Editor Amalie Nash speaks on turnover, transformation, and a virtual reality adventure

Amalie Nash became editor of the Des Moines Register earlier this year, at a time of transition for Iowas largest daily. (Photo courtesy Amalie Nash)

Its a time of transition at theDes Moines Register. Along withother Gannett newspapers, Iowas largest daily has begun a process of newsroom reorganization that will bring some pain. New reporting jobs are being added even as other positions go away, but a number of longtime staffers will likely find themselves out of a job at the end of the processand some have reportedly alreadybowed out.

Not all of the changes underway at the Register are difficult, though. The paper has also made news recently with the announcement of anew partnershipwith Bloomberg Politics; a collaboration with papers across the state totrack political ad spending; a multi-tiered offensive in the battle for open records; and, perhaps most surprisingly, a foray into futurism with the Harvest of Change series, in which theRegisterpresented a virtual-reality tour of an Iowa farm designed to be viewed through the Oculus Rift headset.

At the center of all these changes has been Amalie Nash, theRegisters editor and vice president for audience engagement, who is still in her first year at the helm after coming over from theDetroit Free Press. A Michigan native, Nash took the Register job at what she noted was a transformational time for the paper and Gannett as a whole. I spoke to Nash late last week about the restructuring, theRegisters ongoing open-records battles, and the papers venture into the unsettled (and for this interviewer, unsettling) territory of virtual reality. An edited transcript is below.

I understand youve been doing interviews for your restructuring this weekin which every staffer has to reapply for positions in a reorganized newsroom. Whats the reaction been like in the newsroom to this tumultuous process?

Its certainly a difficult process for everyone. Weve had a range of emotions from across the room. You know, its a very stressful time, and were cognizant of that.

One of the takeaways weve seen is just how passionate our employees are about the Registerand about wanting to be part of the newsroom as were moving forward. And so weve heard a lot of really great stories from people about why they got into journalism, why theyre right for their roles; people are excited about some of the new roles that are going to be part of this restructuring. This is a difficult process and one that we think will position us to have future success, to be able to have some new areas of coverage and that sort of thing.

Youve saidthat youre beefing up reporting as part of the process, and yetits been reportedthat your newsrooms in Des Moines and at theIowa City Press-Citizenare going to be losing 18 positions between them. So how can you be both beefing up reporting and shrinking the newsroom?

We dont know exactly how many positions its going to be at this point because obviously theres a lot of financial modeling that goes into this. And so part of its going to depend on what the payroll is going to look like at the end of this. But there will be a loss of positions as a result of that, and thats coming in a couple of different areas.

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Des Moines Register prepares for a very stressful newsroom restructuring