Seven South Dakota Counties Are News Deserts as the 130-Year-Old South Dakota Mail Still Delivers Nearly 800 Copies a Week
In Plankinton, Aurora County, South Dakota, new data shows seven of the state's counties are classified as news deserts, with no professional local news outlet dedicated to them, and about half the state has only one outlet covering local news, according to reporting published November 2.
Plankinton is one community that still has a dedicated paper: early every Wednesday, Gayle Van Genderen and J.P. Studeny begin delivering nearly 800 copies of the South Dakota Mail, a newspaper more than 130 years old and one of the few news outlets still operating in the area. The two describe the paper as a community undertaking; Van Genderen says it does not belong to its publishers but to everyone who reads it.
Research from Northwestern University's Local News Initiative shows that as of this year, 47 million U.S. residents live with limited or no access to local news. Reporter Eda Uzunlar is traveling rural regions around the country for the Poynter Institute's national 'You Can Trust Me' news project. In news-desert counties, decisions by city councils, school boards and county governments lose day-to-day scrutiny, and residents' channels for local information narrow.
(Source: SDPB)
Source: SDPB
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于皮尔的南达科他州议会大厦。w_lemay 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The South Dakota State Capitol in Pierre. By w_lemay, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
