were always on edge until the last edition of the Capital came out to see whether we still had the stories exclusively or not. Q: You had competition with the Capital and you were looking for exclusivity, right? A: Yes, the Capital was in existence in those days and the Capital, the last edition of the Capital at night came out on the streets about eight or nine o'clock, as I recall it. And we were always sort of on edge until that edition came out so we could see whether they had anything that we didn't have. That competition didn't last very long, but it lasted long enough so I was aware of it. Q: And what happened? When did they go out of business? A: Well, you're too far back for me. I don't think they lasted more than about a year or so after I was there. Q: Was it the intent of the Cowles family to eliminate competition? Was it just that they were a better business? A: I suppose it was probably both. Gardner Cowles had the idea that if you published a good newspaper, it ought to be inviting to people all over the state, if you could deliver promptly. And he spent a lot of time perfecting the delivery process to make sure that the Register could be delivered almost every place in the state by the next morning. And that was a new concept--covering the whole state on circulation which, of course, along with it meant covering the whole state on news, too. And I think he was probably, the first one around here, to have that concept that you could have a statewide newspaper in Des Moines, not just the local daily newspaper. Q: What was the importance of it being a statewide paper? Certainly there are other papers in other towns. A: Yes, there were. And we didn't look upon ourselves as trying to displace them. Some of them thought we were. But we never in effect said to the reader in Cedar Rapids [IA] to quit reading the Gazette and read us, because we always knew the Gazette could cover Cedar Rapids better than we could. But our position was, you need us in addition to the Cedar Rapids Gazette to know what else is going on. So our function was, we had to sell on top of all the other newspapers. Q: And of course you had bureaus all over the state? A: Yes, indeed we did. I don't know what the situation is now, but we had fully staffed, we had full-time reporters in bureaus. I've forgotten where all...we had one in Davenport, [IA]. We had one in Waterloo, [IA] I think. One in, I believe, Sioux City [IA]. Probably Council Bluffs [IA]. They were staffed with full-time reporters who telegraphed or telephoned news everyday to Des Moines. And than we had, in addition to that, we had correspondents in all the counties, too, who would keep us informed of things that were going on. And then we, of course, often sent people out from Des Moines to cover the state. Q: So you blanketed the state? A: We certainly tried to. We made every effort to. We used to do...we used to do news surveys that would cover the entire state. One I remember, there was a question about whether the state ought to have liquor for the drink or not and my suspicion was that the state had it, legally or illegally. So I remember one year we set out to find out about that and we sent reporters into every county in the state, I think we got into 80-some counties, to see if it was possible to buy a drink. Just on their own. Not linking up at a friend or anything. And we discovered, as I anticipated, it was possible, in 80-some of the 99 counties. So we had liquor for the drink. It just wasn't legal at that time. Q: Now a smaller paper wouldn't have been able to do that since they didn't have the staff. A: No, that's right, that's right. We had the facilities to do it and we did it on quite a number of things. I don't know whether they still do it now or not. We did in those days. We quite often did statewide surveys. <br><br> Section 7: Q: And you had an airplane, too, that you flew around? A: Yes we had an airplane for quite a long time, which we used greatly in news coverage. It was sort of a promotion vehicle, I guess, when we first got it because Mike Cowles had a great interest in aviation. But it turned out to be enormously useful in covering the news because we could get to places in a hurry, of course. And even after we no longer had the plane, we chartered airplanes. It got to the point where it was cheaper to just charter a plane when you needed it than it was to maintain your own and your own pilot and so on. It was very useful to us during the time we had it. Q: So how did that work if there was a story somewhere out of Des Moines, in another part of the state? One of your bureau people would indicate that maybe they needed a plane and a photographer, or a reporter and a photographer? A: We had a correspondent in every county. And we had a full-time reporter in bureaus around the county. And anytime any news broke in any of those places, they would tell us in Des Moines, let us know what the situation was and then we would decide whether to let them cover it or to send a