Yesterday’s Reporters
by Sen. John Wiik
Chairman, South Dakota Republican Party
I love history. Learning how things were and imagining life in decades past is a neat way to attempt to relate to life in days gone by. I couldn’t help but see the retirees at SD News Watch have the same hobbies as I have, only instead of the pioneers and the cowboys, they’re imagining 1980s journalism is still relevant in this world.
I got my start in radio news in 1986. I understand the old ways of journalism. If a state agency, city, or county government needed to get the word out about something going on, there was usually a smoke filled room full of polyester clad men ready to tell their story. In fact, they usually had contacts inside of those agencies, and these reporters would actually look through a rolodex, manually dial a number, take notes with a pen and paper, and compose a story to fill the spaces in their radio newscasts and local newspapers. Sometimes, a FAX even showed up with a press release to follow up on.
Forty years ago, that was the reality. It was pretty easy to fill up your local paper and newscasts because there was no other way to get the word out about the happenings of daily life. Then one by one, these small smoke filled newsrooms started to fade away. 5 radio stations might share one news person. The local paper probably sold its building and is printed in another state. Something had to fill that gap, and the internet and social media took over. All of those agencies can connect directly to those most interested and affected by their happenings. The middle man left, and the news moved to direct distribution. The state’s website contains more information now than those old reporters ever imagined. Open.sd.gov has the state’s checkbook on display for the world to see. The Governor and all of her department heads can reach out directly to the public any time they wish. Governor Noem and her team excel at this—she has hundreds of thousands of social media followers, and they engage with her regularly.
That can leave the Rolodex and Fax Machine crowd with a bitter taste in their mouth. How dare the Governor talk to people without them sliding their biases and slants into the stories? So once they realize no one’s calling them or even calling them back anymore, they attempt to regain relevance by attacking the Governor for not asking their permission to run the state her way. That will wake up the reporters in New York and Washington to start looking at South Dakota again for a minute.
So if SD News Watch is really wondering, there is plenty of paper left in your FAX machine—there’s just nothing left on the other end of that line.
Excellent article.
Hardly. I cannot believe the leader of the Republican Party would write something like this.
I agree. Chairman Wiik appears to be a very insightful person and talented writer.
“The Governor and all of her department heads can reach out directly to the public any time they wish.” That’s the point though and not accurate, isn’t it? Everyone is muzzled and any response/release needs to run through the govs out of state comms team.
Anon at 9:44, your comment here proves you have not been muzzled.
You can still make all the noise you want; just don’t be surprised nobody is listening to you.
Since when is this blog (run by a private individual) a medium by which the governors office directly communicates with the public at large? You are comparing apples and oranges.
When I read that line my thought was that Putin and Xi can reach out to their public any time they wish, too. We should be better than that.
For one, the communication should not be just one-way; in principle, the American public can reach out in the other direction when they wish. In contrast to Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China, our government purports to derive its power from the people. If said government is sincere about that and in its stated desire to serve the people, it will submit to public scrutiny, because a well-informed public is more likely to select the government that best serves it. Since individual correspondence with each member of the public is not practical, a free press to which the government is answerable is essential to this function. This is surely why the Bill of Rights makes this provision.
Furthermore, it is when the Governor and all her department heads don’t wish to reach out that a free press becomes critical. Supposing the government or any of its officers does something corrupt, illegal, scandalous, or just plain stupid, does anyone imagine they will soon read a tweet from Kristi Noem telling us all about it and leaving no question unanswered? At such times, do you really want that same government deciding how the issue will be discussed, if at all?
Mr. Wiik’s statement assumes that the Governor always reaches out with complete and accurate information whenever the public needs it. Neither he nor anyone else has a right to insist that we assume the same. I would have expected anyone who starts his post with “I love history” to understand that.
No sale!
Is journalism old fashioned now?
It’s not about “getting the word out”. It’s about ACCOUNTABILITY. John Wiik wants us to believe that propaganda is sunshine. That’s so… modern… of him.
Answer reporter’s questions. What are you afraid of? Are you a snowflake? Do you only talk to those who agree with you?
The public needs accountability so don’t ask us to just believe you – because you say so. The public deserves the truth, not just your spin. Do you think we are that stupid?
So, our right to know is 1980’s thinking? Well, then call me old fashioned.
See my comments below about “journalism”.
Regardless of the type of printer (newspapers have The Internet, too), journalism did not occur in a very important way when we needed it most.
We had random dudes and dudettes starting their own websites and doing actual journalism.
Amazing time to be alive to see that transition.
