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Most Viewed Blog Stories: GEAR UP, EB-5, Wolves, and Patrick Duffy

Yesterday I published the list of blog stories that drew the most comments in 2015. Today, I offer the list of stories that drew the most eyeballs to Dakota Free Press and its predecessor blog Madville Times. Specifically, these 35 stories drew more than 2,015 views in 2015:

Title Views Blog
Dakota Free Press Continues Madville Times Tradition of South Dakota Blogging 16232 DFP
Daugaard Performance at Gifted Education Summit Sends Wrong Message 12279 DFP
Graves Pocketed $157,500 from Federal History Teaching Grant via Mid-Central Educational Coop 9863 DFP
Chuck Brennan, Lifelong Exploiter of Working Class, Bad Apple in SD Tourism Barrel 8701 DFP
Mid-Central Lost State Contract Day Before Platte Murders; Westerhuis Left Corporate Trail 8616 DFP
Feds Say South Dakota Too Corrupt to Use EB-5 7710 DFP
Chinese EB-5 Investors Sue South Dakota and Joop Bollen for $18,550,000 7449 DFP
Rep. Hunt Wants to Look at Transgender Kids’ Genitalia 7103 DFP
Melmer Drew Six Figures for Services for Audited Educational Cooperative 6051 DFP
Westerhuises Maintained $1.3M Property, $900K Gym on $131K Salary 5688 DFP
Township Orders Removal of Exotic Animals from Minnesota Fur Farm 5582 DFP
Schopp Fires Everyone Handling South Dakota’s GEAR UP Money 4811 DFP
Jackley Concludes Scott Westerhuis Killed Family in Beds, Torched House, Shot Self 4614 DFP
Guericke to Open Westerhuis Safety Deposit Box—Better Wait for DCI, Dan! 4457 DFP
Patrick Duffy, Trial Lawyer, Truth Speaker, Dies at 58 3604 DFP
Platte Family Died by Shotgun, Not House Fire; Father Managed Accounts for Audit-Flagged Ed Coop 3319 DFP
Former GEAR UP Director’s Wife Cashed in on Mid-Central Job, Trip to San Francisco 3070 DFP
L’Amour est plus fort que la haine… et, apparemment, que l’Islam 3055 MT
Feds Considering South Dakota for Deep Borehole Nuclear Waste Disposal Test 2792 DFP
9/17 Video Shows Mystery Truck Heading East, Not South Toward Westerhuis House 2556 DFP
Failed Deadwood Pelting-Wolf Exhibit: More Signs than Customers? 2499 DFP
Fired GEAR UP Spokeswoman Questions Consultants’ Value 2396 DFP
Mines Seeking Cover from GEAR UP Blow-Up; Melmer Forgets $1000 Checks 2390 DFP
GEAR-UP, EB-5 Show Need for Ethics Commission, Oversight, and Fewer Consultants 2343 DFP
Mid-Central Ed Co-op Scandal Shows Need for Contract Oversight, Fewer Middlemen? 2305 DFP
The End of the Madville Times 2289 MT
Duncan Not Ready for Questions about State Board/Mic-Central Conflict of Interest 2160 DFP
Family Heritage Alliance Bringing Josh Duggar to Pierre… Because Jesus! Stardom! 2160 MT
Beerchucker Gets Disorderly Charge; Duffy Says Social Media Blew Up Racism Allegations 2155 MT
USCIS Termination Notice: Bollen, Benda, GOED Broke EB-5 Rules 2135 DFP
Scott Westerhuis Double-Dipped Managing GEAR UP Funds 2134 DFP
Filipino Christian Cult Buys South Dakota Town 2097 MT
Jackley to Speak on Westerhuis Investigation Tuesday; MCEC Cash Dwindling 2081 DFP
Daugaard Says Phelps Off Ed Board, Jackley Looking Beyond Westerhuis for GEAR UP Crimes 2056 DFP
MCEC Financials: Monthly Balances Don’t Line Up; Lots of Revenue Labeled “Misc” 2026 DFP

Dominating the top 35 are my reports on murder and corruption in Platte. Scott Westerhuis, Mid-Central Educational Cooperative, GEAR UP, Melody Schopp, Stacy Phelps, Kelly Duncan, Rick Melmer, Joseph Graves—just like the GOED/EB-5 scandal that erupted with Richard Benda’s death by shotgun near Lake Andes in 2013, the GEAR UP/Mid-Central scandal erupted with a shocking, mysterious death and revealed a weird web of private corporations, well-placed public officials, and money. As in the EB-5 scandal, Attorney General Marty Jackley and other state officials have so far provided answers that have only raised more questions. It will take some time to get the answers South Dakotans expect about the mess in Platte…

