Des Moines Register community impact report for 2023: How our journalism made a difference

Each year, Des Moines Register journalists produce thousands of articles, photos and videos to keep Iowans informed about news in their communities and happenings across the state.

The Des Moines Register print edition is delivered by mail, to single-copy retail outlets or by carrier to homes in all of Iowa’s 99 counties daily or Sunday. And in 2023, our websites reached 2.6 million average monthly users in all 50 states and 80 countries, according to Google Analytics.

Whether we’re reporting on your high school sports team, the opening of a new restaurant in your community or the actions of the Iowa Legislature, our mission is to provide accurate, trustworthy reporting.

Often, that reporting has tangible impact, whether to inspire an individual to get involved with tackling an issue or to prompt elected representatives to change a policy or a law.

For the second year, I’m delivering an annual report to you, our readers, on the impact of the Register and its journalism. This report also will highlight events that the Register organizes, Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Polls and the Register’s own philanthropic efforts.

As always, I thank our subscribers for your support in making this work possible. If you haven’t signed up yet, please consider doing so. The Register staff and I are honored that you count on us to deliver trustworthy journalism, and we’re dedicated to helping make our communities even better places to live and work.

JOURNALISM THAT MADE AN IMPACT

It’s rare for a single story to prompt individuals or authorities to leap into action. Often, meaningful change comes after years of news coverage, pressure by activists, and community leaders either leading the charge or eventually getting on board. With some of the stories I cite, I also must credit coverage by journalists at local television stations or online sites such as Iowa Capital Dispatch, which shares its top-notch investigative reporting with the Register. Iowa journalists' collective work often helps build a groundswell of public attention around an issue. With the stories included in this section, the Register devoted extensive exclusive reporting to an issue, others have cited the impact of the Register’s coverage, or both.

Cataloging repercussions of Iowa's book ban law

After the Iowa Legislature adopted a law banning depictions of sex acts in school books, the Des Moines Register committed to detailed tracking of its impact on Iowa districts.

On July 31, reporter Chris Higgins obtained a list of 374 books that the Urbandale Community School District believed could violate the law and merit banning, including classics such as "Ulysses," "The Catcher in the Rye" and "The Color Purple." Within days, amid reporting by other media and an outcry from residents, the district trimmed the list to 64 books.

In the meantime, using public records requests, the Register undertook a months-long effort to obtain information from all 327 Iowa school districts about book challenges raised before the Legislature acted. The findings: Challenges had been rare the past three years. Nearly 90% of Iowa's 327 school districts did not have a single challenge from August 2020 to May 2023. Just 100 complaints involving 60 books and one film were filed over that three-year period.

No entity, including the state Department of Education, had compiled similar data on book challenges in Iowa. And now, the Register is compiling another database, this one of books districts have removed from library shelves because of the new law. As of mid-December, 150 districts had responded; 45 districts had removed roughly 470 unique titles and more than 1,200 books.

The Register’s reporting on this issue and its database of removed books were cited extensively in a lawsuit against the book removal law by ACLU of Iowa, Lambda Legal and Iowa students and their families. The Register's work to compile these unique databases helped increase Iowans' understanding of the facts behind the push to enact the book ban law and how it is playing out in Iowa schools.

Documenting new accusations, bar owner's history

In February, Reader’s Watchdog Lee Rood reported on an exclusive interview with a former girlfriend of prominent Des Moines metro bar owner Steve McFadden. She had filed a police report in Florida accusing McFadden of assault; he had previously been convicted of assaulting the same woman in 2021.

McFadden had been charged the previous month along with a bar owner friend of stalking another ex-girlfriend using a GPS tracking device. Rood also dug through reams of court documents to pull together information on an earlier conviction of harassment after McFadden allegedly threatened a man with a baseball bat; previous accusations of domestic violence; and numerous lawsuits by him and against him.

Key West police have not charged McFadden, but he’s faced a string of setbacks since publication of Rood’s report. In the stalking case, he was convicted of unauthorized use and placement of a GPS tracking device and third-degree harassment. He was denied liquor licenses for Fat Charlie's Tavern in Urbandale, both Grumpy Goat Tavern locations in West Des Moines and the Tipsy Crow Tavern in downtown Des Moines. He’s sold some of his properties and faces state and federal tax liens on others.

Exposing C6-Zero's safety risks, dangers to workers

A three-part investigation by Des Moines Register reporter Tyler Jett into a Dec. 8, 2022, explosion and fire at a Marengo shingles recycling factory showed that former workers were still in the dark months later about the potentially dangerous chemicals to which they were exposed before and after the disaster.

