The Des Moines Register's historic downtown office building (Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

The figures represent a 13 percent daily reduction and a 6.7 percent Sunday reduction. That would put The Register’s daily circulation at a little more than 118,000 newspapers, down from 147,699 in September 2006. The paper’s Sunday circulation would total a little more than 206,000 newspapers, down from 237,870 in September 2006.

In a memo to staff explaining the numbers, Register President and Publisher Laura Hollingsworth points out that 56 percent of the daily loss and 36 percent of the Sunday reduction came due to “strategic changes we’ve made in our business as we’ve moved focus to circulation that is most important to our customers and to us.”

For example, Hollingsworth said the paper, owned by Gannett, eliminated many free upgrades that provided Sunday subscribers additional days at no charge. The paper also eliminated the biggest discount subscriptions and reduced delivery to areas where it was not as profitable. Lastly, a price increase also resulted in some circulation reduction, Hollingsworth said.

Without these moves, the paper’s circulation would have only declined 5.5 percent daily and 4.3 percent on Sunday.

“[These decisions] were painful to make,” she said. “But, these decisions bolstered the economics of our circulation operation while providing the most attractive distribution model for our advertisers. “

Despite the circulation numbers, Hollingsworth boasted that The Register’s overall readership is actually higher in 2009 than it was in 2001.

“In 2001, The Des Moines Register reached more than 516,000 people in central Iowa,” she said. “Today, The Des Moines Register, along with DesMoinesRegister.com and our many publications such as Juice, Moms Like Me and Homestyle, reach more than 597,000 adults. This is a growth in audience of more than 15 percent.”

According to the trade publication Editor and Publisher, The Register’s circulation drop is consistent with other papers across the country. Gannett’s flagship paper, USA Today, saw its circulation drop 17 percent. The New York Times reported a 7.28 percent decrease. The Los Angeles Times reported its daily circulation is down 11 percent.

The biggest drops came from the San Francisco Chronicle (-25.82), Newark (N.J.) Star Ledger (-22.22) and Dallas Morning News (-22.16).

Overall newspaper circulation is down 10.6 percent daily and 7.4 percent on Sunday.

Since August 2008, The Register instituted more than 100 layoffs and a mandatory furlough program in response to a declining economy.

Rubashkin, the former day-to-day executive at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, recently had his federal trial moved from Iowa to Sioux Falls, S.D. in an effort to mitigate jury tainting due to excessive media coverage. He faces a host of immigration-related and fraud charges that stem from a May 2008 immigration raid at the Agriprocessors plant. On Thursday, a half-page advertisement ran on page 5 of The Des Moines Register that was paid for by “Friends of Sholom Rubashkin” using a Brooklyn, N.Y., address. It was a move which caught the ire of federal prosecutors as well as the judge who agreed to move the trial from Iowa to South Dakota to mitigate pre-trial publicity.

A half-page ad that ran Thursday in The Des Moines Register, linked to members of the Rubashkin family, has not appeared in Sioux Falls media where the trial of Sholom Rubashkin is scheduled to begin this month.

Chief Judge Linda R. Reade, according to The Gazette, said that if such an advertisement ran in the similarly Gannett-owned Sioux Falls newspaper, that she was “going to hit the roof.”

Guy Cook, defense attorney for Rubashkin, told the court that he was not aware of the advertisement and that it didn’t stem from the council of rabbis who are providing defense funding for his client. The address used in the advertisement, however, is also used by Rite Surgical Supplies, a company that has ties to the Rubashkin family. Levi Balkany, a grandson of Agriprocessors founder A. Aaron Rubashkin and nephew of Sholom M. Rubashkin, listed himself as vice president of Rite Surgical Supplies on forms required by the Federal Elections Commission by those who make political contributions.

