Tricia Brown Executive Editor of the Iowa City Press-Citizen? OMG.

Just saw the video of Rick Green, the publisher of the Des Moines Register, accompanied by the new editor of the Register, Amalie Nash, congratulating Tricia Brown for her appointment as the executive editor of the Iowa City Press-Citizen. 

I'm horrified, primarily because several years ago Tricia Brown wrote in an editorial that if people didn't have "constructive, positive" things to say about the Iowa City Community School District and its board, they shouldn't say anything at all. Obviously, writers wouldn't be encouraged to criticize the district or board members on the Press-Citizen.

Is the Press-Citizen a public-relations rag for the powers-that-be or a newspaper? This has been a serious question for years.

The Des Moines Register continues to be a real newspaper at least in terms of the true investigative reporters who write for the DMR, journalists like Clark Kauffman, Lee Rood, and others. If there's an investigative reporter for the Press-Citizen, I have yet to hear of him or her. A few reporters have attempted to be such, but they soon find themselves censored, assigned to a new beat, and subsequently depart.

It should have occurred to me that since the Des Moines Register and the Press-Citizen are both Gannett chain newspapers, they'd be in cahoots. What I never suspected was that there would be a vertical power structure where Rick Green would be in a position to appoint the executive editor of the Press-Citizen. He's anointing someone who was already in charge, but the scene played out on video is still appalling.