Jett filed public records requests that revealed delays by the company, C6-Zero, in identifying the chemicals involved and a lack of oversight from public agencies. Weeks after Jett requested the information and days before publication of the series, the company finally released the federally required safety data sheets that detailed some of the chemicals it used but omitted key facts, experts said.

The company has since been fined $95,000 for safety violations, and EPA inspectors concluded company officials had failed to design a safe factory or properly manage hazardous substances.

Jett's investigation helped hold company and public officials accountable and revealed information that government investigations did not disclose. “Thank you for the series of articles on the C6-Zero plant in Marengo,” one reader wrote. “I don’t understand how this company even began operating.”

Raising questions about alleged abuse at Boys Town, its fundraising tactics

In November, an investigation by Reader's Watchdog Lee Rood examined a lawsuit filed by two young women alleging sexual assault by a house parent at Boys Town, the storied 106-year-old Omaha youth home. The lawsuit has since been settled through confidential agreements.

Likewise, other allegations of sexual assault at Boys Town remain cloaked in secrecy, Rood found. Boys Town is served by its own village police department, which reported 12 rape offenses to state and federal agencies from 2018 to 2022, but its police chief would not release any details.

Rood also scoured the nonprofit’s annual reports and tax documents and found that Boys Town has spent more than other high-asset charities in the United States to raise money. And while it focuses many of its fundraising appeals on helping the children living at its historic campus in Omaha, the majority of its spending goes to a research hospital and other programs.

The impact of Rood’s reporting, which was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center, may take years to play out. Rood petitioned the Nebraska attorney general to obtain police incident reports on the 12 reported rapes, but her appeal was denied in December based on an exception in Nebraska law allowing law enforcement agencies to withhold investigatory records.

Meanwhile, more members of the U.S. House and Senate from both parties have signed on as co-sponsors of the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, which would require more accountability and transparency at youth residential care facilities. Co-sponsors now total 18 in the Senate and 64 in the House, including Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa.

Piecing together a developer's $70 million trail of debts

A source tip launched Lee Rood into an investigation that exposed a trail of debts allegedly piled up by metro developer, philanthropist and former Waukee mayoral candidate Daniel Pettit.

Rood sifted through over two dozen lawsuits, plus mechanic’s liens and other police and court records to find judgments totaling $70 million and an order for Pettit’s arrest. In making that order, a judge wrote, "Many individuals and companies — big, medium and small — potentially have been economically damaged by (his) empty promises and lack of candor as to his true financial position …”

In her initial report, Rood wrote that Johnston police were investigating Pettit in connection with an alleged armed robbery at his home that police suspected might have been staged. Rood has subsequently confirmed that Pettit is under investigation by the FBI. In addition, the Iowa Insurance Division has acknowledged it’s investigating Pettit and has asked investors who believe they have been wronged by Pettit to file a complaint with the division.

Sometimes, journalism triggers quick action …

• On March 14, Lee Rood reported about a Des Moines mother of six who won $100,000 in the Iowa Lottery, but for eight days, her Chase Bank branch had refused to cash the check, even after the lottery verified its authenticity. A day later, the bank accepted the check for deposit.

• Just before 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 28, a partial collapse tore away portions of a 117-year-old apartment building in Davenport. Yet city officials made the baffling announcement just 17 hours later that rescue operations were ending (a woman was rescued from the debris hours later), and also said demolition would proceed on Tuesday morning, while some residents were still unaccounted for. That morning, Opinion Editor Lucas Grundmeier published a column, joining voices in the community, calling on city officials to continue rescue operations, which they did. Three bodies ultimately were recovered from the debris days later. Credit goes to rescue and recovery crews who continued to search despite the risk posed by the building’s instability. I also salute the journalists at the Quad-City Times, who have relentlessly sought out records and pressed city officials on why warnings about the building’s instability weren’t heeded and what’s being done to prevent similar tragedies.

• In early November, Register reporter Kyle Werner, along with other local media, reported on a stalemate between managers at the Legacy Apartments in Des Moines and the U.S. Postal Service that had left about 20 tenants without mail delivery. Many of the tenants are refugees who speak little or no English and rely on the mail to pay bills and maintain correspondence with agencies about food and health assistance. The dispute, which boiled down to whether the complex or the post office owned shared mailboxes, had been going on since at least late August. But within about two weeks after this news coverage, some tenants began getting access to their mail.

