KOTA-TV runs a story about how another toothless resolution is a great step by Senator Mike Rounds to mandate country-of-origin labeling on meat:
Earlier this year, the Association along with State Senator Gary Cammack introduced an MCOOL resolution in the state legislature to ask the trade teams in Washington D.C. to re-negotiate trade agreements. James Halverson is the executive director of the Stockgrowers Association and is supportive of the labeling. He explains that the stock growers want the trade agreements to be re-negotiated because one argument against the country of origin labeling is the threat of tariff retaliation from countries such as Canada or Mexico. Halverson says Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota and a coalition of bi-partisan senators of other states liked this resolution and have taken it to the federal level.
“We understand it’s not going to be a statute, it’s not going to be put into law,” says Halverson, “but it also would really help force the hand of the president to re-negotiate the trade deals so we could make it a law.” Halverson also says, “We think it is a huge step forward in seeing some movements towards actually implementing country of origin labeling, and we really hope that we can keep moving this forward.”
Senator Rounds states that “the reality is we need the president’s attention on this issue and that’s what we’re focused on,” adding that once signed by the president, the trade teams could bring MCOOL to the negotiation table [Chiu-yi Lin, “One Step Towards Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling on Beef,” KOTA-TV, 2020.05.22].
Sure, Mike, a resolution will wrest Donald Trump’s attention away from his golf game, his Twitter, and his fireworks.
KOTA’s original version of this story was much harder on Rounds, focusing on cattle producers’ frustration with the impotence of Rounds’s resolution:
Even though Senator Mike Rounds co-sponsored a resolution to support the labeling, many American cattle producers don’t think a resolution is helpful. “It’s not a law,” says Kenny Fox, a South Dakota rancher.
“Both senators said they won’t vote for it…,they support the resolution which aggregates me why support the resolution if you won’t vote for it,” says Mike Fuller, who operates a feed yard in Onida S.D. [Chiu-yi Lin, “S.D. Ranchers Unhappy with Rounds’ MCOOL Resolution,” KOTA-TV, posted 2020.05.20 but subsequently removed from kotatv.com; retrieved from Google Cache 2020.05.24]
That more critical article is no longer found on KOTA’s website.
Lin’s original report included a link to this R-CALF petition calling for real legislation to mandate country-of-origin labeling; Lin’s revised May 22 report mentions linklessly that “There are some cattle growers who would like to see MCOOL become a bill sooner and have participated online petition to request such labeling written into a law.”
Perhaps South Dakota journalists need to come with candidate-of-original labeling, promising to include no real beef against elected Republicans.
I guess Thune and Rounds think they are doing a great job for SD by going along with every little thing that comes out of the W.H. That way SD stays on the good side of Donald and we don’t get any threats. Good job, guys. Ineffective, but great work! !@#%^&*
Truly great journalism can get overruled if you have a cowardly or politically motived management that is pressured and maneuvered by an emotionally and politically insecure politician. What gets cut out, generally, is the voice of the grassroots citizen. That’s what happened here.
Politicians, it must be remembered, pay for a lot of coverage through various ads and spots. KOTA did what any business does. The customer, in this case the politician, comes first. Not news. Not truth. Not the American way.
Money is what KOTA harvests as it produces bullsh*t. The political class gets to have the last and lasting word. Surprise, surprise. Well, except this time we have another great journalist, Cory, unmasking what must have been some sort of orchestrated pressure to turn a great piece of journalism into mush by news management that ought to resign.
It would be helpful if KOTA would investigate and report on itself. They really need to be more ethical in how they operate their news organization. If there was a mistake in the original story, correct it, but a complete rewrite is little different than what we might get from a Russian news operation.
I’m sure that Sioux Falls Newspaper, the true bastion of fair and balanced “journalism”, will write a story about this, before it tanks.
neither our gov.who was part our congressional crowd when congress voted to get rid of m-cool. anyone who raises sheep or cattle should never trust these people to vote for their issues if they can’t support M-cool!it is time to throw these bums out. if they can’t support m-cool they should never get our vote.they are only supporting the corporate crowd who they hustle for campaign money. they are criminals in my book. every govenor should support m-cool if only because if livestock raisers get their just deserts they will spend all of their money in their state for needed improvements on their outfits.
Mr.kammerer, the problem is the (R) in front of this congressional crowd’s name. No card carrying republican rancher is gonna vote these bums out because of that and these crooks and liars, know that. There is clearly to much of a payout in it for them to support ranching operations.
Wonder what Helene Duhamel had to do with killing this story? She’s another serpent in the grass.
Young Ms. Duhammel is a consummate journalist and a gentlewoman of high repute. If she popped the boil on this story then it needed popping, you can be sure.
Jerry, good question about Duhamel.
I’m sure if Economic Oaf and Moscow Mitch wanted the SoDak boys to get COOL labeling, they would.
I’m sorry, Grudz, but that was a great story, and it got axed after being put out. If there were real questions about the story, that should have been addressed prior to publishing. After publishing, they should leave it, or address corrections, if any, by being honest. Sometimes you see corrected stories that are announced as “This story was corrected to clarify….” or “A quote incorrectly attributed to Mr. X has been changed to be correctly attributed to Mr. Y.” That’s real journalism, but pulling such an important story and rewriting it into pap is fabricating news. If Duhammel did this, she should get a job with Putin.
