In an earlier post citing the Columbia Journalism Review article about the shriveling of the reporting staff at the Providence Journal in Rhode Island, I promised more on the Dakota situation. It's very grim. A reader notes:
For a long time, the Associated Press had a correspondent in Washington assigned to cover Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota stories. He would write stories about the congressional delegation, important issues -- a regional angle on the Farm Bill, for example -- and politicos. Knight-Ridder also used to have such a correspondent job, but it went away in the mid-90s, if I recall correctly. Anyway, the AP regional correspondent position has not been filled since the last reporter, Jack Sullivan, left last summer or fall to go to work in Minneapolis.
In addition to the collapse of reporting on Dakota issues in DC by AP and Knight-Ridder, another insider has informed me about the collapse of reporting in the state capitol of Pierre:
In the mid-1980s in Pierre, there were numerous full-time reporters: 2 for AP, 2 for UPI, 1 for the Argus Leader, 1 for Public Radio, 1 for KELO-TV, 1 for KSFY-TV, 1 for the Rapid City Journal, and 1 for the Aberdeen American News. In 1998, there were 2 AP reporters and an Argus Leader reporter.
Another reader notes how bad things are North Dakota too:
In 1989, the Bismarck Tribune had three reporters based at the Capitol during the session. Today, they have two. The Grand Forks Herald, which use to trumpet its Capitol reporting, has not had a correspondent based at the Capitol since 1996. The Dickinson Herald doesn't have a Capitol reporter, but borrows stories from Fargo Forum, which has a capitol reporter. AP has a reporter based in the Capitol press room and North Dakota Public Radio makes efforts.
First, for the journalist readers out there, please let me know if any of this is wrong or needs clarification. Second, it's obvious that lots of stories simply aren't covered. I get good ideas for stories in my email box quite often, but I obviously can't cover them in any formal sense even though they deserve attention. Finally, and most importantly, remember that editors, as economic theory suggests, make choices under constraints. They can't cover everything. They must choose what should be covered. So the editorial choices made by the Argus Leader, which has the most resources for covering this Senate race (although still quite minimal given the task ahead) and from which many small town newspapers take their news, are extremely consequential. With the exception of a random AP or Aberdeen American News story, the Argus Leader is the only game in town in Eastern South Dakota. They approach monopoly status. So who makes the critical editorial calls at the Argus Leader about what gets covered and what does not get covered? One Patrick Lalley, who used to run an alternative leftist newspaper in Sioux Falls, who sees Republicans as "evil," and who has shredded Daschle's opponents in the past. SDP explains Lalley in detail here (note Lalley's nice little quote, when he ran the other paper, about the Argus Leader: "Since time eternal, it seems, people in Sioux Falls have been complaining about the Argus Leader, our daily newspaper"). Note that Lalley made clear that the Argus was not liberal enough! And note that Lalley despised Reagan and Reaganism, which is critical to this race since Thune is running in the Reagan tradition. When Lalley left his alternative newspaper, he noted that "I have been critical of the mainstream for many years and I have come to the conclusion that I have an obligation to work from the inside." In other words, he felt the need to get into a position of power on the "inside" and make a difference. He ended up in a position of power at the Argus Leader he formerly criticized for not being liberal enough. And now he has the power to assign or not assign reporters to cover stories about this Senate race. He's in charge, the executive editor has said, of the paper's political coverage. Now I ask you, given the national importance of this Senate race, given how powerful the Argus Leader is, given how few other sources of political information there are, given that Lalley is openly predisposed to seeing Republicans as "evil," given his past boosterism of Daschle, given the long list of past complaints of liberal bias at the Argus, and given all the talented people at the Argus and at Gannett there are to choose from, is it reasonable to raise questions about Lalley's capacity to make fair and equitable editorial decisions? Now I'm sure Lalley is a fine person and I admire his passion for his cause. Nobody wants him fired or anything drastic like that. The simple question is whether he should be making the critical editorial calls on this critical race at this critical moment. Hey, if you haven't guessed it, I think Thune is a good man and I'm going to help him in the best way I can. And since I have a preference in this race, I shouldn't be making the critical editorial calls on what should and shouldn't be covered in this race either. But given what we know, I think a reasonable case can be made that Lalley shouldn't making those calls either. If the Argus put me in charge, the other side would certainly object. And they'd have legitimate reason to do so. Let's just hope that reason prevails and we get fair coverage down the road.
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