I was pleased to read Thursday that Josh Linehan, former managing editor of the recently closed Brookings Register, appeared to be following my recommendation to reëstablish his local paper as a truly local, independent paper:
“What kills newspapers is debt and conglomeration. And I don’t want to own a newspaper anywhere but Brookings, South Dakota. This is my hometown. I came back here to run the newspaper here. And I don’t want the future of a free press in Brookings tied to anywhere else, let alone 75 other towns,” Linehan said [Jay Roe, “Brookings Newspaper Plans Advance; City Shifts Legal Notices to Volga Tribune,” Northern Plains News, 2025.08.14].
Alas, the news business is still a business, and the next day, the Brookings Register came back with new corporate owners from even farther away than their failed previous Illinois bosses:
On Friday, the Moody County Enterprise newspaper announced the new owners of the four South Dakota papers will be Champion Media. The Redfield Press and Brookings Register had not published anything about restarting operations as of 3 p.m. Friday.
“While our new owners, Champion Media, are not from the area, we here are still focused on what we love to do – reporting Moody County’s news, sports, and community life and they are committed to helping us do that,” the paper said, adding it will publish on Thursdays.
According to a business filing with the Secretary of State’s office, Champion Media LLC filed to do business in South Dakota on Monday with a mailing address set in Huron, Ohio. According to Champion Media’s website, the company is headquartered in North Carolina but owns newspapers in North Dakota and Minnesota [Eric Mayer, “Report: 4 Closed SD Newspapers Find New Owners,” KELO-TV, 2025.08.15].
Champion Media is a father-and-son team from Mooresville, North Carolina:
Scott Champion has more than 40 years of experience in the newspaper industry, educated by his family operating competitive shoppers dating back to the mid 1960’s. In his career, Scott Champion has operated both small and large newspaper companies including American Publishing, Liberty Group Publishing, GateHouse Media and OCM. Scott Champion’s current portfolio includes MCM Media, MCM Ohio and now Champion Media.
Corey Champion graduated from The University of Iowa with his Bachelors in Business Finance and Entrepreneurship along with his Masters in Accounting. Corey Champion started his career with Kohler Company in Kohler, Wisconsin before his relocation to North Carolina. Corey Champion is joining Champion Media as the controller [“Champion Media Acquires the Exchange,” Laurinburg Exchange, 2017.06.20].
A functioning newspaper is better than no newspaper for Brookings, Huron, Flandreau, and Redfield. But the Register and its sister papers find themselves right back in the same tenuous position of being controlled by out-of-state businessmen who are more likely to see their new acquisitions as lines in their ledgers rather than as lifelines to local citizens seeking important civic information.