With one month before the statewide election, that Sioux Falls paper is reducing citizens’ opportunity to offer timely content in the state’s largest newspaper:
While today’s social media age allows for immediate sharing of one’s view, few individuals can muster the community reach that a letter to the editor published by the Argus Leader offers.
While there’ certainly value in continuing that platform, we’re making a few adjustments. Starting next week, we’ll increase the opinion presence in the Sunday paper while discontinuing the daily opinion page. As mentioned above, the Sunday Argus Leader has our highest print readership and is a natural place to highlight community views on issues of the day.
That said, without the daily opinion page, we will be more discerning on which pieces run. Letter writers will not have the guarantee of publication. We cannot uphold that promise. We’ll publish the pieces we elect to feature based on their local relevance and the strength of the argument presented [Cory Myers, “Swing Toward Digital Subscriptions Brings Changes to Opinion Content,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2018.09.30].
News director Myers says the reduction of reader-generated content in print is motivated by the “milestone” of reaching more than 7,000 digital-only subscriptions, “more than a third of our daily subscribers.” Scott Ehrisman shares my puzzlement as to why an increase in digital-only subscribers would induce the newspaper to print less of the most eyeball-catching free content they can get. If anything, the logic perhaps works the other way: we want to drive more readers to digital subscriptions and reduce our newsprint overhead, so let’s put less of the content readers love in print and more online!
If anything, publishing letters to the editor less frequently and filtering more of them for content seems only to strengthen the hand of the Trumpists who say the mainstream media won’t share their views. Short of outright lies and libel (which every good paper in the state ought already by blocking), why restrain the voice of the people? As long as newspapers continue using ink and electrons, they should continue to publish their readers’ opinions in every channel available.
And as long as newspapers serve as the Fourth Estate, a vital pillar of democracy, they should promote and print the people’s voice as much as possible.
* * *
By the way, is 7,000 digital-only subscriptions in a city of 177,000 and a state of 870,000 really a milestone? That figure and Myers’s “more than a third” comment indicate that South Dakota’s biggest newspaper only has 20,000 subscribers. That’s still more subscribers than Dakota Free Press, but this humble blog is a low bar by which to compare media reach.
That number reminds me of my June 2017 post on newspaper circulation per population. According to the South Dakota Newspaper Association, that Sioux Falls paper reported a 2017 circulation of 23,721, a decline of more than 9% from the year before. 23,721 is still the largest circulation in the state, but of South Dakota’s eleven daily newspapers, that Sioux Falls paper still has the lowest circulation per local population of only 13.41%:
| Paper | daily circulation (SDNA, 2016) | city pop (Census 2016 est) | daily circ/city pop (2016) | daily circulation (SDNA, 2017) | city pop (Census 2017 est) | daily circ/city pop (2017) |
| Mitchell Daily Republic | 9,417 | 15,729 | 59.87% | 8,818 | 15,603 | 56.51% |
| Huron Plainsman | 6,347 | 13,117 | 48.39% | 6,151 | 13,118 | 46.89% |
| Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan | 7,315 | 14,566 | 50.22% | 6,514 | 14,516 | 44.87% |
| Aberdeen American News | 10,730 | 28,415 | 37.76% | 10,687 | 28,388 | 37.65% |
| Watertown Public Opinion | 9,046 | 22,172 | 40.80% | 8,140 | 22,222 | 36.63% |
| Spearfish Black Hills Pioneer | 4,029 | 11,531 | 34.94% | 3,996 | 11,609 | 34.42% |
| Madison Daily Leader | 6,700 | 7,425 | 90.24% | 2,375 | 7,322 | 32.44% |
| Rapid City Journal | 18,946 | 74,048 | 25.59% | 18,231 | 74,421 | 24.50% |
| Brookings Register | 4,609 | 23,895 | 19.29% | 4,642 | 23,938 | 19.39% |
| Pierre Capital Journal | 2,572 | 14,008 | 18.36% | 2,606 | 14,004 | 18.61% |
| that Sioux Falls paper | 26,137 | 174,360 | 14.99% | 23,721 | 176,888 | 13.41% |
One blip in those numbers: the Madison Daily Leader must have changed its circulation reporting in 2017, dropping from 6,700 to 2,375. But even that tiniest daily in South Dakota has more than twice the per-population penetration of its big ugly cousin to the southeast.
Every paper but Brookings and Pierre circulated fewer papers in 2017 than in 2016.
I don’t subscribe to the Argus because I’ve never felt they have printed both sides equally. Reducing public opinion is just one more example of swaying influence.
The Argus has way too many AP articles pasted in to fill up space. Sometimes the only reason to read it are the Obits and Letters.
I am sad about it.
MJK
It has long been my observation the The Argus is a bit right of center but represents both sides pretty well. That may be because I am a bit left of center. The role of a newspaper is to inform the citizen not to preach one side or another. I know that with the internet that our “skin” has been worn thin and we are ready to be offended or outraged by any comment.
Right of Center?????? Wow…
I stopped taking the Rapid City paper about 5 years ago. Certainly, it is right leaning (I think that is an understatement) but the editorial page coupled with the screened $.02 column of public input was more than I could tolerate at the breakfast table. Political views are one thing, but provable misinformation printed day after day is, shall we say, Trumpian! Now, the RC Journal is but a mere pamphlet of day old national news. Hope that is not the future of the Argus.