Levi Balkany is the son of one of Aaron Rubashkin’s daughters and Milton Balkany, a Rabbi who was charged in 2003 with misappropriation of nearly $1 million in federal grant money intended for disabled students at a Jewish school. After Milton Balkany apologized and made restitution, he did not face prosecution. Milton Balkany has also been referred to as the “Brooklyn bundler” for his ability to gather and bundle numerous campaign donations (many from Rubashkin family members) for primarily Republican candidates, in exchange for consideration of issues important for Orthodox Jewish institutions. Part of the federal deal for deferring prosecution on the grant money was that Balkany would be barred from lobbying the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, although federal prosecutors declined to elaborate on why this particular activity was of importance.

Levi Balkany is one of 16 individuals, members of the Chabad Jewish Community in Brooklyn, that were named in December 2008 to “The Committee of Concerned Anash for Pidyon Shevuyim,” a group organized to create a top-notch legal team for Sholom Rubashkin and to mount a donation and public relations campaign on his behalf.

In a press release the committee said that they want “the public to know they are the official group to assist and aid the Rubashkins, endorsed by the family” and that they have “years of experience in dealing with pidyon shevuyim (prisoner of war) cases.”

Although the committee’s efforts have been prominent in Jewish circles, the half-page ad in Iowa is one of the few times the group has sought to sway overall public sentiment regarding the case. Weekday reach of The Des Moines Register into the Sioux Falls area is roughly 3,500 households, according to a company spokesperson.

Judge Reade, citing media accounts that prohibited seating an impartial jury in the case, decided in August to move the upcoming trial from Iowa to South Dakota. At that time, the court warned prosecutors and defense attorneys about tainting the Sioux Falls media prior to the start of the trial, which is scheduled for Oct. 10.

Defense attorneys during a pretrial hearing in Cedar Rapids on Thursday argued that prosecutors had already dismissed the court’s warning by sending out press releases announcing the guilty plea of Mitchel Meltzer, a former chief financial officer at the plant, to numerous press outlets, including those in Sioux Falls. Despite the press releases not being targeted to that specific media market, Judge Reade nonetheless admonished the prosecuting team.

Reporters covering the case in Sioux Falls, according to Reade, will not be allowed any access to immediate story filing through blogs or social networking sites like twitter. Laptops and cellphones will be barred.

Martin, who has studied how the media covers labor and middle-class issues, was contacted by Dr. Peter Dreier, a professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles who has studied politics and urban issues, and asked if he would consider helping research how a little-known organization became such a magnet for media criticism.

“He asked me if I was aware of what was going on with ACORN, that there were allegations of them engaging in voter fraud during the election,” Martin said. “I told him that I had heard about it, but that I didn’t really know a lot about ACORN.”

In that respect, Martin wasn’t too different from most Americans. Prior to 2008, according to the study Martin co-authored with Dreier, few Americans had any real knowledge about the activities of ACORN, although it was the largest community organizing group in the nation with chapters in 110 cities in 40 states. And although the organization was founded and continues to organize around issues of interest to low- and moderate-income Americans — issues such as affordable housing, veterans’ rights, predatory lending, school lunches, public transportation and living wages — the vast majority of the the news reports on ACORN focused on allegations of wrongdoing.

“The more we looked into it, it just seemed like these allegations may have been unfair,” Martin said. ” [The allegations] were happening in the mainstream media, but it seemed like they may have been coming from more conservative sources.”

Martin and Dreier found that despite ACORN’s involvement in a wide variety of activities throughout the country, the dominant focus of news reports about the organization was “voter fraud.” During 2007 and 2008, 55 percent of the 647 news stories published about ACORN in 15 mainstream outlets focused on alleged voter fraud. In October 2008 alone, 76 percent of the stories about ACORN were negative, also focusing on allegations of voter fraud. Notably, more than 80 percent of those news reports failed to provide all the facts: That actual voter fraud is very rare; that ACORN itself reported the voter registration irregularities to authorities as they were required to do by law; that ACORN was acting to stop incident of registration problems by temporary staff member; and that Republicans had been targeting ACORN registration efforts because most of the urban and ethnic individuals registered by the organization were registering as Democrats.

