Brookings, Huron, Flandreau, and Redfield lost their local newspapers last week. The sudden departure of Illinois-based News Media Corporation from the South Dakota news business leaves an opening for what I suspect is the only sustainable model for filling that void: local voices producing local news.
As I noted last week, Aberdeen businessman Troy McQuillen is making local news work in his hometown and has put longtime local journalists to work in Aberdeen and Watertown. Five years after the DeSmet Economic Development Corporation launched its volunteer-driven newspaper, the Kingsbury Journal continues to publish regularly. Brandon newswoman Jill Meier reacted to Gannet Corp’s downsizing by starting the Brandon Valley Journal:
“People in this community believed enough in my idea to begin a community newspaper and here we are,” Meier told [KELO-TV].
Two years later, Gannett closed down the Challenger for good, which left the Journal as Brandon’s sole news source.
…Jeanne Gerken and her husband were one of the many stopping into the Journal Friday morning to renew their newspaper subscription for the ninth year in a row.
Gerken said she’s appreciated Meier’s thorough writing since her time with the Challenger and continues subscribing to the Journal every year because of the quality of news.
“She is so good at (writing about) the events that the community, I feel, wants to hear more about, especially for those that aren’t able to get to some of the activities, they cover it here and it’s wonderful,” Gerken said.
She says it’s comforting to know the Journal is independently run and doesn’t have the same risk of shutting down like other corporate-run newspapers [Gracie Terrall, “Independent Newspaper Thrives amid Local Closures,” KELO-TV, 2025.08.08].
Local newspapers can’t run solely like corporate businesses. They have to run as community institutions, driven by local reporters and editors committed to serving their communities and making the case face-to-face, with their neighbors, that local news is worth the price of a small subscription fee.