reporter by plane. What the situation required. Q: Why would it be necessary to send out a reporter by plane instead of having the reporter there in the closest bureau? A: Well, one of the reasons would be that the reporter in the plane would be a more experienced reporter. The reporters, except for the two or three places where we had full-time staff, the other places would be all part-time correspondents and if the story was one of any consequence, we would want a fully experienced regular reporter on the scene. And so we used the plane to get him there in a hurry. Q: You remember the story about the explosion, I guess it was in Sioux City, or nearby, that you sent the plane and they wanted to bring dynamite on the plane? A: (laughs) Yes, there was some, I can't remember what the story was now, but there was some kind of fire in Sioux City and I think that they decided that they needed to dynamite some section in order to keep the fire from spreading. I believe that was it. So they called the us and asked us if we'd send some dynamite in the plane. And we talked to our plane pilot, Charlie Gatchet and he quite properly said no. He wasn't going to fly the plane with all the dynamite. Anyway, he was right of course. Q: Was it your decision when the plane would go out? A: No, it was his. Well, it was my decision or the editor's decision from a news standpoint. We made the decision, I did or one of the editors did, whether it was desirable to fly a reporter out to the scene. But the decision on whether it was proper to fly, what the weather conditions were, were entirely up the pilot. And he was never required to fly. The fact is the instructions were just the reverse--never fly if you don't think the conditions are entirely safe. And we wanted him to fly with flight visibility rules. We wanted him to be able to see the ground. He was equipped to fly in clouds, but we wanted him to fly with visual flight rules. We wanted to be extremely safety conscious. Q: Now an airplane is a big expense for a newspaper. Not too many newspapers in the country would have an airplane. Did you have the go-ahead from the Cowles to buy it? A: Yes, yes. In fact, my recollection is, it was Mike Cowles who suggested it. He was, if you go back to the early days of it, it was sort of the early days of aviation and he was greatly interested in aviation and the way it was growing up in the country. He was very instrumental in getting the Des Moines airport located where it is. The airport originally was way out, northeast of town, miles away from downtown. And I remember that he even bought originally a farm out there and later sold it to the city. But he bought it so it would be available to have an airport close to town. So he was very conscious of the development of air power and he wanted the newspaper to have the advantage of an airplane. So we flew our own plane for quite awhile. You asked if it was expensive and it was worth it. And then later it just became easier and cheaper to charter planes than to own our own. -- <br><br> Section 8: Q: And of course, the people at Gannett now don't think it's important to be covering the state now, like you folks did. What again was the importance of having the coverage statewide when, of course, you were simply located here in Des Moines? And there is just as much news, in fact a lot of news coming out of Des Moines since it is the state capital and such. Why did you need to be out and about? A: Well, we looked upon ourselves as a state newspaper, not just a city newspaper. We thought it was desirable from our standpoint; we had sort of a state franchise. Nobody was competing with us for that kind of coverage. And we also thought it was highly desirable from a standpoint of the state. We thought it was good to have everybody in the state getting the same kind of coverage out of the legislature and the statehouse and that sort of thing. So, we looked upon it as both important from our standpoint, from a business standpoint, and we also we looked upon it as being desirable from the standpoint of the reader in the state of Iowa. We had an interesting situation which doesn't exist in too many places in that our news area and our circulation area exactly coincided with the governmental unit, with the state. So we had a compact situation. We could be covering the news of a single state, single state government, circulating in a single state. That put us, that gave a good advantages that newspapers which are on border lines didn't have. Where they had to cover several different states. Q: As in the Chicago Tribune? A: Or Omaha would be a classic example of it. Or Rock Island. Places like that. Q: Because of that, Washington D.C. policy makers were reading the Register for news about the Midwest. A: Oh, yes, indeed they were. Yes, they were. I'm sure of that. Q: Were you writing for them? Were you trying to shape how policy would be made based on some of the things that were written in the paper? A: No, we weren't trying to influence