There is no more evidence that Ms. Duhammel did this than there is evidence grudznick made a few calls and had the story pulled. Get ahold of your Libbie selves.
Mr. Pay, “If Duhammel did this, she should get a job with Putin.” She already has a plum job with Queen NOem. There really is no difference between Putin and her, maybe a skirt or those wild hoops, but both ride horse’s, both know that there real objective is to rake in as much on the side as possible. EB5 Rounds taught the Queen, the fundamentals of the grift. My only question is, Where’s Joop? Probably laying out the spec book on additions at his new mask plant. Got to be a door someplace there to shovel money out. Probably with change orders, sweet.
Ranchers are being taken to the cleaners to line the pockets of the wealthy who pull the strings. The ranchers know it too, but that pesky (R) in front of his name, means no actions taken.
It’s sort of embarrassing to read the comments here when they are so ill informed. “Ms. Duhamel” has long since departed the KOTA empire and is employed now in the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office – in addition to serving in our Legislature. Heap scorn wherever you wish, but please do so with some facts in hand.
Speaking of embarrassing facts Curt, Ms. Duhamel is not with the sheriff’s office. She said she was resigning to accept appointment to the legislature. Even if that were not so, I think it is just a bit naive to imagine she has no influence at Duhamel Broadcasting.
Why would KOTA suddenly kill the story that shines the light on EB5 Short Rounds? Not only kill it, but scrub it from their website? Sorry to embarrass you Curt, but I’m also embarrassed that you cannot see the political angle on this report. The report kind of kicks the veneer off EB5 Short Rounds and exposing him for what he is, a big fibber to ranchers. Duhamel sure stepped into to pretty plum position for not being a politician, senator no less. Just sayin that this is pretty damn convenient and would have never seen the light of day if not for the great reporting of Cory.
So maybe then, the report could be sent over to KEVN in Rapid City…oops, alas, not https://www.kotatv.com/content/news/KOTA-and-KEVN-celebrates-opening-of-new-facility-488730661.html
Why bother to have two teevee stations when they are under the same ownership, kind of like your right hand and the left hand not knowing what each is gonna do next. Can you imagine the rivalry between these two “competitors” for a scoop.
How do you know Mr. Trump himself didn’t order the story deleted? Get a grip on your Libbie selves and eat a nice serving of gravy taters and bacon this fine Memorial Day. Stop acting like the left-wing version of Lora Hubbel.
Sorry, wrong again fellow commenters. Ms Duhamel did NOT resign her position as PR person for the Sheriff when she was appointed to serve in the Legislature. And there is no longer a Duhamel Broadcasting in the Rapid City media market.
Senator Helene Duhamel continues her conflict-of-interest employment speaking for the Pennington County Sheriff. That’s a different blog post.
The main point here is that KOTA pulled a version of a story that spoke unflatteringly of Senator Rounds’s impotence and replaced it with more favorable comment from him and from the Stockgrowers.
Of course, Duhamel Broadcasting left the media market some time ago. I believe they still own the buildings though where the broadcasting still is done.
Mr. grudznick has his finger on the pulse of Republican politics so maybe he is correct, King Covid hisownself killed the story. It’s kind of interesting though that an economic impact interest story was killed and vanquished from sight so thoroughly though. Why would anyone want to do that? How would they know who to talk to that could actually kill the damn thing? I wonder who, in Republican politics, would know who to contact at KOTA to kill it? I mean, you probably cannot call the receptionist and tell her to scrub the website and kill the story, can it be that easy? Who would know the nuts and bolts of KOTA in order to kill that story and then bury it?
I was mistaken about H. Dudamel’s work and Duhamel Broadcasting. My bad. Thanks for the correction.
KOTA TV and KEVN TV are owned by Gray Televison. Not quite as blatantly right-wing as Sinclair. As Don Pay says, they are dependent on their advertising and no doubt don’t want to annoy the status quo in SD.
From the website
Gray’s television stations cover approximately 24 percent of US television households and broadcast approximately 400 separate programming streams, including nearly 150 affiliates of the CBS/NBC/ABC/FOX networks. Gray Television also owns video program production, marketing, and digital businesses including Raycom Sports, Tupelo-Raycom, and RTM Studios, the producer of PowerNation programs and content.
Fluff pieces about politico’s and dire situation’s like this pandemic, do no service whatsoever to the viewers. Contrary to what the media news in television broadcasting was chartered to do. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/piac/novmtg/pubint.htm, Killing this story and scrubbing this story, is not an honest take of the situation.
As the rules were written, news organizations are supposed to report the news as is, not stage and make to suit their personal or political needs. By killing this story, it sure looks like someone had an inside track on who and how to kill this true story and scrub it of what little EB5 Short Rounds has done for the ag business and in particular, ranchers.
To be clear, I didn’t accuse Ms. Duhamel of anything, I only wondered “Wonder what Helene Duhamel had to do with killing this story?”. I still do wonder that.
Way to own your error, Debbo. Leanna would be proud of you.
Who are you?
He’s Curt, Ms. Geelsdottir.
very curt indeed.