…just like it’s taking time for us to get the answers about EB-5. Two years after Richard Benda’s death, one year after a majority of South Dakota voters ignored the warnings of the press and decided EB-5 corruption wasn’t reason enough to reject EB-5 booster Mike Rounds as a U.S. Senator, EB-5 blasted back into the headlines with the surprise announcement this fall that USCIS plans to take away South Dakota’s access to the scandal-plagued visa investment program. The state and its former EB-5 czar, Joop Bollen, are now locked in lawsuits with each other and with Chinese EB-5 investors who say Bollen and the state tricked them out of $18.55 million.

South Dakotans are rightly interested in these two big stories of corruption in South Dakota (as well as the incompetence and corruption of former Secretary of State Jason Gant, which hit the news big in October 2015 and placed stories in my top 50 blog stories for viewership). South Dakotans deserve answers and accountability for the misconduct in these scandals. Legislators and candidates for Legislature, the popularity of these stories indicates that you will serve the public interest by doing all you can to investigate GEAR UP, EB-5, and other corrupt programs in Pierre.

Terri Petter’s failed wolf zoo in Deadwood drew a lot of out-of-state attention, largely in part due to evidence that Petter raises her wolf cubs to be skinned at her troubled Minnesota zoo.

South Dakota readers paid deep respects to attorney Patrick Duffy, who died earlier than he should have, with much work left to be done. Mike Butler picked up Duffy’s last case, the thankless defense of a Philip man accused of throwing beer and racial epithets at Indian children at a Rapid City hockey game, and won acquittal.

To keep commenters from getting distracted by personal attacks, I often remind readers that I’m not the story. But my move from MadvilleTimes.com to DakotaFreePress.com in March drew more attention than any of my other posts in 2015. Over 10,000 of the hits on DFP’ first post came after March.

One quirky entry in the 2015 list is my 2011 post on Iglesia ni Cristo‘s purchase of the town of Scenic. The Philippine-based church started holding services in Scenic this year, with a dozen or so believers from the Hills area making the trip. One Iglesia ni Cristo supporter claims Scenic could become a main office site for INC’s North American operations.

Other year-end stats for Dakota Free PressMadville Times for 2015:

  • Unique visits: 995,133
  • Total views: 1,684,859
  • Posts: 1,546 (just shy of 30 per week)
  • Comments: 39,209 (that’s 107 comments a day)
  • Percentage of comments from me: about 13% (about 1 out of 8—I’m trying not to monopolize the conversation!)
  • Ratio of views to comments from readers (not including my responses): approximately 49 to 1—meaning that for every person inclined to comment, another fifty are just taking a look at what we all have to say.

Readers, thank you for your interest in these important South Dakota stories. Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing these stories with your fellow South Dakotans and with our far-flung audience of ex-pats. And thank you for your tips—not just the cash in the Tip Jar (righthand sidebar!), but the leads and links you send to my inbox. A lot of the stories you see here come from a wide network of readers who catch little details and recognize stories that South Dakota needs to here. No good blog is an island; good blogs live on the tips, shares, comments, and attention of readers like you. Thank you.

19 Comments

  1. leslie 2016-01-01 11:54

    Cory, your service to the people in the state is invaluable. Now let’s figure out how to get u paid more like what you are worth and reach more than 2000-3000 pairs of eyeballs a day. If more voters know what we know because of your blog, we can make a difference in State government and other important concerns of the day. Three cheers young man!!!!

  2. Richard Schriever 2016-01-01 12:12

    Can your logging SW tell you how many of your views/visits were from robots, specific zip-code related IPs and so on?? Just curious – I’m a WebTrends (site statistics) nut. Have been since way back in the mid-90s when I first started working on Web marketing stuff.

  3. Douglas Wiken 2016-01-01 12:34

    Happy New Year. May your typing fingers survive another year.

  4. bearcreekbat 2016-01-01 13:30

    Cory, thank you for your outstanding efforts – you seem to have the energy of a dozen people. I don’t know how you do it but I sure appreciate your posts, and it is good to know that so many people share my view based on the awesome number of visits to your site.

