Not long after a member of the Iowa Board of Regents drew ire for trying to put a professor at the University of Iowa in touch with a leading member of the renewable fuels industry, the Regents are once again the subject of important news.

At the end of last week Gov. Terry Branstad, R-Iowa, nominated three individuals to terms on the board that will begin May 1 and will last for six years. The first nominee, Craig Lang, currently serves as the president of the board. The two other nominees, Robert Cramer of Grimes and Subhash Sahai of Webster City, will replace Jack Evans of Cedar Rapids and David Miles of Dallas Center, if the Iowa Senate confirms them by a two-thirds vote.

The report of that news in the Des Moines Register was quick to note that Cramer and Sahai, a Republican and a Democrat, respectively, replace Evans and Miles, a Republican and a Democrat, respectively.

After describing Cramer’s and Sahai’s backgrounds, the Register’s article concluded with a summary of the nominees’ donations to political campaigns in the past few years.

That analysis is important. The Board is composed of nine members, and only five of them can hail from the same political party. In recent years, the Regents have received increasing scrutiny due to perceived conflict of interest and partisan gamesmanship. As we explained in a recent editorial, such controversies have included Branstad’s request that now-outgoing board members David Miles and Jack Evans resign from their positions as president and president pro tempore of the board, a land-development project in Tanzania, and Sen. Tom Harkin’s decision not to give Iowa State’s Harkin Institute his papers.

But giving so much attention to partisanship on a state board whose purpose is the guidance of Iowa’s system of public higher education — particularly when the accused board members are trying to move on and when the professors involved in the controversies do not believe that academic freedom is at risk — prevents Iowans from moving on. Although journalists have an obligation to deliver the news and anticipate follow-up questions, they also have an obligation to not alter reality by focusing their reports on some issues instead of others.

The Register’s follow-up story concentrated on an impending confirmation battle to take place between Democrats and Republicans in the Iowa Senate that will center on the political activities of Cramer and Lang, the Republicans among Branstad’s nominees. Interestingly enough, 49.5 percent of that story’s text dealt with possible challenges to Lang’s confirmation, 31.6 percent with Cramer’s confirmation and Sahai’s prospects received a scant 12.5 percent.

Where should we look for an analysis of what these men envision for Iowa’s Regents universities and schools and what current administrators think of those ideas?

Whether Branstad’s nominees are interested in ensuring that Iowa provides access to high-quality, higher education is more important than their political activities. Regardless of their past mistakes and present political inclinations, Iowans need to hear how Lang, Cramer and Sahai will be partisans of education. The Board of Regents has been tied up in political controversies along partisan lines for long enough. We have to find some way to move on. Perhaps the solution is as simple as changing the angle of the discussion.