the Washington policy makers. We were trying to give the reader what we thought the reader ought to have. And to the extent that we were trying to influence anybody, we were trying to demonstrate to the legislature and so on, what we thought the needs of the state were. I suppose to some extent that was echoed in Washington. We had a bureau there, of course, with several people in it and our paper was fairly well known in Washington. But we were never consciously writing for Washington. Q: Was it ever your intent to make sure that the Register was being read by other people, other than Iowans? Or was that pretty much your target readership? A: No. Our target was Iowa readership. We had a happy situation of being in the middle of a geographical state and a political entity, which made a nice compact area of coverage. But we didn't feel any particular obligation to cover local news outside the state of Iowa. What was your question about Washington? Q: I think you've answered it. About the fact that Washington people, policy makers, senators, congressman, were reading the Register. A: (talks over) I'm sure they were and, of course, we encouraged that. We tried to make that easy for them to do. We wanted them to be familiar with the Register. And I think they all were because I think it was to their selfish interest to be, among other things. -- <br><br> Section 9: Q: One of the things you've advocated is the importance of having national and local press councils to look into complaints about the press. What's the importance of that? A: I don't hear much about that anymore, do you? Q: No. A: I think that has kind of had its day maybe. But there was a while when there was quite an interest in having press councils to sort of keep an eye on the press and have a place where people could talk about the press. Some newspapers objected to that and were quite antagonistic to it. I never was. I thought it was fine. If people wanted to have a press council to talk about the Register, that was fine with me. I didn't see any reason why they shouldn't. Q: Do you think there was a need for it? A: That's a good question. I don't know if there was, I don't... Q: Were you getting complaints from anybody? A: I don't recall that we got much feedback as the word goes. I don't recall that we got much of that reaction from it. You get your reactions direct from your readers really, who aren't at all reluctant to tell you what they think. Which is good. Q: Could you talk about some of that feedback you got from the readers. I guess it was both positive and negative? A: Oh sure, it was both. Well, it was more likely to be negative. Well, not entirely. People would write us to tell us they approved of something or they were happy to see us doing something. But I suspect we got more letters from people who thought we ought to be doing things we weren't doing and wanting us to be covering something we weren't covering or want to criticize what we were doing. And we paid close attention to those letters. In fact I think we printed all of them. I don't think we ever ignored one. Q: Can you think of any issues that really raised peoples, you know, ire about some of what you were doing? A: Well, I'm sure there must have been some. I'm sure there must have been cases where people were accusing us of invasion of privacy and that sort of thing. Offhand, I don't recall any very serious complaints of that sort. Q: There was an issue where the Register was advertising X-rated movies and X-rated shops downtown. You were adamant that they had, I mean, that you had a right to publish those. A: Yes, yes. We had quite a bit of pressure from people who wanted us to refuse to accept the advertising. And I thought following that policy, wholly aside from whatever selfish interest we might have in it, I thought following that policy would be very bad. If you begin to try to, in effect, censor what kind of advertising should appear in your paper. And we had a lot of pressure for a quite a while about that. Finally we adopted the policy, a very firm policy, that we would accept advertising for any product or any service that could legally be offered for sale in the state. And our philosophy was, if it was legal, it was legal for it to offered and if it was legal for people to buy it, than it ought to be legal to advertise it. -- <br><br> Section 10: Q: And getting back to the editorial side of it, how is that you and the Register in general were able to recruit such great journalists, you had Clark Mollenhoff and George Mills and... Tape One, Side Two Q: I was asking you about the staff. A: Well we had an opportunity to put together a good staff because we had many, many applications from competent journalists. So it was easy for us to pick competent people. I think we tended to attract that kind of people who want to work here. So it was relatively easy to do it and we would have been very foolish not to do it. When we had people like [Clark] Mollenhoff and so on applying for a jobs there