… Other times, its impact surfaces years later

• In 2021, Register reporter Philip Joens did an in-depth examination of the victimization and trauma experienced by Pieper Lewis, then awaiting sentencing for the stabbing death of a man to whom she was sex trafficked at age 15. After receiving a deferred judgment and probation, she walked away from a court-run transitional housing facility and faced a new sentencing in spring 2023. Joens then examined the role in Lewis’ case played by Iowa’s lack of a state-run facility for delinquent girls. The Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking has cited Joens’ work in its advocacy that the state establish a new juvenile home for girls. (Lewis was again placed on probation, but she faces 20 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter and willful injury if she violates probation again.)

• The Register has selected Academic All-State teams for decades. This spring, I caught up with a 1990 honoree who credits her selection for changing the trajectory of her life. A graduate of Aurelia Community High School, in northwest Iowa, Ann Bryant, now Ann Borders, was contemplating attending a school in Minnesota as the financial pain of the farm crisis lingered. But after the Register selected her for the All-State team, Iowa State University stepped forward to offer a full-ride scholarship. Years of diligent work later, she’s a medical doctor, a researcher and head of a collaborative of hospitals praised for improving the health of pregnant women, mothers and infants across Illinois.

• Seven years ago, the Register published the nationally award-winning “Trans in Iowa” series, written by now-Iowa Columnist Courtney Crowder, which explored the lives and perspectives of transgender Iowans and the civil rights struggle engulfing them. An Iowan who heard Crowder discuss the 2016 series in a presentation this fall wrote Crowder to say that the discussion had helped her talk with a friend who had become estranged from her granddaughter after struggling to accept her transition. Crowder’s work often gives voice to subjects revealing truths about their lives, experiences and emotions, and those truths in turn bring readers new understanding about themselves and the people in their lives — sometimes years after a story’s initial publication.

Touching hearts through powerful storytelling

Sometimes an image or a story touches the hearts of individuals and communities in ways both personal and profound.

• Dr. David Drake, an Iowa psychiatrist, wrote in a column recently that seeing a Register photo last winter of bundled-up Joppa volunteers walking down a snowy embankment to distribute supplies to unhoused people prompted him to learn more about the nonprofit, and he and his wife now join the effort once a month.

• In December, Noelle Alviz-Gransee wrote about a 9-year-old Waukee boy, Aiden James-Harrison Smith, who drowned in a Waukee pond. She interviewed his grandfather Shawn Pickett, who called the boy “my best friend” and described the family’s heartache. Pickett texted her afterward in appreciation: “You somehow put into words and summarized everything we are going thru and shared it in such a way that is understandable for anyone who reads it. I have tears running down my cheeks as i read this over and over. Thank you for putting into words what is so hard to describe.”

• A year after an EF4 tornado ripped through Winterset on March 5, 2022, killing seven people, Iowa Columnist Courtney Crowder revisited that fateful night and interviewed first responders and survivors. She focused on Kuri Bolger, whose mother, Melissa Bazley; husband, Mike Bolger; and two children, Kinlee, 5, and Owen, 2, were killed. Her son Brysen, then 9, survived. The story describes Bolger’s ordeal as she lay trapped in debris, with family members trapped around her, some not moving or speaking, and the determined efforts of first responders to find survivors. It chronicles Bolger’s year of searching for joy for her and her son, amid crashing waves of grief. Madison County Sheriff Jason Barnes wrote me later to praise Crowder’s powerful story: “I also believe the story itself will help many of the victims in their healing process.”

Other strong journalism deserving attention

STABILITY OF MUTUAL INSURERS: Last summer, Des Moines Register investigative reporter Tyler Jett first began reporting that some of Iowa’s rural property and casualty mutual insurance companies were having trouble getting state-required reinsurance after a series of storms in 2020 and 2021. Then an out-of-state reinsurer emerged, and Iowa mutuals began signing up while knowing little about this would-be rescuer. To produce a three-part series, Jett tracked down business filings, lawsuits and criminal charges from the U.S. to Europe to Africa, enlisting freelancers in Rumania and Kenya to help obtain documents. The heart of the matter is this: If a major storm strikes and Iowans’ mutual insurer needs to cover a lot of claims, will the mutual and its reinsurer have enough cash to pay them? One reader wrote to thank the Register for “devoting the resources necessary to permit Tyler Jett to investigate this important issue,” reflecting the sentiment of several messages I received. Our hope is that leaders of Iowa’s mutual insurers, the state Insurance Division and legislators will take extra steps to ensure policyholders’ interests are protected.