I want MORE reporters in Pierre.
I want educated and experienced professionals knocking on the governor’s door and asking questions. Covering legislation. I want them to demand answers when our Attorney General runs over a pedestrian.
What is it you want, Mr. Dale?
“We had random dudes and dudettes starting their own websites and doing actual journalism.
Amazing time to be alive to see that transition.”
Bahahahaha! Actual journalism involves interviewing sources and including the names of said sources, gathering facts and then writing a story. Not plastering a “website” with press releases or writing a “story” based on rumors and conjecture.
It would seem that Mr. Wiik’s understanding of journalism is that it is simply a mouthpiece for government, that it exists to parrot press releases. His expectation of media sounds curiously similar to state media you might find in Russia or China.
Yes, the state’s website has fine resources. But these are generally just numbers, and they are incomplete. They cannot say why a decision is made. Only the people making the decision can say that.
Mr. Wiik equivocates critical reporting with bias. Let’s be very clear about what he is saying: if a government official does not like the questions being asked, it is acceptable that they simply ignore them. At best, this makes way for governmental incompetence. At worse, it’s a formula for unchecked corruption.
For my part, I thought parts of Mr. Whitney’s reporting were unfair to Gov. Noem – particularly cherry picking staff turnover examples. But that doesn’t wash away the core of the story – that broad swaths of state government are shutting down to the media. Mr. Wiik does not even attempt to rebut this argument. Rather, he acknowledges it, and says it’s okay.
Does Mr. Wiik really believe that reporters ask questions of the governor because they expect her to get “their permission?” His argument is circuitous and dishonest.
This letter is distortion. It’s takes an obtuse stance to confuse the blatant question at hand: should the governor and state government be held accountable for their actions?
I believe a free and independent press is a good thing for our state and our country. And I hope deep down, Mr. Wiik believes the same thing. If he genuinely does not, I find that very concerning for a man in his position.
Yes. A free press is essential in a democracy. Reporters are supposed to ask tough questions.
That is exactly the issue. One-way communication provides only that information the speaker wants disseminated. Effective and meaningful communication MUST be two-way.
But the mockingbird media likes to interpret and morph the messages while subverting them with the timing of releases (Friday afternoon tranches, for instance).
Mr. Wiik’s ideas are not a roadmap to salvation, they are more like a picture of really bad people caught in the act.
Ironically The South Dakota Department of Propaganda agrees with this guest column
If Billy Sutton were governor, would you be saying that we need to just trust him? No need to dig? No need to question his administration?
Yeah. Right.
You cannot control what any one reporter says or writes. But, without them, we are in the dark. And corruption will follow.
By its progenitors – military forces around the world – The Internet was envisioned as a tool to create a traceable track back system that would prevent all crime eventually through 100% efficiency in prosecution.
But the generalized methods ensconced in the design also appealed to a criminal class of elitist banksters who realized they could change the intent and function of the software through runtime polymorphism to usher in a social credit score system like China.
Slowly these anti-human criminals engaged in a cat/mouse game with a population of patriotic Americans who used the technology to distribute information at the speed of light; a digital global printer.
If a population’s management/leaders turn tyrannical the last thing they want is an informed population with respect to the malfeasance.
Yet, for some reason, facing up to tyrants is taboo even when evidence about their tactics is legion.
For a President to speak directly to his constituents without the interpretation of a media funded by multinational corporations, the auto industry, big pharma, and big tech is viewed as dangerous and criminal because it is a threat to the status quo of entrenched political power.
Trump’s first term, wherein he had a direct line to the people, wherein he was able to real-time debunk misinformation, was refreshing.
I found the Chairman’s article to be interesting and informative, putting things in perspective regarding SD’s obviously controlled and inept media.
Why obviously? In 2020, Dr. Francis Boyle’s comments regarding Fauci and the vaccines were universally ignored. I couldn’t read all of the papers in SD, but I didn’t see one paper quote Dr. Boyle, the author of anti-bio warfare legislation approved unanimously by Congress during Bush II’s term.
How can any publication be trusted that didn’t report on the burst pipes in GA, oversight abuse in MI, “broken machines” in Arizona (2022), how we got to mail-in ballots (pandemic fear), and eventually shots that are shockingly hurting more people than anytime in the history of the medical profession. That these things didn’t appear in the local rags means they can never be trusted again, and a new model is appropriate.
.. but a new model that doesn’t rely on Artificial Intelligence censorship of the development of political ideas in the public sphere by South Dakotans.