Nobody loves newspapers more than I so I am really saddened by the pickle they’ve found themselves in. I wonder if their problem is the Internet so much as the fact that they’ve lost their independence from the establishment? Chambers of Commerce, big business and big institutions are good and important parts of our society — and they have every right to try to control the media — but there was a time when strong publishers and editors prized their independence above all else. Today across the country, you’d be hard-pressed to find a newspaper that doesn’t bow and scrape to the powers-that-be. The few that still have a reputation for independence are doing pretty well. Today’s consumer of news is too astute to be fooled. She can look at blogs like this — or random Facebook posts, Tweets, etc. — and see that maybe she hasn’t been getting the whole story from the more traditional media. That’s made big media less relevant. Relevancy was its stock-in-trade. When you have an over-worked news team that publishes day-old news, generally filtered so as to not offend any advertiser or community power, you can blast your content all over the Internet and readers will simply scan it on the way to the weather report. But if you are relevant, delivering fresh and honest and entertaining material, you could publish on a rock and still find an appreciative readership.
Cory Myers writes:
The Argus once refused to publish four of my letters in a row over a period of maybe five years, giving a different reason each time. The most memorable explanation came after I’d written a letter criticizing reservations for Native Americans. Chuck Baldwin said he refused to run it because it was criticizing reservations for Native Americans.
To the best of my recollection, I haven’t bothered to submit a letter since.
Two points:
1) My own surprise with the Argus circulation figures was with the percentage of the Sioux Falls MSA (metropolitan statistical area) that subscribes to the Argus. Sioux Falls itself may have 177,000 residents or so, but the four-county MSA (Minnehaha, Lincoln, Turner, and McCook) has between 225,000 and 250,000 people.
2) Cory Myers wanted to publish an article I submitted on higher education, but he wanted to run it as a “My Voice” piece and cut it significantly. I pointed out that the original article to which I was replying was 6,000 words or more, so a 1,600-word reply wasn’t unreasonable. Rather that refuse to run my article, as was his right, he ran my piece in its entirety.
Here’s the online version, though they also printed the same article: https://www.argusleader.com/story/opinion/2016/08/05/future-south-dakotas-public-higher-education-isnt-past/88304036/
I’m surprised the RC Journal readership is that high. I was looking for a copy of an obituary in it and contacted several of my Black Hills friends. None subscribe any more.
I know new ownership came in and pretty much shredded it, going pretty far right. Apparently people who are centrists or on the Left no longer see any balance or reason to read it.
Debbo, you got mail.
Debbo, “going pretty far right” how do you know? I don’t read the RCJ anymore as it just repeats national stories anyway and online classified is much cheaper and easier to access but you say “going pretty far right”. Can you give me an example? Do you subscribe to the RCJ?
I was wondering because if it really did end up “going pretty far right” I would like to know but if you are just trashing it because you like trash things I would like to know that as well.
I quit the print edition of the RCJ about a year ago when I looked at my home delivery cost of around $375.00 per year. I went to the e-edition at about $100.00 per year and it’s still overpriced.
The 8 page “A” section is at least 4 pages of display ads and the other sections are similar in ad content. The sports section has shrunk and news is mostly items from other sources or happened during working hours the day prior. It also appears they have now shrunk the physical size of the pages.
It’s sad to see a good paper going downhill.
I gave you the reason in my previous comment OS. Read it again.
RCJ editors, on July 4th, complained that the ACA was passed with no Republican input despite their group of 8 that walked out of bill committee preparation and despite 900 plus Republican amendments to the bill. That was the GOP meme and RCJ refused to retract or explain their flawed, misleading editorial. Wonder why Republican nos. are so high in SD? Republicans believe what they read.
leslie, did you, being the expert of facts, tell them they must retract the editorial based upon your opinion?
We have always felt strongly that we should support our local newspaper with a subscription; now more than ever. The Angus Misleader, however, is making it harder to stay true to this conviction. I agree with the hypothesis that they are trying to drive people to digital only subscriptions:
— The online version of the Angus Misleader is awful to the point of being unusable. We use the digital versions of two other major papers without issue. Outside of the E-edition, the local paper is missing many of the articles I want.
— Home delivery of the print version has gotten miserable and there is no way to get redelivery except on some Sundays.
–Meanwhile the cost has escalated from a reasonable ~$24/month to $102…. Plus $4.99 setup for home delivery.
— Home delivery of a certain East Coast paper is only $20 for 7/week (if one could get it delivered here)
— The Angus Misleader is very bad at math. Their “subscribe now” link promises 3 months of daily delivery for “$13/month, a 54% savings.” My math says that’s ~ $24/month full price, which is nowhere near what we’re paying.
The Argus will have a yuuuuge headline to print this week when Kavanaugh’s nomination goes down in flames. Still most people will get this news on the computer and tv.
Keep reading and believing this kind of tripe (daily wire) and you’ll never grasp carbon tax and the multitude things being done and available to slow rising climate temperatures. Or stick your head in the … sand (on a beach in the Marshalls).
https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/daily-wire-article-misunderstands-study-carbon-budget-along-fox-news-telegraph-daily-mail-breitbart-james-barrett/
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/06/22/graphics-marshall-islands-sea-level-rise-brought-eu-ministers-tears/
The old Trumpster will be forced to nominate a woman for the Supreme Court – the last thing he would ever want to do. Just watch him do this before the election and say with a straight face that she was his first choice for the but some thrown under the bus staffer made him nominate that loser Kavanaugh.
There’s something wonderfully tangible and about a book or a newspaper. My treat is the New York Times on Sunday. I don’t want to see the Argus fail, but there isn’t anything that entices me to read it.
Is any newspaper in South Dakota growing?