I can find plenty on which to disagree with Kevin Woster. But he and his wife Mary Garrigan are both fine reporters.
They are now both unemployed reporters, due to an unwillingess to take any more corporate bull. Woster and Garrigan have resigned from the Rapid City Journal. Former colleague David Montgomery gets this statement from Woster:
"It’s a profoundly sad evening around our house," he wrote. "We both love the Journal and have survived some trying times in recent years. This, though, we could not abide. I don’t feel comfortable talking in detail about what happened. But we reached a point today where we simply could not continue to work there" [Kevin Woster, quoted by David Montgomery, "Woster, Garrigan Leave Rapid City Journal," Political Smokeout, 2013.08.14].
What exactly RCJ owner Lee Enterprises did to impose unacceptable working conditions on two outstanding veteran reporters remains unknown, but it is surely stupid. The value of West River's biggest paper just dropped significantly. Once again, the free market fails to recognize quality.
I try to write a few words or lines or graphs in every story that do what my poetry instructor in college encouraged us to do: “Make the readers look up! Make them stop chewing their corn flakes and say, “Wow.”
Storytelling is the best part of being a reporter. It might also be the most important, especially in these highly competitive days. One good move can make a reader stay with you. Two or three might make him remember you, and look for your stuff next time [Kevin Woster, interview with Peter Salter, "From Rapid City: Getting Readers to Stop Chewing," Lee Enterprises: Editorial Matters, 2013.05.02].
Kevin is a great writer and person. This is truly a sad day for journalism in South Dakota.
This is a devastating development for journalism in South Dakota, but it is part of that greater trend of people with proven talent and experience finding that they do not have a place in the state.
I can't think of a place talents like Kevin's and Mary's can go within the state. And recall that his brother was dumped by that Sioux Falls paper.
It might be time for old journalists to show what the Internet can do with competent and principled news coverage. As things now stand, it contributes to the proliferation of dysfunction more than to providing unavailable but sound news about the state. When Chicago journalists got dumped during the news business slump, they organized a news cooperative. You can't make a living at an Internet venture, but the profession can be kept alive. Perhaps.
Woster and Garrigan probably need more than an Internet hobby to bridge the financial gap to retirement. Is there any chance they and other interested writers could create a financially viable statewide newspaper?
The only existing media outlet that could possible house their talents is SDPB. Perhaps there's a teaching position out there? This development is pretty much the death knell for newspapers in South Dakota.
No doubt, South Dakota Public Broadcasting is the last standing statewide media player for quality in-depth journalism, dialogue, and conversation within our state.
This is the worst possible news for someone who still cares about local news. The RCJ is not what it was even a decade ago. The marketplace has dictated that. But it is bad enough to lose talented youngsters to larger markets. When you drop two veteran staff, people capable of actual journalism and not just fluff, you simultaneously lower your standards and make it next to impossible to re-tool by training the next generation.
Maybe the Madville Times can find salaries to maintain a West-River presence as CAH heads east?
Bezos, Heraclitus and the Hybrid Future of Journalism
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/future-of-journalism_b_3756207.html
A HUGE loss to Rapid City and West River! I too hope that Kevin, Mary and you, Cory, can figure out a way to keep writing about the important issues facing our area. We are already so steeped in the GOP rhetoric that without all of you, reporting a fuller, more objective look at political and environmental issues, our battles could well be lost! May the Creator guide you all!!!
maybe, just maybe Mrs. Hadcock had it right back in 2011 when she went on her little rant at a public meeting.
http://dakotawarcollege.com/the-rcj-called-out-in-an-official-city-meeting/
As I just messaged Kevin Woster a few minutes ago, we need a state-wide newspaper doing in-depth reporting and analysis. Then it is up to those community weeklies who are rising to their potential to do the localization that matters to our readers. I just had the opportunity to do that after Woster's coverage of the recent SOS Gant and Election Board inaction after Four Direction's approached them. I couldn't have done what I did for my community, without first Woster's coverage. He even talked to me on the phone when I called him about his coverage. Where are young (yes, I'm 30, but I feel young) journalists like me supposed to look to for guidance? And no offense, Cory, because I'm a blogger, and we should stick together, but we also need journalists and newspapers (as you well know.) Dammit.
