Long before this interested party attended South Dakota State University The Brookings Register was one of several daily papers that circulated throughout the student union but best for local news, rentals, job listings, vehicles, used furniture and housing. Now, with cuts to public broadcasting my home county is closer to the End Times than ever before.
It's a sad day today at The Register.
They started printing a paper by that name in 1890 here in Brookings, and it's lasted until this week.It's no secret that it's tough times out there for all print media, and we're no exception. But make no mistake — we're closed for now as a result of poor corporate management.What I DO want to say? This paper matters to me. It matters to the staff who so diligently and faithfully produced it day in and day out. And it matters to YOU. So many people have called, emailed, knocked on the door... You care about this paper. You care about having news in this town. I am working to see if something can be done to continue that. With any luck, more on that, later.I grew up here. My picture was in the Register as a kid, and Wendell Hougland still calls me Jose because that's how my name was printed here when I lucked into scoring a goal once in the '90s.There's no small amount of shame about being the one in this chair when this happens. I did not want to shut the doors, here. But I'll wear it.This is not a time to abandon the news. Especially not for the modern-day Babel of social media. We simply have to do better, and that starts with a place for community conversation.Thank you, so much, to all our staff — Greg Roe, Jay Roe, Butch Friedel, Andrew Holtan, Katie Foiles, Mondell Keck, Doug Kott. You all carried a heavier and heavier load, and did it well. Thanks especially to the stalwart and spry John Kubal. Thanks to Chris Schad. Thanks to Tracy Jonas, our recently promoted-to-retired publisher. Thanks to Billy McMacken, for hiring me to come back here and give this a try.Mostly, thank you to our readers and subscribers for always supporting us, even when you didn't agree with everything. In the end, it is your paper, and we are just the stewards of that public trust. Of that important job of keeping our community in conversation with itself, of watching our institutions, of making sure public business is conducted in public. Onward.Josh LinehanManaging EditorThe Brookings Register
4 comments:
Investors including the owners of the Buffalo Bulletin to buy eight shuttered Wyoming newspapers.
"At last night’s Brookings City Council meeting, Josh Linehan — former managing editor of the Brookings Register — said he’s founding a new, independently-owned local paper. As a testament to his local roots, Linehan publicly announced his email, phone number, and mailing address at the meeting. Shaun Sarvis — publisher of the Huron Plainsman — is part of a group trying to restart all four South Dakota papers that closed last week when parent company News Media Corporation went out of business."
North Carolina-based Champion Media with papers in Minnesota and North Dakota restarted four South Dakota outlets.
Josh Linehan: "Now, look. I am willing to understand that the governor is running for re-election, and he desperately wants to look tough on crime and tough on immigration. What irks me here is that it relies on an assumption that both [isn't] true and [doesn't] stand up to a lick of scrutiny.
Brookings didn't 'jeopardize an anti-crime operation' simply by announcing its dates publicly. That idea is absurd, and the fact that the same Department of Public Safety that oversees the Highway Patrol routinely announces its DUI checkpoints and saturation patrols.
Law enforcement in this country was never meant to occur in secret, and the idea that it was is the kind of sleight-of-hand that happens when you're only interested in telling people what you think they want to hear, not what they need to." Brookings Beacon
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