“The Republican Party has been working against ACORN,” Martin said and then gave a quick self-conscious laugh. “I know it sounds like some crazy conspiracy, but it actually became very clear in August when released records showed that there was meddling during the [George W.] Bush administration in the Justice Department.”

The 5,000 pages of White House and Republican National Committee e-mail messages and transcripts of closed-door testimony, referenced by Martin, were released by the House Judiciary Committee on Aug. 11. The documents revealed that Karl Rove, former Bush senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, played a central role in the firing of David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, for failing to help Republican election prospects by prosecuting alleged instances of voter fraud by ACORN. And, while nearly every major news outlet reported on the documents, the study authors discovered that none of the news outlets mentioned that Rove was specifically focused on attacking ACORN for its voter registration efforts.

The allegations launched against ACORN and unceremoniously regurgitated by the mainstream media were not, however, limited to Republican Party talking points.

“We describe in the study how the stories about ACORN emerges in two prongs,” Martin said, indicating that there were both Republican and business interests taking aim at the group.

“There are business groups that have funded efforts against ACORN over the past several years. They haven’t liked ACORN because ACORN has endorsed things like living-wage campaigns and raise-the-minimum-wage campaigns in service industries like restaurants. So, there have also been groups working against ACORN that way.”

Were this simply an isolated example of media complicity (witting or unwitting) with political organizations, the attack on ACORN would be interest only to ACORN, its allies and detractors. But this case has wider implications.

Our analysis of the narrative framing of the ACORN stories demonstrates that — despite long-standing charges from conservatives that the news media are determinedly liberal and ignore conservative ideas — the news media is easily permeated by a persistent media campaign, even when there is little or no truth to the story.

“I think the mainstream media in many cases is overly sensitive to the charge of ‘liberal media,’” Martin said. “They go out of their way to avoid being seen that way. What was clear in our study was that the mainstream media took many of the same frames from the conservative media and the Republican Party and put those out the exact same way without any additional fact-checking or commentary.”

In the study, Martin and Dreier lay out their case that the stories about ACORN were crafted and tested within the right-wing echo chamber before being pushed into the mainstream media during October 2008, just weeks ahead of the November presidential election. It was a classic “October Surprise” that Martin and Dreier believe would have garnered more traction had it not been for other stories considered more pressing by the public and media, particularly the economic downturn.

The study also asserts that when faced with the reality that the economy was going to drive news cycles, conservative “opinion entrepreneurs” sought to blame ACORN for the decline.

“ACORN has become this huge, kind of proxy for going after [President] Obama,” Martin said.

“I don’t think there would have been the same connections if Hillary Clinton had been the Democratic nominee … You had these long-standing attacks against ACORN, and they really tried to target Obama with allegations that he was a socialist, a radical and connected to groups like ACORN that they had already managed to paint with those same types of words. And actually, his connection is fairly minor. They’ve tried to suggest that he is almost leading the entire organization, but it just wasn’t anything to that degree.”

Martin and Dreier also note that while other controversies surrounding Obama’s candidacy have faded in the wake of the presidential election and inauguration, attacks on ACORN and even the misplaced links between Obama and ACORN have remained consistent. In May 2009, for example, the GOP launched a Web site that specifically targeted ACORN and, earlier in the year, Republican elected officials falsely claimed that billions in stimulus money was earmarked for ACORN. In fact, just last week, Iowa’s own U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) stood before the House of Representatives with a Soviet-styled poster of Obama behind him and proclaimed the president is “the star of ACORN.”

“He is the lead, chief organizer,” King asserted while using a metal pointer to poke at the depiction of the president. “He is the person who told the people at ACORN, ‘I will invite you in — and we will be setting the agenda for America,’ even before he was inaugurated as president of the United States. This is the man who worked for ACORN.”

The congressional action in relation to ACORN, which has been mostly regulated to Republicans railing against the organization and funding cuts, began shortly after undercover videos were published by a conservative blogger that portray ACORN employees offering illegal advice to a prostitute and a pimp.

