Lori Walsh: Newspapers have increasingly been treading uncertain waters as more and more people look to electronic options as their source for information. This is nothing new, but it hit closer to home earlier this month when The De Smet News and the Lake Preston Times, papers that have been publishing for more than a century, shutdown in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
We're joined today by Dale Blegen. He's the owner and publisher of The De Smet News and the Lake Preston Times. You recently shared the publication's unfortunate news with their readers. Dale, thanks for being here.
Dale Blegen: You're welcome.
Lori Walsh: Also joining us on the phone from Spearfish, Letti Lister. She's president of the South Dakota Newspaper Association and publisher of the Black Hills Pioneer, which has a circulation of more than 4,000. Welcome, Letti.
Letti Lister: Thank you. It's good to join you.
Lori Walsh: And Bart Pfankuch is also with us for this segment. Yesterday he posted a story about South Dakota's weekly newspapers in peril at South Dakota News Watch, where he's a content director and investigative reporter. You can read that article at SDNewswatch.org. Bart, thank you and welcome back.
Bart Pfankuch: Well, thanks for having me again. I appreciate it, Lori.
Lori Walsh: I want to start with Dale. And everybody is dealing with loss in different ways through this pandemic, and some things hit people harder than others because there are things that were close to their heart. And I'm going to confess right up front that local newspapers are so dear to me that it's hard to read the news of a newspaper closing, and to see that headline saying, "This is it, the final edition."
Take us back to how you got into this business in the first place. I'd love to hear that story.
Dale Blegen: Well, I was a news director of KESD-FM back in the 70s, between '73 and '77. And the South Dakota Newspaper Association at the time had its office in the journalism building. I was working on my Master's degree and working at the radio station. And the manager of the Newspaper Association saw me in the library there one day, stopped and said, "Would you be interested in The De Smet News?" I thought, "Yeah, that's a good community, a really good newspaper." And I would be, the publisher at the time was Aubrey Sherwood. He was 87 years old, had published paper for 57 years and was ready to retire.
Long story short, we finally got together and made the purchase and in March of '77 I took over the news, and I've been here since. We purchased the Times in 1984, and published that right up until April 1st.
It was a very difficult decision to close, but we were hemorrhaging money and we don't have it to hemorrhage. So we weren't left with much choice.
That coupled with my age, I really wanted to retire. I'll be 76 in June and I've been trying to retire for 10 years. I've been mostly retired but always had ownership of the paper hanging over me, and it's time to let it go and move on to new things.
For many years I wish I was working for someone else so I could just walk into the boss's office and say, "Hey, come next month, I'm retiring. I'm all done." I haven't been able to do that, have not been able to find a buyer, and I've been trying for the better part of 10 years. And there just hasn't been anyone interested.
Lori Walsh: Letti, tell us a little bit about your history in the newspaper business and the vitality of what a newspaper means to a community. Let's start there. Leti?
Letti Lister: Okay. And I have to echo what you said about reading the headline about Dale's papers. That definitely was a crushing thing for me to see as well. I certainly believe in the role that community newspapers play for being the glue for a community and being the source for reliable information. And really we're the historic record-keepers of all these families, and their impact in our towns and cities across the state. So it's really hard to know that we're going to lose that history for those communities. And unfortunately that may happen in other areas as well.
You asked me about my background, and I studied journalism at Kansas State University and got my degree in journalism. And my husband and I moved to Spearfish, South Dakota to work for five years, and that would have been in January of 1989. And we were going to get our experience and then move on to the next community. And we absolutely fell in love with small town America and small town community newspapers.
And so 30 plus years later we're still here. And we're also owners of the paper and it just, it's something that gets in your blood. We joke about it, how the ink gets in your blood. Former newspaper people walk into our building and tell us how they love the smell of the ink and the presses and the excitement that happens in the newsroom. And there's always something going on and the buzz.
And just, it's a real honor to be able to be trusted by our subscribers and our readers to provide quality, factual, accountable information and we take it very seriously, but we also have fun with it. It's a really fun job. Every work day is different from day-to-day. It's never boring. You don't ever look at a clock and say, "Gosh, the day is dragging." You always look at the clock and say, "Where did the time go?"
So, something that I had no idea that I was going to do for a career, for a lifetime career. I feel very privileged to be a part of. So if that gives you some history with me and our papers, and our paper covers the communities of Spearfish and Lead and Deadwood. And then along our topics when two weekly papers closed in Meade County and Butte County. Towards the end of 2018 we took over being the legal newspapers for those counties as well. So we hire reporters and we go to all of the school board meetings, county commissions and city commissions, to make sure that we have a reporter there reporting on what's happening for the public record.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. Right now, Leti, that's more important than ever. These reporters, these newspaper publishers are really capturing this history as it happens. That's the first draft of history, is the old cliche. But holding people accountable right now is difficult because the meetings aren't even held in the same way and you really need those professional journalists with experience like Dale's and like yours on the ground.
