Not long after taking over as editor of the Des Moines Register in 2014, Amalie Nash told CJR that she was determined to uphold the paper’s “longstanding tradition of standing up for public records.”
So now, as she prepares to leave the Register after being promoted to the new position of West Region executive editor for Gannett, it’s fitting that the paper has just won a meaningful battle on the open-records front. The state of Iowa announced last week that it would no longer allow companies to unilaterally redact information from the public copies of bids for government contracts. The move was the result of a 2015 story by Register reporter Jason Clayworth that first revealed the practice, and a subsequent complaint Clayworth filed with the Iowa Public Information Board. Continue…
—————————