This was an awful week for journalism in South Dakota.

First, we learn that long-time Argus Leader Statehouse reporter Terry Woster is being let go because of Gannett’s budget problems.  It may mean the closure of the Argus Pierre bureau.  Never mind one of the state’s most experienced reporters to hit the road.

Second, KSFY-TV unveils probably the cheesiest and stupidest feature I have ever seen on local TV news anywhere—“Wheel of Justice.”

My colleague Pat Powers called it “Wheel of Felons,” which is actually more accurate.  I have never seen a more cringe-worthy five minutes of local TV news in my life.  It was embarrassingly stupid “info-tainment.”  One has to watch it to actually believe it. 

My colleague Dr. David Newquist, the anti-blogger, recently bemoaned in very explicit and elegant terms, the decline of journalism in our state and nation.

But I want to do more than just bitch.  I want to try and solve the problem or at least present a possible solution.

I think us local bloggers and citizen journalists need to step forward and do more.  Actually, I think we need to bring our efforts together and be an alternative (or in some cases, the primary) provider of news and information.

Below is a copy of an email (with some clean-up) that I sent to fellow bloggers across the spectrum in South Dakota.  If you are a blogger or just a citizen concerned about the poor state of journalism in South Dakota and would like to be part of group that works for a solution, let me know.  You can email me at toddepp(at)gmail(dot)com.

There’s a lot of crap in the blogosphere, including on this blog from time to time.  But there’s also getting to be a lot of crap (and a lack of coverage of critical issues) in the Mainstream Media.  Maybe it is time for citizen journalists to save journalism.

Dear Fellow Bloggers:

I’m sitting in front of my computer earlyon a Sunday morning and looking at my feed aggregator of the work we do.  Then I thought about the Argus Leader’s problems.

I think we have an opportunity with the difficulties our brothersin the print media are having.  While many of us have our biases, weare are open about those biases.  We are honest about where we are coming from in our world views.  What I think we are also good at is understanding our communities and the topics we cover.  When I was a practicing journalist, I thought I was pretty knowledgeable.  However, after practicing law, running my own business, and being involved in politics at the local, state, and national levels, I am far better equipped to report on any number of topics because I have practical experience and first hand knowledge as well as I my previous education and training.  Frankly, I think Pat Powers or I would be a better political reporter now than most of the so-called MSM journalists because of what we have done and experienced.  We just also now happen to bring a political bias as well.

At our picnic at Lake Herman this summer, some of us gathered and wondered what was next for us bloggers.  We took some first steps toward working together. 

But as you all know, blogging is time consuming.  Not all of our posts are of interest to many people. Some are just fillers to keep people coming back while we work on those meaningful posts that either scoop the MSM or give our readers insight.  If we could post less often as individuals in order to improve the content of our posts yet have other great content on a site, that would seem to be the best of both worlds.

What I’m suggesting is some sort of newspaper-like approach wherewe put in one place the best of what we do.  Like a good newspaper,there is a diversity of voices.  Some on the Left and Right have done multiple contributor blogs and sites.  I’d like to take that concept a step further and make it something across the political spectrum.  That way, readers can compare and contrast in one spot.

I also realize that most of us bloggers, myself included, are very independent individuals.  Our individual voice is important to us.  I’m not suggesting that change a bit.  There would be no editing for content or ideas.  (Perhaps we could do some editing for spelling,grammar, and style, ala the AP Stylebook.  Studies show that bad grammar and spelling hurts a blog’s credibility as much as factual inaccuracies.)  We could even keep our individual blogs.  But I’m thinking that eventually, you’d want to transition to the uber-site.

Think of the talent just in this email: Artists, book reviewers, gardeners, sports nuts, former journalists, business people,cartoonists, lawyers, people of faith, people of skepticism, photographers, political wonks, writers, people who know our individual communities, and so much more.

I have no idea what would be the best platform for something like this that we can just basically set it up and forget it.  I’ll leave that to those of you who are more technologically advanced than I am. I also think this could provide an opportunity to sell advertising and actually make some money from our efforts. 

There is an opportunity here, I believe, to have more impact on our readers’ lives and provide them with useful news, views, and information. 

Yeah, I’m probably a hopeless optimist.  But what the heck?

Mull it over and let me know what you think.

Best regards,

Todd D. Epp
SD Watch http://www.southdakotawatch.net