“Our study was completed in August, and we just released it as this was happening,” Martin said. “The current controversy follows the same formula that we document in the study. That is, the attacks on ACORN begin within the Republican Party and the right-wing echo chamber, where they frame ACORN as this radical, left-wing, corrupt organization.”

The videos, like all of the allegations that have been made against ACORN, are of questionable origin and have not been vetted or fact-checked by credible sources. For instance, to what extent the videos have been edited is only known to the persons who created them — individuals who did not necessarily go out with the intent of reporting what is happening, but with the intent of creating a story that would serve as an indictment of the organization they secretly filmed.

“Having said all of this, neither one of us is an apologist for ACORN,” said Martin, speaking for both himself and study co-author Dreier. “Clearly there are some bad things that happened with ACORN employees, but there isn’t any evidence of a top-down, ACORN-wide conspiracy to do fraudulent tax returns or anything like that.

“I’m not trying to say that there isn’t some truth to those [videos], but I think we need to have the whole story and much more context as to what is going on in those videos. People are drawing the conclusion that ACORN is a completely bad organization because of these videos, and I think that is the wrong conclusion. All those videos show is that ACORN may have some problems in terms of hiring and training employees at certain locations. They have more than 100 chapters across the country, and I don’t think these videos indict every single one of these chapters or the national organization.”

As the nation’s largest network of community organizers, ACORN is able to tackle local, state and national issues simultaneously on behalf of populations that are too often unable to advocate for themselves. If conservative efforts are successful and ACORN is dismantled, Martin fears that there is no other group in a position to advocate for the same causes on the same scale.

“If ACORN was completely decimated, it would be difficult. There would be a real void,” he said.

If the organization survives the onslaught and continues to impact future elections through its voter registration program, Martin believes the attacks will continue, because its opponents are not going anywhere.

“I think the attacks on ACORN have been part of trying to take out an organization that the Republicans see as being beneficial to the Democratic Party. Not that ACORN is partisan, but they organize and register voters in mostly urban areas who tend to be mostly Latinos and African Americans who tend to mostly vote Democratic,” he said. “From the [Republican] Party’s point of view, that’s what they don’t like about ACORN. They would be happy to take ACORN out. They tried to do that in 2006. They tried to do that in 2008. I’m sure we’re going to see that again in 2010 and 2012.”

The Des Moines Register requested a copy of the consultant’s report under Iowa’s Open Records law. The governor’s legal counsel, Jim Larew, denied the request, saying it is a draft document that would be released after confidential information is redacted, perhaps as soon as mid-September.

From the Register:

Iowa’s Open Records Law does not allow an exemption for “draft” records. In fact, state lawmakers considered adding such an exemption to the law last year, but the proposal was not approved.

Culver and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller have taken the position that state legislators never intended to require public disclosure of draft documents. Culver and Miller have defined “draft records” as including signed-and-delivered correspondence between public employees.

The war between Culver and the Register over what constitutes public records is nothing new.

In August 2008, Culver’s staff refused to release a draft report that outlined housing recommendations after the summer floods.

In December, the Register was refused access to a list of recommended budget cuts given to the governor from state departments. Culver’s staff called the recommendations “privileged communications” between the governor and executive-branch employees.

In January, the governor refused to turn over e-mails surrounding his office’s response to the unexpected death of a resident at the same state-run home for the disabled that is the subject of the current dispute, saying they were “draft records.”

In March, Culver’s staff told The Register it would be charged $630 for a state lawyer to determine whether e-mails can legally be kept confidential in regards to an investigation of the Atalissa scandal. The Register refused, saying it could end up paying the fee only to be told it would not get access to the e-mails.

During his 2006 campaign for governor, and in the wake of the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium (CIETC) pay scandal, Culver stressed the need for strong open-records laws. His inaugural address in January 2007 hailed open government, saying Iowans “are right to demand ethical, accountable and open government.”

