Last updated on 2015.01.02
Ring the tip jar for more good South Dakota blog journalism!
If I'm going to ask for your money, I'm at least going to try to get the facts straight.
Pat Powers commits two more key errors in his Christmas funding pitch:
- Powers calls his blog, Dakota War College, an "independent news web site."
- "Independent" ≠ sponsored by the SDGOP
- "News" ≠ constant stream of unedited, unanalyzed SDGOP press releases
- Powers repeats his claim to be "South Dakota's #1 political web site," claiming "over 650,000 visitors, we served up over 1.6 million page views" in his ninth year of blogging.
- In 2014, the Madville Times has logged over 919,000 unique visits. Update 2015.01.02: 2014 total: 934,000+ unique visits
- In 2014, the Madville Times has logged over 1.73 million page views. Update 2015.01.02: 2014 total: 1,764,000+ page views.
In news and numbers, the Madville Times beats Dakota War College. Who's #1? You're looking at #1.
Readers, you have made the Madville Times the best blog in the state by reading, sharing, and commenting (on 1,500+ original posts this year, you have submitted over 40,000 comments—and that's not counting my responses!). You readers have also boosted the blog with your donations and sponsorships. Dozens of you have put up real money for technical costs (I know, more work still to be done!), research, and travel that turned into what I thought was a pretty good batch of journalism in the August 2014 Blog Tour.
I don't blog for cash any more than I teach for the money. I blog because I love South Dakota, I love writing, I love helping people, and I love the truth.
But the more you kind folks ring that tip jar (there it is! the jar with Honest Abe! click it with your mouse! tap it with your finger!), the more time I can afford to spend at the computer, researching, writing, and producing some useful blog journalism.
And for the next several weeks, every dollar you pitch into that tip jar will support a very important journalistic project. South Dakota has lost David Montgomery, one of its experienced legislative reporters. That cuts the full-time reporting corps covering the Legislature in Pierre in half.
I propose to fill some of that gap. From now until the end of session, I will view every dollar in the tip jar as time I don't need to spend working part-time jobs elsewhere and time that I can spend covering the 2015 session of the South Dakota Legislature. With your financial support, I can afford to take the day off work and listen to and analyze the Governor's State of the State Address. I can tune in to more committee hearings to summarize and fact-check testimony. I can get on the phone during business hours and get information from bill sponsors, state officials, and other experts. I can give you South Dakota Legislative journalism, advocacy, and B.S.-flagging that you won't find anywhere else.
The Legislative session really is the most wonderful time of the year. I love covering our Legislature. With your support, I can cover it even more.
Thank you, South Dakota, for making this blog our state's best political blog. Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing. And thank you for ringing that tip jar!
But Corey...you really only need to be there the last day during the 6 hours or so that the appropriations committee votes up and down on the $ items.
:)
Ha! Then I'm there! And I can keep raking in cash from my day job! :-D
But come on, Advocate, you know there will be those juicy tidbits in the various committee hearings, those little moments when Phil Jensen will stick his foot in it, when we'll here the nice folks sent from the second floor to kill good ideas for which the credit needs to go to someone else.
Yeah, I thought the "independent news web site" a bit of a stretch. I suppose it's not technically owned by the GOP, and given that a lot of news outlets kind of run with various press releases (sometimes artfully re-written), I suppose it has as much right to the claim of "news" as another.
What I appreciate about your site (and SDWC for that matter) is that you are up front with your biases. I know a lot of folks on my side of the aisle find you over the top, but I've always found you an honest player in this field - aggressive, sure, but honest. Keep up the good work. I'll usually disagree, but vive la différence.
Thanks, PNR! I recognize and respect your independent opinions as well.
As for those folks on your side of the aisle who think I'm over the top... bring 'em over! I'll be happy to discuss any allegations of over-the-toppedness. :-)
LOL!
Cory, thanks for all your thought provoking research. Your ability to let people from all sides of a situation have a say allows me to think that everyone is important even if they are not believable. I can make a list of the unbelievable ones for you, kind of like the naughty or nice list. IMHO.. Happy Holidays everyone.
Number 1, and second place is just a talent-bereft Xerox machine for GOP hack press releases! Congratulations for hard work and keeping things straight paying off in an incredible roller coaster ride of a political year.
Without a doubt, you are doing your best writing and reporting on a scale that only a few can claim.
Cory, I love the idea of MTimes invading the stale environment in our State Capitol. That ivory tower needs a life line to reality and transparency. Those people walk around like they think they're royalty and the lobbyists up there herd them around like cattle. I can't wait to read your observations in committee hearings, in the hallways and on the floor. Your reporting would certainly add color to the peerless work that Bob Mercer does day in and day out.
It could transform how news gets communicated in South Dakota.
amen!!
but, "peerless", idk, his RECENT SUNDAY recap of top 5 political stories was so smarmey it failed to mention EB5, EB5, EB5, EB5!! (one each for rounds, daugaard, jackly and their pet joop). its a bit like that sweet photo of the "four horsemen" at the crawford TX brush ranch. yuk :(
Leslie, I could see some journalists declaring EB-5 to be the big story that wasn't. It could have toppled the Rounds candidacy, but it didn't. It could have sent people to jail, but it hasn't. To a fresh observer, EB-5 could look like a lot of sound and fury over nothing. I maintain that the EB-5 story remains a prime example of corruption and crime in South Dakota for which the malfeasant parties have not been held accountable and which the Attorney General and the Legislature have collaborated to cover up, but I understand why some journalists would argue against that interpretation.
But Bob Mercer's #3 story of the year, the all-female Democratic gubernatorial ticket, feels even more like a story that deserves a shrug. Dems ran two women, sure, but they proceeded to make history with their margin of loss. How does the nomination of two women matter? What change in thinking or social conditions in South Dakota did it signal?
96, thanks! If I can get there, I will... and I'll see if Bob Mercer has time to have dinner. At the very least, I will spend much more time online listening to hearings and on the phone talking to experts and distilling that information into blog posts.
Cory, you do a phenomenal job. Thank YOU!
Humbled and happy to serve, Adam! Now let's rock out on the Legislative session and build the brief book our candidates will need to read from in 2016!