and wanting to work here, it was not difficult to put together a competent staff. Q: What was the appeal of the Register to them, that you could tell? A: Well, it was a statewide newspaper and had broad appeal in that respect. And I think the Register also had a reputation of not interfering with its reporters. They were free to report and investigate anything they wanted to report. There weren't any sacred cows and they all knew that, and that was appealing. And, of course, we tried to hire the best people we could find. And, again, we had a great many applications. Q: And so you found the best people. A: Yes, I think we were pretty successful. Q: Without getting into specifics, or if you'd like to say specifics, what do you think the state of journalism is today as compared to what it was back in your days? A: Oh, that is a very large question. Difficult to answer just off the cuff. Q: Are there some good things that are going on that you could cite, or things that are problems that you can tell? A: Well, from my prejudiced standpoint, I think chain journalism has been an inhibiting influence. I'd be hard put to prove that, I suppose. But when you have a newspaper that's owned by a foreign corporation, that corporation's eye is bound to be on the bottom line. And so, I think there's a tendency at any rate for the ownership corporation in a distant city to judge the paper considerably by the profit it is making. So to that extent, I think, there's been a change. And I suppose I would be hard-pressed to document that. But I don't think chain journalism has been good for the newspapers generally. Although I might have trouble proving that. Q: Although it would be basic business practices, as the Cowles practiced, to keep an eye on the bottom line. A: Oh it would be, but never to the influence of the news. I never had the Cowles family say to me that they thought we ought to print this or we ought not to print that or we ought to emphasize this or we ought to emphasize that because it might have had some effect on the papers' profits. I never had that kind of problem at all. And I'm not saying that chain ownership has it either. But I'm just saying that I think it's healthier, at least in the case I had, it's healthier when you're working for one family that has one objective than if you're working for a chain where your objective has to be the bottom line. -- <br><br> Section 11: Q: You saw some changes over the years from 1926 to '77 with regard to the minorities in the newsroom. I wonder if you could talk a little about that? Back in the '30s, I would guess that there were few blacks and few Hispanics even? A: That's true. There has been a great change. A great change. In my early days, there weren't any minorities in the newsroom. I don't know how many there are now, but I'm sure they are there. And, in fact, I can remember that when we thought we should have more minority representation, it was sometimes difficult to find it. Because there weren't just that many qualified people who were prepared for it. And I think it's quite different now. I don't have any first hand knowledge of it. But I don't think there is any prejudice against minorities now. I hope not. Q: When was it that you thought you needed to have minority representation in the newsroom? What brought that about? A: I can't remember specifically. In my early days you didn't have much of a pool to draw from because there weren't very many minorities journalism students. So, you didn't have very much choice. As soon as it developed to the point where there was a choice, by then it seemed desirable to have minorities in the newsroom. It just sort of evolved. Q: And with women in particular, you did have women on the staff, but a lot of times they were relegated to positions where they were women's editors and such. A: In the early days, there tended to be women's news and society news and fashion and food and that sort of thing. But then, that all changed to a point where there wasn't any discrimination against women. We had women reporters, women copy editors. Q: At the time when there were society reporters, do you think that was a form of discrimination where they weren't allowed to be a part of the hard news side of it? A: Well, looking back on it, I suppose it was discrimination. I suppose it was sort of unconscious discrimination. I guess we just tended to hire women in the women's departments to handle the so-called women's issues. But we had women on the copy desk fairly early. I can't remember the dates now, but I can remember the first woman we hired on the copy desk. And there wasn't any discrimination from then on. We hired them indiscriminately. -- <br><br> Section 12: Q: Was there ever a policy where reporters, or news people in general, couldn't belong to certain groups outside of their profession? A: Yes. Q: And what was that? A: They couldn't belong to political parties. Q: How about civic organizations or advocacy groups? A: Well, you shouldn't belong to any