Well, I have no idea why they quit, and often was less than impressed with Woster's pandering to the rabid right, I usually found something of value in his stories. I seldom read Mary Garrigan because her writing was mostly about religion. This is a loss for readers of the RC Journal.
I would like to see a system were public broadcasting sent out "newspapers" at night to receivers that would save the data and then couple that with large liquid type flexible displays that were just a bit more like a regular paper newspaper than a screen of bustling pixels, flash, and drivel.
True, Tasi: without good reporters like Kevin and Mary doing the original journalism, we bloggers would have nothing on which to build our commentary but press releases and e-mails from candidates... and what kind of a blog would choose to focus on that material?
Brother Beaker, if Kevin and Mary find RCJ's bovine manure intolerable, how on earth could they stand working for a honyocker like me? Besides, I'm going to need a lot more start-up capital to offer them the salaries they deserve.
Woster and Garrigan both could find a home writing news for SDPB. Perhaps SDPB could add a print edition to its radio broadcast news. SDPB could perhaps even wage a fundraising campaign based on promoting that new project. How much would it cost? Good salaries and travel expenses for four reporters, maybe one Web assistant to expand the SDPB website... oh my! That's it for overhead! SDPB already has the web resources. 25 cents from every South Dakotan could make that happen!
Cory, you're too damn modest. You know you scoop us all frequently, and then we wade through your muckraking to bring something more digestible to the public. You also remind us of the work already done that we tend to forget in the insanity that is the newsroom. And you're leaving us too? Sigh. How I've ended up in newspapers when I could be writing about chickens, I won't ever know. Oh, yeah, this pays an almost liveable wage. Almost.
Tasi, thank you... and let me clarify: I will be physically outside South Dakota, but I will keep my blog-attention on South Dakota as intensely as ever (maybe more so, if people ring that tip jar so I can put in fewer hours digging ditches! ;-) ).
Our easy connectivity with the Web and phones is another reason SDPB or another operation could hire good reporters like Woster and Garrigan and launch a statewide newspaper with less overhead than publishers used to need. Hmm... maybe Woster could call Sam Hurst, and they could relaunch The Dakota Day? Or just expand the West River Eagle's market?
I'm not sure what our publisher would say about our market, but this could be interesting. We're a fast growing newspaper in both circulation and ad sales with half the staff of most other weeklies of our size. :)
That said, I would love to see a state-wide site doing state-wide analysis and doing wire service for weeklies to pick up and expand on. The AP does not service weekly newspapers, and SDNA's bit of wire work is not enough to even hit our radar, even during legislature. You make me want to dust off the Internet daily in my business plan drawer and do something statewide.
PS Glad to hear we get to make the most of your virtual self. I feel your tip jar pain. You may be interested to hear that I am relaunching Sustainable Dakota Digest in another format. More on that later.
KNBN has been increasing its non-teevee media presence: maybe we'll see some stories submitted there.
This is sad for SD. I've been interviewed by Mary for 2 different issues and enjoyed the experiences.
In MN 7-8 years ago there was a terrible purge of topflight journalists from both the Mpls Star-Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Corporate cost cutting, you know. Very many of those folks joined together to write the online daily, The Minnesota Post, known as Minn Post and found at MinnPost.com. It's become highly regarded and is free. It is funded through a membership fund, very similar to PBS. There is absolutely no government contributions, so no legislative interference. There is advertising on the site.
The MinnPost is really wonderful. I don't know how many members there are or what the annual budget is. It's an economic model that is so much more affordable than printing a paper. I am not sure how that would translate into SD. MN has a long populist/liberal tradition of supporting a variety of interesting, unusual information outlets.