Talk a little bit about why it matters more than ever, and yet it's harder than ever to actually serve that function of the First Amendment and government accountability.
Letti Lister: We've been in a very fortunate position here. About 10 years ago we just decided we were going to really focus on local news and so we added to our newsroom, rather than cutting, where a lot of papers felt like they were going to have to do that. I'd have to say the struggle for weekly papers is there just isn't a lot of income and revenue for them to be able to do that. We're in a unique position that we're a small daily, but we are still a daily paper. And so because we cover a large area, we have an opportunity to capture more ad revenue so that we can support that news gathering and news coverage.
Because we have a lot of reporters here that are experienced and are from the communities, we have a really good rapport with our governmental entities that we cover. So whether that's school board or county commission or city commission. And with the pandemic throwing a new monkey wrench into the toolbox that we're all dealing with, we could see that coming prior to the social distancing and people staying home more.
And so we were trying to be very proactive and contacting all of those groups and telling them that we still expect to get our notifications for public notices to go onto the paper. We still expect to be able to cover those, whether they're broadcasting online or through Zoom meetings or whatever platform they might use. And they've been extremely cooperative with us, and have always been very available to our reporters for questions afterwards.
So it is different for us, but everybody has been extremely cooperative and we greatly appreciate that. Because they understand, the elected officials understand, that we have a role to play that's critical and vital as well.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. I want to bring Bart Pfankuch into the conversation. I appreciate your patience, Bart. And before we talk about the story in SD News Watch, I want to ask a little bit about your background in the news, because it's been so fun to hear Dale and Leti's, experience matters.
Bart Pfankuch: Well, I'm from Wisconsin and I had worked at a public radio station, a community radio station, WORT in Madison. And got the news bug and as a final class I had in college, I wrote a story about the death of some kids in a low income neighborhood, and how they fire chief there had ignored other ... Been so many false alarms that they ignored a fire alarm, and turned out that there was a fire and the children all died. And I saw the impact that had, that story came up at a trial.
And so I was hooked, became a weekly editor and a freelancer, and then I've been in newspapers and a short stint in magazines for more than 30 years now. I love meeting people, hearing their stories, sharing their stories, compiling information, bringing a lot of concepts together and then presenting that in a clear way.
And also that accountability factor, holding powerful people accountable, government accountable, watching how our money is spent. I think that's a big loss when these papers go under, is who's attending those school board meetings and government meetings. Not that people are outwardly corrupted in South Dakota, but you can get away with a lot more if no one's watching and no one's reporting what's going on. Fewer people are likely to come to the meetings of residents to voice their opinions or watch what's going on, because they won't know in advance about what their government is doing.
So, and holding law enforcement accountable as well is something I've done throughout my career. So I enjoy that part of it and feel strongly about the role that the media as a whole play and also it is fun. Like Leti said, I've done a lot of different things that are work-related. Meeting famous people, flying in a hot air balloon, doing environmental stories, meeting farmers. All that kind of stuff is intriguing to me. And I enjoy sharing what I've learned at the end of that.
Lori Walsh: We're talking this hour about newspapers, particularly weekly newspapers in South Dakota.And now we're joined by David Bordewyk. He's the executive director of the South Dakota Newspaper Association and he holds that same title with South Dakota News Watch. Dave, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Dave Bordewyk: Thanks Lori. Appreciate the opportunity.
Lori Walsh: I want to start this segment with Bart real quickly. And Bart, if you can give us some, as we look at your reporting at SD News Watch, what we're learning about how many newspapers there are in South Dakota and whether this is a trend of people shutting down or furloughing employees. What are we looking at from a big picture standpoint, please?
Bart Pfankuch: Yeah, it's not good, Lori. This industry has taken a lot of hits and the COVID-19 virus has just exacerbated a lot of those trends. More than 1,300, the University of North Carolina does a study of news deserts, places across the country where they've lost all news coverage and there's 1,300 communities across the US that have totally lost all news coverage and a lot of that is to newspapers dying. 20% of American newspapers have gone out of business or merged in the past 15 years. That has played out in South Dakota as well, that we have 11 daily papers. That's held steady. Of the number of weekly papers, we've lost 17 over the past 25 years, about one a year. And subscribership, the circulation of those papers has gone down as well. More than 50% for daily newspapers. Subscribers have been lost over the past 25 years. And 38% of subscribers to weeklies over the past 40.
And that has landed in a number of ways. We've seen our major dailies cut back on the number of days they publish each week. That's a money saving venture and so people are receiving less news on a daily basis. They've also cut employees dramatically. When I was the editor of the Rapid City Journal, I got there in late 2012, I had 33 employees that I managed and I think when I left and in 2017, that number was down to 14. More than half had left in the news department. And also employees are taking unpaid furlough. Daily newspaper employees are just being, just having to take unpaid time. They're losing, they lose that portion of their salary. It's a tough business to be in to begin with and it's a tough business right now. Due to the virus, it's far worse.