  5. 96Tears 2016-01-01 14:00

    While we in the comments section may disagree and get out of control at times, I hope you know how much we respect you and your labor of love. Without it, I really don’t know how information you’ve provided would get into a wider group of the public.

    The weapon of choice that has been used successfully for decades to sustain one-party rule has been the Republicans’ ability to suppress what they consider as bad news. ‘No news is good news’ is the GOP tactic to avoid voter outrage and is the key to success, especially during gubernatorial election years. I’ve also found that there are too many willing partners who work as reporters, editors and news management who use their skills to block, down play or refute truths which would put state government’s white collar criminals in prison.

    If you want to see a good example of how that trick gets done, observe what the Argus Leader published as the top 10 news stories of 2015. Compare it to the South Dakota news stories reflected above. The Argus knows what makes a good news story, but the newsroom management’s clear objective is to maintain the teflon robes on the SDGOP and its elected officials.

    http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2015/12/30/2015-review-top-stories-argusleader/78060760/

  6. Porter Lansing 2016-01-01 14:28

    Here’s a top story from up here …
    Denver Post Reader’s Poll: Pot Legalization
    Two years after recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado, do you think it has been more of a success or failure?
    Total Votes = 2988
    Success
    2167 Votes, or 72.52 %
    Failure
    821 Votes, or 27.47 %

  7. Porter Lansing 2016-01-01 15:41

    Previous post isn’t an endorsement of legal pot in SoDak. It’s a comment on the fact that while 16% of CO citizens use marijuana (according the most recent polling) over 70% of CO citizens don’t want to see anyone go to jail or be fined if they choose to. Remembering … it was conservative Republicans that were the majority voting block in favor of legalization.

  8. grudznick 2016-01-01 15:43

    Put the abusers of the demon weed in jail, I say.

  9. Porter Lansing 2016-01-01 15:52

    You tell ’em, Dennis.

  10. drey samuelson 2016-01-01 23:23

    Ditto the endorsement of the folks above–this is a great blog, and a real service to the people of South Dakota!

  11. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-01-02 08:24

    Thank you for your support, everyone! I’m happy to serve.

    Leslie, I’ll confess my business model has never been terribly creative. There’s only honest way to draw more eyeballs: write good stuff. Write stuff that matters. Write stuff that’s true. I can’t work up my enthusiasm for blogging any other way.

    Richard, my stats are shallow on details. I can tell you that this morning, 60% of my traffic is from South Dakota. Usually that number is over 70%. Would much bot traffic originate from SD? Plus, figure in we have ex-pats and other interested parties tuning in from outside South Dakota.

  12. grudznick 2016-01-02 10:07

    You should count home many posts come from inside South Dakota as a percentage of total posts. We, here in South Dakota, are by nature a reserved lot so often you will have the readers and lookers but most of the louder mouths are from out of state where they have big cities and shout a lot.

  13. Porter Lansing 2016-01-02 10:38

    shhhhhh …. Dennis is talking and he never shouts.

  14. Porter Lansing 2016-01-02 10:47

    Grudz would like to limit your speech. He not only wants to determine who can speak but where they can speak and when they can speak. Also, he wants to rate your speech. If your background criteria is X then your speech if more valid and pertinent than if your criteria is Y. I believe that’s been tried many times in history with poor results.

  15. Richard Schriever 2016-01-02 11:14

    Corey, my experience says there are probably 5 or 6 world wide bots that hit the site at least daily (google, yahoo, etc.) the rest would be a couple internal ones (your own indexing bot for ex:) and then any like the one your SW uses to generated things like the column on the right side of your page with samples from other SDE blogs. That appears to hit every blog listed at LEAST daily. We can assume there are a similar number from them on your site. That’s 25 a day – at least. then there will be a few non-reciprocal private bots as well. Bots are pretty easy to build, so common. I’ll make a good estimate that 50 +/- bots PER your post is likely. More sophisticated site analysis would be more accurate, but the built-in is free – err – not extra $$ :)

  16. Porter Lansing 2016-01-02 11:17

    I love that line. “It’s not free but it’s not extra.” That’s five star sales.

  17. Porter Lansing 2016-01-02 11:43

    Speaking of blog traffic, it’s a bit light today. There’s a scheduling phenomenon that happens every seven years, when New Years Eve falls on a Thursday. :) In the Midwest it’s known as a “four day drunk”. lol

Comments are closed.