We all act surprised that the RCJ forced these folks out. We all act surprised when the Rapid City Journal censored Jim Kent, again. https://madvilletimes.com/2013/06/columnist-jim-kent-censored-again-read-his-take-on-rapid-city-hospital-rating/
The Rapid City Journal has taken a hard right look for some time now. Read some of Randy's drivel and you get their position real clear. Thankfully, there are other news sources (thanks Cory for your platform) that allow information to flow to folks like myself, one of the members of the unwashed masses. I read one of Woster's columns about a young man that he knew who was killed in action in Vietnam. As a veteran of that place, his words reached me and I made more of less, a pilgrimage to the simple monument to this young man. It was a peaceful moment for me and I will not forget that or the writer whose words sent me there. I wish him and his wife the very best and hope that our loss will be there gain.
The publisher of the Casper Star is the lead for Lee in the western region: lots of interaction between those bureaus.
Berkshire unloaded 1,740,231 shares of @Gannett maintained nearly 89,000 shares of Lee. http://www.businessinsider.com/berkshire-hathaway-q2-2013-13f-filing-2013-8 … … http://mot.ly/17s4cdz
This is so sad. My heart and prayers are with all the Wosters, because I know they all hurt right now.
Of course we aren't defenseless. If you are an advertiser or know an advertiser make sure you realize that the money you are spending on the Lee paper has less value than it did before.
If you do advertise, now might be a good time to make a statement that you're not buying newsprint, you are buying content that people want to read.
Guessing that the TV stations are licking their sales chops right now.
Jerry, RR is probably what the publishers thought the audience wanted and haven't looked at Fox News ratings or Rush's incredible hemorrhage of advertisers.
Or they just dumped out of paying for experienced employees thinking that they could find it elsewhere for a lot less with an unpaid intern and people would never notice.
Or maybe the publisher and editor were just threatened.
Who knows...but I don't think this will be good for Lee, the Journal, management or the poor people who have to follow in their footsteps.
I have been saying for years, "what Rapid City needs is a damn good newspaper".
I like Woster. I have some problems with his take on some issues, but when he is doing straight news he usually doesn't slant things. Sometimes he didn't go as deeply into a story as I would have liked. I like longer form journalism, and Woster was not that much into writing long, though maybe there were management/editorial reasons for that. I still wonder if he did anything on Daugaard's nuke waste repository. He was waiting for the study to come out, as I understand it. I never saw anything, anyway.
Regarding recent resignations of long term reporters, I also resigned from the RCJ as a subscriber as of August 1st. This was the result of too many recent changes some of which resulted in the resignations of most of their loyal long term paper carriers, their outsourcing of customer service to a call center in Indiana, their non-competitively driven high rates and disgustingly lack of readable news. I miss my seven minute or so morning read time but also find peace in adding this time to something more valuable, namely my Bible!
What changes did RCJ impose on its carrier corps?
I am not sure of the date, but I think within the year, I communicated with Kevin Woster about failure of Journal to cover important news in Meade County. I was told they only had 4 reporters left at the Journal at that date, but I don't remember the of the date of that conversation.
If this remained true on August of this year, part of the reason for any reporters resigning from RCJ, may be not just be editorial censoring or news policy, but also related to expected work load in exchange for salary/benefits and/or sufficiency/capability of the RCJ to actually cover news in Western SD?
Does anyone know how many reporters are currently employed by the Journal and how RCJ is serving the news from outlying communities (i.e. not Rapid City)?
Also has Lee bought up all or most of the little papers, >> how many remain independent? This all may be related to internet taking over from print and general demise of print media. This is speculative question and I suggest folks check into it. How many reporters still work at the RCJ (and associated papers) today and how does it (RCJ and associated papers) get reporters to cover the outlying towns/counties?
I suggest a discussion of how well is print media is working/functioning in rural and urban SD at this time.