But on the weekly level, I see these papers trying to make money and they have to pay themselves, pay their employees, pay for mailing. Mail costs are a really big factor. And how can a business when it's closed, advertise? I think they understand why the revenue's down, but it seems there's very little they can do about it. And it's troubling. It's very sad. I know a lot of these people, these are great people. If you ever want to meet a great group of people, go to a newspaper convention in South Dakota or any state, I've been to a number of them. Really great folks who care deeply about their communities and are fun to be with. But it's really hard to hear these stories from Dale and others who are facing those challenges.
Lori Walsh: Dave, tell me a little bit about innovative business models and then I'm going to bring Letti in with that same question here in just a moment because we just got a question on Twitter about newspapers taking all forms of payment versus just credit card payments. I know I've struggled sometimes with the customer service of my newspaper, not from the content, but from having to crawl under my car to fish the newspaper out from beneath the tire, to having it not show up and then having to make a phone call. When we see these businesses who are doing takeout orders and really working hard to figure out how do we meet people's needs? Let's talk about the business model here. And again, start with Dave and then ask Letti the same question. Newspapers really have to figure out how to meet their customers' needs in ways that are also challenging. But we see people also doing that in new and innovative ways.
Dave Bordewyk: Yes, you're exactly right. And I think that's one of the stories from this crisis, Lori. And not just for newspapers, but for all small businesses is finding and developing new ways to serve your customers and your readers and advertisers, in the case of newspapers. And I think you're going to see out of necessity, even weekly newspapers, our smallest newspapers and others doing things differently going forward because they're going to have to in order to serve their communities. And I think that's, what exactly that all looks like, I think is to be determined. But I just think you're going to see different ways to deliver news to readers happening. Different ways to create revenue for newspapers via advertising and subscriptions and other revenue streams. I think, hopefully those things develop. We're going to need that to develop in order to sustain our newspapers, not only in South Dakota but across the country.
Lori Walsh: Letti, as we look at a successful weekly right now going pretty strong, what's the secret there? What are some of the things that you think are, I guess the question is what are some of the things that you think are really effective toward customer loyalty right now in times that are really, really challenging?
Letti Lister: I think that we've learned this lesson over time and it just is proving itself maybe even more right now under pressure. We certainly are an industry that's always been under pressure and we have to be innovative and flexible and willing to think outside the box. We've always tried to adapt new ways, new platforms, new ideas, and I would have to just solidly credit that to the staff that I work with. We have a very collaborative effort here. I want everybody to feel like they're a part of what we do and not just feel that but know it. And so when somebody has a new idea of how we can do something bigger or better for our customers, then we look at it and we work it out. We have a good communication strategy and we implement it. And we're also not afraid to walk away from it if it doesn't work.
I think for us, we've always been willing to try new things. When disrupters come along, like Facebook, social media, digital, things like that, we've always tried to figure out how can we utilize that to our advantage? Rather than be afraid of it or run from it. And I'm not saying that others do that, I'm just saying that that's been our strategy. And at the same time, we're probably some of the worst promoters of ourself, but we have to remind people that we survive because of people paying for the news. People subscribing for our product. And as long as we give them a product that they want, they'll do that. But there's not one single revenue stream for us. We have to be innovative and continue to find as many different ways to bring money in as we can. If that's expanding our print jobs and our press room where we're printing a weekly papers for other publishers or grocery inserts or selling, coming up with new ideas for advertisers, and we're even doing that right now.
Our ad staff has been very creative on coming up with ways to help businesses that are still open. How they can reach people in a unique way and fulfill what their needs are because the fact is we still all need food and we need to have our car worked on and whatever that might be. That's been our philosophy for a long time. It's just even more critical right now to be open to ideas and pushing forward and knowing that it's going to be tough for all of us, but hopefully we all will come out stronger.
Lori Walsh: Thank you for that. Dale, I want to give our last a minute to you and we know what the community is going to miss. What are you going to miss in just the remaining 30 seconds or so that we have, as you put an exclamation point on the final edition and also on your career, what are you going to miss about going to work in this industry?
Dale Blegen: Well, everything that's that both Letti and Bart and Dave have said, being part of the community, serving the community in both big and small ways. There's been an outpouring of congratulations on your retirement. However, we're going to miss the paper. And some people get down to missing individual things, obituaries, city council meetings, school board meetings, the legal notices. Many of the people who have called or written have mentioned those kinds of things that they will miss. I feel really badly about that, but given the circumstances and given what I wanted to do with my life, I just felt I had to make that decision.
Lori Walsh: Dale, well done. Thank you so much for your time today.
Dale Blegen: You're welcome.
Lori Walsh: Letti, thank you. We appreciate your time. We'll see you again.
Letti Lister: Thank you for the opportunity.
Lori Walsh: Bart Pfankuch, the work is at sdnewswatch.org. Thanks Bart.
Bart Pfankuch: You bet, Lori. Have a good day.