Chuck Offenburger, “Iowa Boy” columnist for the Des Moines Register, said he was angry when his column that examined an apparent personal relationship between two former Register editors was pulled.

Offenburger’s comments came during a recent interview with an Iowa State journalism class. His column was pulled by Dennis Ryerson, the Register’s new editor.

Last February, Geneva Overholser, former editor of the Register, and David Westphal, then the Register’s managing editor, announced their resignations the same day. Offenburger said: “It hit us like a thunderbolt.”

Overholser, now the Washington Post’s ombudsman, and Westphal said when they resigned that they were burned out from increasing corporate profit pressures, and they were “tired of hitting their heads against the wall,” Offenburger said.

The Register is owned by the nation’s largest media chain, Gannett.

Offenburger said Register employees bought the story until rumors surfaced that Overholser and Westphal, both married when their resignations were submitted, had purchased a condominium in Washington. In a story last month, the Register made public Overholser and Westphal’s apparent relationship. The story, which drew national attention, “was the most overly managed story ever,” Offenburger said. Offenburger then wrote a column headlined, “We all look like chumps.”

Overholser and Westphal “flaunted the credibility of the Register,” and made poor professional decisions, he said.

Ryerson has said the decision to pull Offenburger’s column was a judgment call. Offenburger, however, said it was the wrong decision.

“I disagree yet,” he said.