This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
The local independent newspaper The Dakota Scout is one of the proponents for Senate Bill 75. If passed, it would adjust South Dakota’s definition of a legal newspaper.
Jonathan Ellis, co-founder of The Dakota Scout, discusses the bill and what it would change for his publication, as well as smaller community newspapers.
Plus, we ask him what he’s heard from lawmakers about Gov. Kristi Noem’s joint session on Wednesday afternoon.
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The following transcript was auto-generated.
Lori Walsh:
Last week we spoke with Garrick Moritz with the South Dakota News Media Association about Senate Bill 75. Garrick is publisher of the newspaper in Garretson, and that bill would modify the definition of a legal newspaper in the state of South Dakota.
The bill passed out of committee this morning.
Now we're going to hear from the leader of one of the publications pushing for this bill. He also happens to be a long serving panelist on our rotating team of Dakota Political Junkies, Jonathan Ellis is co-founder of The Dakota Scout, and he is with us in SDPB's Capitol studio in Pierre.
Hey Ellis, welcome back.
Jonathan Ellis:
Hey Lori, I'm glad you had that caveat in there about a longstanding panelist.
Lori Walsh:
There's other descriptions that I could lay out here, but we'll just go with that one for today.
Jonathan Ellis:
That would be best.
Lori Walsh:
Tell me a little bit about what you're up to this morning, especially regarding Senate Bill 75?
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah, it's a weird place for me to be as a journalist to actually get up to the desk there and testify in favor of a bill, but it was the second time I've done that along with some other people in the industry with regard to Senate Bill 75. And I don't know how much of the details your listeners have on it. I can go into that, but basically it would create a new class of newspapers that would qualify as legal newspapers. We believe in transparency of local governments and making sure that meeting minutes and things of that nature are available to the public, and it's very important that they're available in printed form.
So the bill as it is now, is of a 1980s era recognition of what the newspaper industry was then when we're far from the 1980s now, and there are new models, new business models that are coming forth. And really from in the 1980s, there was specific provisions put in there that legal newspapers could only be newspapers that you had to pay for. So no free newspapers could qualify to be legal.
And at the time that's understandable because there were a lot of free shopper news, and the industry itself was kind of concerned that the shopper papers would pick up the legal notices and the revenue that comes with them.
But now we've gotten to a point where there are a growing number of free news newspapers, and the Dakota Scout is one of those. Our print edition is free, and there are others emerging. There's certainly the Aberdeen Insider now is a strong newspaper in a market that is terribly underserved, that's immersion. And I can tell you that I'm privy to conversations of other newspapers with similar business models that are being looked at in other communities across the state, establish this kind of class of new newspaper that would qualify for these legals. And there's some guardrails there for the industry as well.
I mean, currently the big daily newspapers, they have to print once a year postal circulation numbers and ownership investors and things like that. New newspapers like the Dakota Scout and the Aberdeen Insider would also have to undergo an independent audit to ensure that they're distributing the minimum number of copies required under law, which is pretty small actually. But for a paper the size of the Dakota Scout in a city, in the state's largest city, pretty easy for us to meet that. But the law is crafted in a way that some other smaller communities too can meet those requirements.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, some content requirements too, what a newspaper is, I think this is important. What do you want to say about the content requirements for what a legal newspaper is in the state?
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah, again, that's a reflection that there has to be some minimum requirements of accounts of local news, local events in the community. And I believe, I may get this up, but I think it's just a minimum of 25% of that locally produced content. And just to ensure again that these are good faith journalism enterprises that are qualifying as legal newspapers.
Lori Walsh:
Does your operation change at all? Does the Dakota Scout operation change at all with this, if this bill passes and is enacted into law?
Jonathan Ellis:
The only thing that would change for us is that we'd have to get the independent audit to verify the fact that we are in fact printing the minimum number of copies that are required for a weekly, freely distributed newspaper. And I believe that is 500. And then also the audit verifies that you're distributing those copies around to various places. And certainly in Sioux Falls, it's not hard to find the Dakota Scout. Any grocery store you go to, it's going to be there as well as many other places. So that's part of the audit process. Plus there's a portion of it to ensure that online subscriptions, there's a minimum number of those required too. So it changes nothing from our perspective. We're already doing everything that's spelled out, that's required in the proposed law. The only thing we would have to do is just verify that through the independent audit.