HEALTH OF IOWA’S SOIL AND WATER: In September, agriculture, energy and environment reporter Donnelle Eller wrote about new research showing Iowa soil has lost half its richness over the past century or so. She had learned that a group was undertaking a long-term research project on the loss of soil organic carbon and persuaded leaders to share initial findings. And in late November, in a story that described some counties as “drier than the Dust Bowl,” she examined Iowa’s preparations for the possibility of water shortages as our historically water-rich state enters its fourth year of drought. Preserving the health of Iowa’s soil and water, the bedrock of our state’s economy, deserves attention and action from individual Iowans and the state’s leadership.

REGISTER-AFFILIATED EVENTS

The Des Moines Register Political Soapbox

There’s nothing more fundamental to democracy than the freedom of voters to size up candidates for public office and then vote for their choices. Yet opportunities for the general public to meet candidates and hear them speak are dwindling in a polarized time when many candidates avoid debates and often stage events catering to high-dollar donors and their party’s base.

The Register has stepped in to fill that breach in recent decades by hosting its Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair, a place accessible to all Iowans and the state’s most popular gathering spot. The premise is simple: The Register offers all candidates who have made the ballot for federal or statewide office or met other criteria the opportunity to speak at the Soapbox for 20 minutes.

Across five days of the fair, the 2023 Soapbox hosted 13 candidates seeking the nominations of the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties.

Des Moines Storytellers Project

The Des Moines Storytellers Project is dedicated to the idea that oral storytelling and journalism have the same goals: serving and reflecting a community while fostering empathy. In 2023, the project hosted three shows at historic Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, where Iowans, coached by Register journalists, told their stories live on stage.

The Storytellers Project recently announced a three-show lineup for 2024, featuring stories focused on community, Feb. 27; travel, June 18; and overcoming, Oct. 22. Tickets for individual shows, which cost $14 or $30 for VIP, go on sale Jan. 16. They can be purchased at DesMoinesRegister.com/Storytellers, via Ticketmaster or at the Hoyt Sherman Place box office.

An epic RAGBRAI

The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa marked its 50th anniversary with the most riders ever: 29,000 registered full-week or day riders. Estimates for riders on the Ames to Des Moines leg reached 60,000.

RAGBRAI was started in 1973 by two Register journalists who decided to embark on a casual ride across the state and invited the public to come along. Today, the cross-state trek is the longest, largest and oldest recreational bicycle touring event in the world, and it’s a major economic development and community building opportunity for towns along the route, which in 2023 traversed 500 miles from Sioux City to Davenport. It’s run by Ventures Endurance, a subsidiary of Gannett, the Register’s parent company.

RAGBRAI’s 50th anniversary ride also marked a record year for the amount donated by RAGBRAI’s charity arm, RAGBRAI Gives Back, to communities along the route and the Dream Team, a program that trains underprivileged youth to complete the ride. Specifically, RAGBRAI donated $5,000 to each of the year’s 32 pass-through towns; $10,000 to the seven meeting towns; and $15,000 to eight overnight towns. The RAGBRAI community fund, which riders can donate to during registration, gave an additional $185,253 divided equally between the eight overnight town communities and the Dream Team. RAGBRAI also partnered with GoFundMe to allow riders to set up individual fundraising pages. Riders raised a total of $176,275 for the causes of their choice. RAGBRAI also covered over $1.34 million in costs for the overnight communities, for expenses such as the concert series, port-a-potties, LED signs and volunteer T-shirts.

Registration is open for RAGBRAI LI, July 20-27. The route announcement celebration is Jan. 27 at the Iowa Events Center. Tickets are $55 per person or $500 per table of 10.

'SHIFT': THE RAGBRAI DOCUMENTARY

To mark the 50th anniversary of RAGBRAI, Register journalists embarked on the daunting undertaking of producing an hour-long documentary about the ride. "SHIFT: The RAGBRAI Documentary" enjoyed its red carpet premiere May 4 at the Varsity Cinema in Des Moines and played there for an unprecedented two months. It has since been shown at art house film venues from river to river and has aired statewide through a partnership with Iowa PBS.

The film has a lot of heart. It shows the ride’s fun — the costumes, the beer drinking, the pie eating — but it goes much deeper, following three riders and a pair of community leaders as they take on challenges and gain new insights along the way. Plus, it showcases the state’s picturesque landscapes and the hospitality of Iowans.

