A familiar face is returning to the Des Moines Register to lead its newsroom. Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, who served in senior editing roles at the Register from 2018 to 2022, will become its executive editor June 2, Gannett Co., the Register’s owner, announced May 6.
“Our job is not just to report on the community, but to reflect and engage them,” Stassen-Berger told staffers after being introduced to applause. Gannett news executives Michael Anastasi and Ray Rivera announced the hiring to staff at a meeting at the Register’s downtown office.
Stassen-Berger shared outlines of some of her priorities as editor, including building a culture of innovation in storytelling and community connections. “Every day you have to challenge yourself to do something better, to do something different,” she said.
Her new role comes after she served as executive editor of the Omaha World-Herald. Des Moines’ position opened in January when Carol Hunter retired after 20 years with the Register, the final eight as executive editor.
Stassen-Berger was the Register’s political editor and then news director during her earlier stint, a period that was packed with news beginning on her very first day: While colleagues brought Stassen-Berger up to speed on publishing software, a top state legislative leader was resigning hours after a scandal emerged. Stassen-Berger led coverage of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses for both major parties and the year-plus campaign leading up to them, pivoting weeks later to guide the newsroom’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rachel Stassen-Berger, then the Register’s politics editor, introduces a speaker at the newspaper’s Iowa State Fair Political Soapbox in 2019. Stassen-Berger was named executive editor of the Register on May 6, 2025.
Among the notable journalism she edited:
Before Des Moines, Stassen-Berger had been Capitol bureau chief, reporter and columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota and a political reporter for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. She has also been a reporter in Minneapolis, Eastern Europe, the suburbs of Philadelphia and New York.
The Register has long been Iowa’s largest news-gathering organization.
“Every editor knows that they are a caretaker of the institution. The institution is what matters and what matters to this community,” said Anastasi, Gannett’s vice president for local news. “We are so confident that Rachel is the right leader for the next era to lead this great institution and to stand on the shoulders. As we all do, of all of those who came before. So I’m really looking forward to the journalism and the difference making that’s going to happen at the Des Moines Register in the years to come.”
Des Moines Register editors
Since 1902, there have been 12 editors of the Des Moines Register and Tribune.
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Carolyn Washburn: 2005-2011
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Dennis Ryerson: 1995-2001
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Geneva Overholser: 1988-1995
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Michael Gartner: 1976-1982
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Kenneth MacDonald: 1953-1976
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William Wesley Waymack: 1943-1953
This story was updated to add information.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Rachel Stassen-Berger will be Des Moines Register executive editor
