A sign outside the offices of the Huron Plainsman signaling that the paper has ceased operations. (Benjamin Chase/for South Dakota Searchlight)
Four communities in South Dakota abruptly lost their newspapers this week, leaving more than 40,000 people without a local source of print news — at least in the near term.
Employees of the Huron Plainsman, Redfield Press, Brookings Register and Moody County Enterprise, which served the city of Flandreau, were informed in a Wednesday letter that operations would cease immediately.
“The decision was not made lightly,” read the letter from the papers’ Illinois-based parent company, News Media Corp. “Over the past months and years, we have explored every possible avenue to sustain our operations and preserve our team.”
An attempt to sell the company failed, the letter says, leaving the company in a financial position “where continuing business is no longer feasible.”
Last year, the company announced it would be purchased by Carpenter Media Group, which specializes in rural papers.
News Media Corp. will make “reasonable efforts” to deliver final paychecks, the letter says. Health insurance benefits “will be terminated effective August 6, 2025,” it says, referencing the day the letters were delivered.
The company owns 31 newspapers across Arizona, Illinois, South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming, as well as six “shoppers,” which are freely distributed advertising publications. One such shopper, the Payday, was printed for Huron, on the same printing press used for the Plainsman and the Redfield Press.
An email to the company’s CEO, J.J. Tompkins, went unanswered. A message to the company’s informational email address came back undeliverable. A message to Carpenter Media Group on the hoped-for merger was not returned.
‘Gut-punch’ for journalism
The Wednesday announcements amount to “a real gut punch for community journalism in South Dakota,” according to South Dakota NewsMedia Association Executive Director Dave Bordewyk.
“I feel bad about it, I’m sad about it, and I’m mad about it,” said Bordewyk, who lives in Brookings where the association is based.
Bordewyk said his immediate concerns are for the employees of the publications, particularly given the immediate loss of health insurance. Since his arrival as executive director in 1995, Bordewyk said he’s known of a few instances when a small-town paper announced an instant end to operations, but he can’t recall any immediate shutdown across multiple communities at once.
The suddenness also has implications for the communities served by the papers.
“It’s revenue, expenses, bottom lines, I get that,” said Bordewyk, who said around 40 South Dakota papers have closed since the mid-1990s, “but also in the newspapers, there’s a trust relationship with your community.”
“That trust has been broken here, and my hope is it can be restored,” Bordewyk said.
Legal notice issues
Ope Niemeyer, the Brookings mayor, lamented the closure notice. He said he understands that newspapers have faced challenges in the digital era, but that he wouldn’t expect a community the size of Brookings — with a population of nearly 25,000 — to lose a printed paper.
It’s especially difficult for Brookings, he said, because a local radio station laid off its news staff less than a year ago. Without the Register, Niemeyer wonders who will cover local news.
“It’s pretty much devastating for our community,” Niemeyer said.
The closures could create immediate legal problems for government entities like Niemeyer’s, as well.
Under state law, governments must designate an official legal newspaper for the publication of meeting minutes, ordinance changes, bids for goods and services and more, often on specific timelines.
State law expects local governments to find a paper within their county before looking outside of it. There are three weekly newspapers in Brookings County. The other counties affected by the closures have none.
Niemeyer said he’s already in conversations on how the city will handle its notices. If it comes down to working with a weekly paper, he said, that could slow down the speed with which the city council can make decisions that require a certain number of days between the publication of a notice and a final decision.
“Most of the local communities only publish once a week, so we’d have to work around that,” Niemeyer said.
In an email to South Dakota Searchlight, Huron School District Superintendent Kraig Steinhoff said he was “saddened” to hear the news about the Plainsman. The paper’s coverage of students and sporting events in the district “celebrated the achievements of children and recognized the accomplishments of Huron School District employees, while also accurately reporting on the district’s business through bimonthly board meeting updates.”
The school board voted to retain the Plainsman’s designation as its legal newspaper last month.
“Over the years, I have heard from many people who lost their local newspapers comment on how fortunate Huron was to have a daily publication,” Steinhoff wrote. “It often seems that we don’t appreciate what we have until it is gone.”
Future for local news
Steinhoff also said he hopes “another company will take over the paper,” but that the district will have to learn to live without it if that doesn’t happen.
Benjamin Chase, the editor for the Plainsman, said Thursday that he and the publisher have already fielded calls from a handful of potential business partners who hope to keep the 140-year-old paper alive.
The “how, what and when” are still “being worked out,” Chase said, but “there were people who reached out right away.”
In a lengthy post on Facebook, Chase said his community of 14,500 needs a local news source. He also said he understands why people want to know about refunds on their subscriptions — his 90-year-old grandmother re-upped her annual subscription last week — but his thoughts are with the employees of the newsroom and printing shop, who didn’t know as of Thursday morning if they’d get their next paycheck.
The next scheduled payday is Friday, two days after the letters arrived.
“Huron’s paper now has more than a dozen employees who are now wondering how they will feed their families the rest of THIS month,” Chase wrote on Facebook.
Chase said he’s spoken with employees about the possibility of signing up for Medicaid for health insurance.
Josh Linehan, editor of the Brookings Register, declined to comment immediately, telling South Dakota Searchlight he can say more on Friday.
Bordewyk said he’s fielded calls from local government officials asking about how to manage the situation with legal notices. He’s been telling them to “hold tight” and see if the communities involved can find ways to keep their print products alive.
There are precedents for communities stepping in. In Kingsbury County, the publisher ran a story in 2020 saying he would have to shut down two weekly papers without a buyer. The local economic development corporations purchased the business and launched a new paper with the help of volunteers. A similar situation played out in Winner last year.
Chase is hopeful that Huron will find a way to keep the local news flowing. The paper predates statehood, and at one point published as many as three editions a day.
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