At the group’s annual convention in Indianapolis over the weekend, the Iowa Independent took home three awards, including first place in the “Beat Reporting” category for our outstanding team coverage of the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage.

Writer Jason Hancock took third place in the “In-Depth Reporting” category for his groundbreaking reports on potentially dangerous coal ash disposal practices in Iowa.

Editor Chase Martyn took third place in the “Columns, Commentary, and News Analysis” category for work over the past 12 months.

For the awards, the Iowa Independent was up against other online news outlets across the country.

In a separate category for radio broadcasters, Iowa Public Radio’s Jeneane Beck, Rob Dillard, and Joyce Russell won third place for in-depth reporting on same-sex marriage.

To find out more about the Association of State Capitol Reporters and Editors, visit their Web site.

Fong’s campaign manager, Marlys Popma, said in a press release that strong fundraising has opened the door to this type of advertising so early in the process.

Below is a transcript of the ad:

Christian Fong: “It was 1944, as communism was ascending, Nelson Fong’s family escaped China. Meanwhile, the United States was a beacon of freedom.  After tax cuts in ‘61, the U.S. was booming.  Nelson Fong, a Christian in Hong Kong was drawn by the promise of freedom to the United States in ‘63.  He met a farm girl, worked many jobs and eventually settled in a small western Iowa town.  Today, Nelson Fong lives that American dream…I know because he’s my father.

“I’m Christian Fong.  Today, I see that dream slipping away. We have a state government that borrowed almost a billion dollars to pay its bills. As Governor I would end the use of taxpayer money to fund lobbyists and veto any budget that is not balanced.

“Like many of you, we live the Iowa Dream and we should never let that slip away. I’m Christian Fong.”

Announcer: “Paid for by Iowans for Christian Fong.  Conservative Republican for Governor.”

According to a recent poll paid for by the Republican group “Iowa First Foundation,” Fong’s name recognition is lowest among the candidates for the GOP nomination, coming in at about 26 percent. Even though the gubernatorial primary is still 10 months away, Fong’s campaign is obviously trying to remedy that.

Other than calling it a “statewide” radio buy, the campaign gave no indication of how much money it is spending on the advertisement or where, exactly, it will be running.

Listen to the ad here.

The trade journal Editor and Publisher has manged to finally bring some good news to Iowa journalists with its annual “10 That Do It Right” awards highlighting papers from around the country that “are doing one particular thing very well (sometimes more than one thing), and merit recognition for that effort and achievement.”

The Sioux City Journal’s efforts to provide news that gives readers “something to talk about” in the paper and online  won it a spot on the 2009 list, compiled by staff of E&P.

Sioux City (Iowa) Journal
Latin American and European newspapers have proven so much more interested in applying the findings of The Readership Institute than U.S. publishers that the research center suspended domestic operations. But in the American heartland, the 40,000-circulation Sioux City (Iowa) Journal proves every day that one “readership driver” identified by the Institute works.

When Editor Mitch Pugh arrived at the Lee Enterprises-owned Journal in 2007, he focused the 32-person newsroom on giving readers “something to talk about” in the paper and online. The Journal already had a couple of very popular local columnists with a knack for finding the engaging, sometimes irreverent, stories that get readers talking. “It just was not part of the everyday DNA of the newsroom,” Pugh says. It is now.

In the past 12 months, according to researchers Tom Wilkerson & Associates, Journal readership is up about 5% on weekdays and 6% on Sundays. Total market reach increased 5.3%, and the number of readers accessing its Web site “yesterday” jumped 86%.

It has been a particularly tough few years for the Journal’s owner, Davenport-based Lee Enterprises. In June, the company reported a $24.5 million quarterly loss and a drop in ad sales of 24 percent. The company owns numerous papers in Iowa, including the Quad-City Times, Waterloo Courier and the Mason City Globe Gazette.

Fong told Cedar Rapids ABC affiliate KCRG that while Iowans deserve the right to vote on a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as one man and one woman, he does not condemn those who disagree with him.