advocacy groups. They couldn't belong to any political organizations. Obviously, you wouldn't want a reporter on any Republican or Democrat committees of any kind. And for the most part they were...it was best if they were not on advocacy groups because you inevitably ran into conflicts of interest. You ran into them where you least expected them. I remember that I was on a couple of organizations which I got off of because at the time I was on them, I didn't think there was any conflict at all. I was on the Lutheran Hospital board for a while. And when I went on it, I didn't see any conflict there conceivably. But then some kind of a labor dispute developed at the hospital and I immediately got off the board because I could see the conflict there. And I was on the art center board for a while. And then a conflict developed over whether the paper should print the prices of acquisitions at the art center. Well, immediately I saw I had a conflict, so I got off of that. And so it just became clear to me that we didn't have any business belonging to any advocacy groups or any boards. You inevitably ran into a conflict some place. Q: Was that a hard and fast policy of the Register's or was that pretty much unsaid? A: Oh, I don't recall there was every any firmly written policy, but it was widely followed. It was more, it kind of depended, of course, on what your position was. I think, David Kruidenier was the publisher, I think he was for a while on, I believe he was on the Iowa Des Moines Bank board. I can't remember. But certainly I would have never considered going on that board if I'd ever been asked to be on it. And nobody in an editorial position would have. Q: So that brings me back to another question about ethical dilemmas. You say you found this would be a dilemma for you if you were serving on the board of the Lutheran Hospital. Were there other situations where you came across ethical dilemmas where you might find a conflict of interest? A: Yes, yes. I found one on the art center board because the director of the art center objected to having the prices of acquisitions published. His view, and I could understand his view, was that people had to come and look at the art for its own value. Not for what it cost. Of course, my view was that what it cost should be part of the public knowledge. So we had a conflict there. And eventually I saw there wasn't any resolution to that, so I got off the board. I don't think you can belong to many boards and be an editor. Q: But you belong to civic organizations and you didn't have a problem with that. A: Well, let's see. What kind of civic organizations? Q: I don't know, civic clubs or like Rotary? A: I never belonged to the Rotary. I never belonged to any of those clubs anyhow, so that question never arose. You get pretty gun-shy as an editor belonging to anything because sooner or later you're likely to run into a conflict. And the easiest way out is just don't get into that situation in the first place. Q: And that is the case with the reporters also. A: Oh yes. Sure, sure. Reporters didn't want to get involved with or belong to something that is going to be a conflict with what he's covering. -- <br><br> Section 13: Q: What do you think that the influence was that the Register had over other papers statewide, along the journalistic food chain? Were they following your lead? Did you notice that? A: Well, that's a little difficult to answer. I suppose...I'm sure they all kept a close on the Register because they looked on us, mistakenly I thought, as competition. The Cedar Rapids Gazette, for example. I used to say to the editor, "We can't be your competition. You're covering Cedar Rapids. We can never cover Cedar Rapids the way you can." But we saw Cedar Rapids for the news of other places in the state, not for the news of Cedar Rapids. But I'm sure the other papers did look upon us a competition. I never regarded it that way. Q: Did you ever come across situations where they might have been, cases where you were plagiarized or they got stories from you? A: Oh no, I don't remember that. There wasn't, (clears throat) excuse me, there wasn't anything to keep them from...if we printed a story first, there wasn't anything to keep them from rewriting it. We didn't try to copyright or anything. It was in the paper. Q: What changes have you seen in technology? I know you've been gone from the Register for some 22 years now. But, just what's your insight into changes that have happened over the last couple of decades about how we find sources, the speed of how news gets to the readers? A: Well, technology has changed so much. I'm not even up to date on it anymore. There is all new technology, as you well know, on how papers are put together and how they are printed. It has changed completely from the typesetting days when I was there. It's a much faster process, I'm sure. But I haven't had any first-hand experience with it. Q: Do you think there is a downside to that, being you as a consumer of news; that