Much of the credit for the film's conception and completion goes to co-directors Courtney Crowder, the Register's Iowa Columnist, and then-photo editor Kelsey Kremer. But I learned it takes a village to make a documentary. Much of "SHIFT" was shot by seven videographers during RAGBRAI 2022. Ten Register staffers, six Register alumni, seven other USA TODAY Network journalists and five RAGBRAI staffers received credits. Special thanks also goes to Dr. Richard Deming, who helped fund its production, and Des Moines Film, which served as its fiscal sponsor.

Perhaps my favorite compliment about the documentary came from Mary Riche of Des Moines, who has attended national and international film festivals and described "SHIFT" in a Facebook post as "a beautiful love letter to Iowa."

You can still see it. Iowa PBS has the rights to broadcast "SHIFT" through 2024, and likely will do so in July in conjunction with RAGBRAI LI.

THE IOWA POLL

The Des Moines Register & Tribune founded the Iowa Poll in 1943, and today it’s the oldest state opinion poll. Along the way, it has amassed an unparalleled repository of information on the mindset of Iowans and how their opinions have evolved on key issues, and it's cited by journalists and academic researchers alike.

In 2023, Mediacom was the sole sponsor of the Register's annual Iowa Poll on legislative issues, plumbing views on subjects such as education savings accounts, cuts to property and income taxes, abortion, child labor laws and proposed new rules on what books students would be allowed check out from school libraries.

NBC News joined Mediacom as a sponsor for August, October and December Iowa Polls of likely Republican caucusgoers. Another Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll is planned ahead of the Jan. 15 Iowa Caucuses.

An in-house staff conducted the Iowa Poll until the late 1990s. J. Ann Selzer, who once worked on that staff, has conducted it on a contract basis since 1997. Iowa Polls, especially those related to the Iowa Caucuses, get heavy media coverage, and the Iowa Poll and Selzer have earned national renown for the poll's accuracy.

REGISTER PHILANTHROPY

Embrace Iowa, our annual holiday giving campaign, has been a Register tradition since 1984. Administered by the Iowa Community Action Association, the program provides grants of up to $750 to help families who face unexpected expenses, such as a car repair, or are digging out from past-due rent or utility bills.

In the 2022-23 cycle, Embrace Iowa raised $343,000, which helped 645 families. Embrace Iowa accepts funds year-round, but the official fundraising campaign runs from Thanksgiving through Feb. 1.

Because of Iowa Community Action's partnership, all donations go directly to helping Iowans in need. Not a dime goes to administration. You can donate to this year’s campaign online at iowacommunityaction.org/about/donate. Or checks can be mailed to Embrace Iowa, P.O. Box 10611, Cedar Rapids, IA 52410-0611.

NATIONAL RECOGNITION

• A three-part series, “Death of the Iowa Democratic Caucus," by chief politics reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel and Iowa Columnist Courtney Crowder, won third place in the news series category in the National Headliners Awards and won second place for series from the Society for Features Journalism.

• Crowder's in-depth report, "'We Had a Way Out’: Exhaustion, anger, courage and sorrow in an Iowa ICU fighting another COVID wave," won second place for narrative storytelling from the Society of Features Journalism.

• Crowder also won the Society of Features Journalism's best portfolio award for a collection of work. Judges wrote: “Crowder’s voice is remarkably compelling in this selection of stories about a mariachi band uniting an Iowa town, a Black soldier whose heroic acts were never awarded with a Medal of Honor and a daughter losing her unvaccinated father to COVID. Crowder’s work keeps the reader hooked with rich detail, stellar reporting and cultural context.”

• Photographer Lily Smith is among 20 journalists selected by the National Press Foundation for its 2024 Widening the Pipeline Fellowship, a yearlong program focused on training journalists of color to lead newsrooms.

• In December, sports columnist Randy Peterson, a 51-year sportswriter for the Register, received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Football Writers Association of America. The association's executive director said of Peterson: "Randy truly has been an institution in Iowa where he has covered the Big Eight, Big Ten, Missouri Valley and Big 12 at different times over the last 50 years … He has been on the front page of the Des Moines Register sports section longer than many Iowans have been alive."

Carol Hunter is the Register’s executive editor. She wants to hear your questions, story ideas or concerns at 515-284-8545, chunter@registermedia.com, or on Twitter: @carolhunter.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How Des Moines Register journalism made a difference in 2023