“I’m not embarrassed about where I stand on that issue,” Fong said. “But at the same time I don’t look across at anybody that has a different view. I don’t condemn them for what they hold so deeply.  And I invite everyone to the table.”

Brian Dumas, a political consultant with the firm Victory Enterprises and an adviser to Fong’s campaign, anticipated the answer would upset Deace and e-mailed him a transcript of the interview with the hopes of heading off any angry reaction.

Deace was not impressed, and responded quickly on his blog.

First of all, the idea “that I don’t condemn people that have a different view” is a ridiculous statement for a person that serves as essentially an elder at a Christian church to make.  The Bible constantly condemns people who advance evil, and isn’t shy about doing it.  It also condemns those who claim they know right from wrong but won’t take a stand, you know, kind of like Fong does in the [KCRG] transcript.

God says homosexuality is evil, Deace wrote, so Fong should have no problem condemning evil.

Why would Christians respect the views of those who want to advance evil?  Would Fong say the same thing about Islamic radicalism?  He’d have to, unless he doesn’t really believe homosexuality is evil and that’s why he’s saying such soft-headed psychobabble — trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

Deace then attacks Fong for not agreeing with another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, Bob Vander Plaats, that the governor can issue an executive order stopping same-sex marriage. Fong told KCRG that he “wouldn’t waste time signing an order that my legal staff said was unenforceable anyway.”

Constitutional scholars, as well as Vander Plaats’ other rivals for the Republican nomination in 2010, agree with Fong that the governor does not have the authority under Iowa’s Constitution to issue such an order.

Reporter Lisa Colonno, sports copy editor Brian Granger and sports reporter Dan McCool were laid off Thursday, joining director of photography Don Tormey, news editor Suzanne Behnke, designer Scott Lester, features writer Dawn Sagario, writer Mary Challender and writer Kathy Hickman.

Two sources have also confirmed that the paper’s Iowa City bureau has been closed and reporter Erin Jordan and photographer Harry Baumert have also been let go. The Register’s parent company, Gannett Co. Inc., also owns the Iowa-City Press Citizen.

Several other employees received demotions, including editors Larry Ballard and Kathy Bolton, and investigative reporter Lee Rood. (UPDATE: While originally reported that Register investigative reporter Lee Rood was demoted, Rood tells the Iowa Independent that she was not demoted and she did not receive a pay cut. Her job did not change).

Sources inside the Register tell the Iowa Independent the newsroom layoffs include director of photography Don Tormey, news editor Suzanne Behnke, designer Scott Lester, features writer Dawn Sagario, writer Mary Challender and writer Kathy Hickman. Several other newsroom employees were let go but their names could not be confirmed. There were also layoffs in advertising, production, circulation, marketing, information technology and finance.

The cuts, which were the first of 2009 after 100 newspaper jobs in Iowa were cut in 2008, came at the direction of The Register’s parent company, Gannet Co. Inc. Nationwide, Gannett plans to eliminate 1,400 jobs.

Below is the memo Register Publisher Laura Hollingsworth sent to employees this afternoon:

All,

This has been a difficult week for all of us at The Des Moines Register.

As you know last week Gannett announced layoffs due to the continuing economic downturn. Locally, a total of 36 Des Moines Register employees and six employees at our Central Iowa and Marengo weekly operations are impacted. Departments affected include advertising, production, circulation, marketing, information technology, finance and the news staff.

I understand the financial and emotional impact of this action and I know that all of our thoughts are with these employees and their families.

I know I can count on you to continue to support each other.  Please see your department manager if you have specific questions or concerns.   Again, I invite anyone who wishes to talk with me directly to contact me at any time.

I remain optimistic.   This economy will turn and we’ll be ready to move with it when it does.

With appreciation, LH

Laura L. Hollingsworth
President and Publisher
The Des Moines Register
West Group President
Gannett U.S. Community Publishing