Lori Walsh:
All right. Let's talk about today in Pierre because there is a joint session coming up this afternoon. We're recording this. It's about 12:30 Central Time, 11:30 Mountain right now. So this afternoon there'll be that joint session.
Are you hearing anything from lawmakers about what they're anticipating from this session that Gov. Noem says she's giving a briefing about the southern border?
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah, I talked to several yesterday, asking them broadly what they want to hear, what they think, that kind of thing. Without a doubt, and I said this in a story kind of a preview that ran this morning, that there's bipartisan concern for what's going on on the southern border, but there are different reactions to how that should be dealt with. Rep. Linda Duba, who's a Sioux Falls Democrat, said, "Look, I don't want a political speech." And she favors that the Senate bill, U.S. Senate bill, that is currently being negotiated. And I haven't checked in on it this morning, so I don't know the status of that, but she thinks that's the solution there. Republicans in the house are balking at that. Reynold Nesiba, Senator, again, Democratic senator from Sioux Falls, introduced a resolution today urging that the congressional delegation work with the Biden administration.
But on the other side, I mean you have a lot of Republicans that are saying, "Hey, the Biden administration created this problem." Now they're squealing basically about how the problem has just gone out of control. And basically it's become a massive political liability for the Biden administration. And so you have some Republicans saying, "Hey, you created this problem by lifting all of the Trump administration rules that had been put in place."
And so there's recognition that there's a problem. There's, as you would expect, there's some partisan differences about what to do about that problem.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. So is it just a political conversation or are they tuned in to how the South Dakota National Guard might be used in conjunction with the Texas National Guard and possibly in opposition to federal Homeland Security or Border Patrol forces?
Jonathan Ellis:
There is some concern about that issue. I think that more and more people, I think that lawmakers are taking a wait and see approach. Again, I haven't checked in on this, this morning, but the status quo is that Texas is saying, "Well, go ahead and remove the wire." I mean, they're not obligated by the Supreme Court lifting that injunction necessarily to lift it, to remove the wire themselves. And my understanding is that even authorities in Texas are still kind of at a loss as to what they would do. So I don't know that there's a clear cut request from Texas to these other states, including South Dakota about what they actually want.
Lori Walsh:
Is there any risk to Governor Noem here? I mean, it seems like it's a political conversation. Maybe she takes a little criticism for vying for a VP spot, but probably not much as the business of Pierre goes on. Do you see any risk for her today? What are we watching for?
Jonathan Ellis:
I mean, I think the risk is, and I think you point this out and look, and some lawmakers will tell you this privately, they think that this is just kind of the grandstanding thing that she's doing in order to keep her visibility up for the, as I wrote, the veepstakes, right? That she is really angling and angling hard to be on the radar of Donald Trump, who we all presume is going to be the Republican nominee come this summer, if not even before that, but at least officially at the convention. And so a lot of lawmakers, again, just think that that's part of this process, that it's political. But I'll be honest here too, there is genuine concern about what is going on at the border, no doubt about that.
Lori Walsh:
Meanwhile, today's the last day to introduce a new bill. What do we expect to see kind of getting chucked over the transom at the last minute?
Jonathan Ellis:
This is kind of the period where you see a lot of the more, to frame these, maybe the cultural or culture war bills or issues. We've been dealing with, I'd say the first three weeks, we've been dealing with a lot of really important policy stuff. But now there are lawmakers who want to go into other areas. And I mean, I wouldn't be surprised, and I haven't had, again, a chance to check, and we're getting to the deadline here. It's two hours before session is supposed to start. That's the deadline. But you start to see some of the things like on abortion and other issues, that this is that time period. And we're three weeks away now from when all of these bills, there's going to be a big rush of bills that drop today, that dropped last night. They have three weeks, then. They have three weeks to clear their house of origin.
I would have to say that I've been covering the legislature off and on for many years, going back since 2006. I have not seen a legislative session in which the legislature just went after the bills, the early bills, and just tried to get them through process as quickly as possible in anticipation that there are going to be a lot of more bills dropped today. And for one thing, because there are a lot of freshmen lawmakers who are now on their second year and understand the process a little better, and there are some lawmakers who are leaving. This is their last year. They're retiring, and they have legacy bills that they may be dropping.
So there's a lot on the plate, we expect.
Lori Walsh:
All right. That's stuff to keep our eyes open for. We'll continue those stories. You can find Jonathan Ellis's work at the Dakota Scout, dakotascout.com. Thanks so much for being here with us. We'll see you next time.
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah. Thanks, Lori.