Translation: Don’t trust anybody… but ME.
as reporters, publishers, newsmakers, and news consumers, we are all corrupted by the general slow decline of the honor system, and the eroded integrity of the institutions we have depended on.
in heller’s “Catch-22” the colonels and majors in command of the airbase finally understand capt yossarian’s complete loss of faith in the war effort as it is being executed, and how the rot of it is a threat to them all if it spreads. yossarian turns catch-22 back on them. “but what if everyone felt the way you do?” “then i’d be a fool to feel any other way.”
in this manner we cautiously keep using a system none of us fully trust, reporting data from sources who play the press for effect, for audiences that have lost faith in the reporters and the sources. i always think of breitbart.com when i think of it – when andrew breitbart was alive the domain was a modicum of credibility, and after his death it degenerated into the worst q-anon shill around. it’s interesting wiik discusses the 80s, the decade where reagan’s suspension of the (un)fairness doctrine gave us the limbaugh phenomenon, then the 90s where limbaugh’s widespread influence was countered by carville and begala’s invention of “politics of personal destruction” deployed against newt gingrich and others. fox threw open the door to contaminating news with editorial/political views – to their small credit it took time for the other networks to follow but to a degree they had to. we can take no joy in the way fox finally got their just desserts in the dominion settlement, because we still have the large damage they caused in the conservative echo chamber they created becoming self-sufficient as it has done. they want their m-tv full of trump antics.
at the end of the day, we’ve been at the game of press and politician playing each other for political jousting long enough. it’s a choice. i don’t hide the fact that i support mike rounds. in this context i’d only point to the way he conducts himself and chooses to retain the classic model of adversarial respect to the media, to all of our benefit.
So John got his “start in radio news”? Funny, but “part-time news announcer” was someone who rips-and-reads AP wire copy. Announcer, host, production coordinator or music director are vastly different than reporter or journalist:
In 1986, John began as a part time news announcer on KMSD radio, Milbank SD. After graduating high school, he moved on to Fargo, ND and KVOX, where he started as a part time announcer and worked his way up to Production Coordinator. Seeking more on-air time, he returned to South Dakota in 1995, at KSDR–Watertown where John began as part-time and soon became the afternoon announcer and music director, eventually moving to morning show host until leaving radio in September 2009.
Reporters have an adversarial relationship with officeholders. We need them to hound the politicians for answers. If some of them are too lenient on Democrats (or Republicans) then demand that they get tough. But never argue that we don’t need them.
If you want a monarchy or dictatorship, then admit it. Because you know that’s exactly where we’re headed – without a free press.
I think Mr. Wiik has confused Journalism with Public Relations. It is tragic that the Market in which news outlets function has changed dramatically but, the Market will correct itself. People depend (or should depend) on unbiased Journalism.
or be able to reverse engineer a constant bias you can trust, as with pbs. their completeness and thoroughness redeems them imho.
I thought the article in NewsWatch was very thorough, fair, certainly not biased. (I think Mr Wiik has mistaken the observation of well respected and experienced Journalists and State Government observers as anti-Noem bias. To me, it is the wisdom of experience and professionalism.) No one in Journalism expects 100% approval for every news story, especially when the Governor and her administration were the focus of the article. The article does give the Governor credit where credit is due. In my view, she has become unreasonably defensive and controlling. Mr. Wiik has badly miscalculated and his screed about Social Media being a valuable news resource is a real stretch.
The Dakota Scout lost all credibility when then hired Austin Goss. Goss is not a journalist. Why would anyone spend time answering his questions.
i’m sure goss learned a big lesson about protecting his professionalism and reputation. he has reporting and writing skills. he should be hired.
Mr. Wiik, it seems to me that – based on your opinion above – reporters and the media should be a mouthpiece for the government. You live in an unrealistic world. Government and elected officials (that includes you) are accountable to the people and it’s the media’s job to hold them accountable. When elected or government officials don’t respond to media questions, most South Dakotans seem to be just fine with that, particularly registered Republicans. Party over state/country is more important, right? Right.
It’s well known that Kristi Noem had numerous unpaid traffic citations and outstanding bench warrants for her arrest for not paying the fines or failing to appear in court to contest the citations. That behavior is acceptable to you? I know she paid the fines and apologized AFTER she was exposed when she campaigned for the US House seat but that’s an example of accountability and journalism. The media received a tip from the Herseth campaign that exposed Noem’s transgressions and held her accountable. And rightly so. Regardless of political affiliation, anyone who ignores citations from law enforcement and the judicial system is not to be trusted. She thinks she’s above the law and above everyone else. Are you okay with that? Shame on you if it is okay.