it is coming to you faster? A: I don't see any downside to it, no. Q: Perhaps the fact that news sources aren't always being checked as thoroughly as they should be? A: Oh I don't think so. I don't think so. That would be a dereliction on the part of the reporters. The reporter's first obligation is to be sure he's right, he or she, and to check the sources to make sure he's right. And speed is never an excuse for not doing that. Q: But how do you think that is happening today? Have you seen instances where that has happened? A: I'm not aware of it. -- <br><br> Section 14: Q: And one of my final questions is, what kept you in Des Moines? I mean, you had all this journalistic experience and you had the option to go other places? To larger papers and such? A: Yes. Well, that is a very good question. I did have offers to go other places. I had a very attractive offer to New York once. I don't have to worry about whether I made the right decision because the paper is no longer in existence. It was the old Herald-Tribune, which, in my day, was a great newspaper. I considered that very carefully. I was offered a good job on the New York Herald-Tribune, which was a fine, prosperous, growing paper at that time. And I considered it very carefully before I turned it down. But I decided that, for several reasons, I liked Des Moines, I liked living in Des Moines. To me, it's the right kind of city. It has what I want in a city without the drawbacks of a big city. And I didn't see any particular reason to change. I was happy here. I was happy with what I was doing. And so, I just turned it down. I liked living in Des Moines. It's a city...probably just because of my familiarity with it because I lived here ever since I've been an adult, but to me and to my way of living, Des Moines is an ideal size city. It has the things that I'm interested in, and most of the cultural activities that interest me, and yet it doesn't have a lot of the disadvantages of a big city. -- <br><br> Section 15: Q: And briefly, could you talk about some of the, you touched on this briefly, but could you talk about some of the personalities at the Register, Bill Waymack, George Yates was another one. A: George Yates was a one-man promotion department for the Register. He was a superb photographer. Did you ever know him? No that was long before your time. He died before you were born. He was a personality, as you probably know. All his life, he maintained this British accent, which got thicker every time he was talking with strangers. And he wore wide mustaches. He was a great promotion man for the Register, in addition to being a superb photographer. He used to pride himself on not needing credentials. I sent him to Washington once during the war to cover some of the Des Moines people who were prominent in the war department. And to take pictures of them and have interviews with them and so on. I wanted to provide him with credentials to get into the defense department; it required credentials in those days. And he said, "I'll take them, but I won't need them." And he insisted he never used them. He said, "I just waved my lodge card and walked right in." I can remember when he used to go to football games in Iowa City [IA], he'd arrive at the gate. He had tickets, of course, but he never used them. He arrived at the gate, loaded down with cameras of all sizes and just walked through the gate, shouting, "Yates of the Register." (laughs) He was a great figure. Q: Quite a character, huh? A: Yes he was. Great character for the Register. Q: How about [Jay.N.] "Ding" Darling? What can you remember about him? A: Oh, he was a wonderful fellow, wonderful fellow. Very vibrant, active, enterprising, and energetic. Lively man. Great man to be around. Good stories and good anecdotes. Q: Did you socialize with him outside work? Either of those folks? A: No. Occasionally, but not particularly, no. Occasionally there might be some socializing, but not very much. Q: Was there a professional colleague who was also a close personal friend of yours that you can remember? A: Professional colleague at the paper? Q: Yes. A: Oh yes. I had close professional colleagues, people like Dick Wilson, Frank Eyerly. Q: That you socialized with outside the paper? A: Yes, yes. I did as long as they lived. We'd been close friends at the university. Our last year at the university, we got together almost every afternoon. And we remained close friends as long as they lived. Yes, I had frequent contact. Q: Anybody besides Frank and Dick that were lifelong social friends? A: I'm sure there were some. Georgie Mills, of course, was a lifelong friend. Q: That's all right. Those are pretty much the questions I have. A: OK. Q: Anything else you want to add that we haven't touched on? A: Well, I can't think of anything. We have touched on an awful lot. Q: OK. I appreciate your talking to me. A: Well, I'm very happy to do it. Q: If I have other questions, I can give you a call, I guess. A: OK. Sure. I'm available anytime.