National Newspaper Week finds some positive developments amid the doom and gloom in South Dakota

When I meet someone new and they find out that I’m retired, it’s only natural for them to ask what I did for a living before I entered this life of leisure. It’s with a certain amount of pride that I tell them that I was a daily newspaper editor.

Hearing that bit of news, it’s only natural for them, at some point in the conversation, to say, “These aren’t very good times for newspapers.” It pains me to admit it, but that’s true.

When I was the editor in Pierre, I felt like I was part of an exclusive group. While larger papers had more than one person with the title of editor, there were only 11 of us in the state who could claim we had responsibility for managing a newsroom at a daily newspaper.

Worn down by the pandemic or hollowed out by corporate greed, many of those 11 newspapers can no longer claim to be “daily.” Some have taken to offering a printed product only once or twice a week, promising to post news online on the days when there is no print edition.

Every community needs somebody asking tough questions

The former Gannett newspapers in the state, in Sioux Falls, Watertown and Aberdeen, have drastically reduced their staffs, resulting in less local news. Let’s hope new ownership by Lee Enterprises makes some improvements.

When times started to get tough for newspapers, there was an opinion in the industry that while daily newspapers would suffer, weekly newspapers would be more likely to hold on to their readers and advertisers. Sadly, that has not always been the case. A growing number of aging publishers at weekly newspapers can’t find anyone willing to buy their publication, continue their legacy and take a chance on the future of local journalism.

Times have gotten so tough that in the past year two weekly newspapers — the Brandon Valley Journal and the Groton Independent — turned to GoFundMe campaigns to provide the working capital they needed to keep the lights on and the presses running.

Newspapers are challenged by the economy, the internet and, in South Dakota, by their own government. Newspaper publishers across the state have reported frequent, maddening delays in the delivery of their newspapers by the U.S. Postal Service. Gone are the days when your friendly neighborhood paperboy delivered the newspaper to your front porch (or your bushes or your rain gutter). Now most newspapers, even those that consider themselves dailies, rely on the Postal Service for delivery.

Some newspapers have reported to the South Dakota NewsMedia Association that they are struggling to retain subscribers because of poor mail delivery.

“All the newspapers mail us copies of their papers to the (SDNA) office here in Brookings,” said David Bordewyk, executive director of SDNA in a story about the state’s problems with postal deliveries by South Dakota News Watch. “One-hundred newspapers are sending them to us. It used to be by the end of the week, by Friday — because most weeklies would be printing and mailing on a Tuesday or Wednesday — we would see more than 90% of the newspapers. Today, by Friday, less than half of them are showing up.”

That’s quite a picture of gloom and doom to present here in the midst of National Newspaper Week. There is, however, some good news about newspapers.

As some newspapers’ corporate owners put aside their responsibility to report on local issues, others have sprung up to compete with them for readers and advertisers. The markets historically served by the Gannett newspapers are now being challenged by robust competitors: The Dakota Scout in Sioux Falls, The Watertown Current and The Aberdeen Insider. New weekly newspapers are also offering competition in Brookings and Rapid City.

These new publications, as well as others across the state that have been able to find a way to thrive in the current climate, know that there continues to be a market for what newspapers have to offer. In an age when so many news sources are shaded to the left or right, South Dakota newspapers continue to play it down the middle in their news columns. They more than live up to the motto for this year’s National Newspaper Week: Rooted in Community. Committed to Truth.