The Dakota Scout is getting a national look at a question that has become increasingly important to local journalism: What does it take to build an independent newsroom that can last?
The Sioux Falls-based news outlet and a cohort of nine other independent media ventures whose publishers were interviewed for a new Syracuse University study examining the business realities of independent local journalism.
Selected from a survey of more than 100 of their counterparts from across the country, The Scout’s founders, Jonathan Ellis and Joe Sneve, were specifically sought out by researchers Merrill Brown and Jacob Spudich, wanting to learn how independent publishers are building news organizations, finding audiences and — perhaps most importantly — trying to make the economics work.
“Your perspective shaped our findings,” Brown and Jacob Spudich wrote to Sneve after completing the study and the 46-page report published last month. “Thank you for the work you’re doing in South Dakota.”
The report, “A Hard Reality: Independent Local Journalism in the United States,” surveyed 112 independent publishers in 37 states and Washington, D.C. It offers a broad look at an industry that has grown as traditional local news organizations have contracted.
Its central finding is straightforward: Independent publishers are proving they can produce journalism their communities value. The harder question is whether they can build durable businesses around that journalism.
That is where The Scout’s experience becomes particularly relevant.
Sneve and Ellis launched the newspaper on Sept. 1, 2022, as an independent, locally owned and reader-supported news organization based in Sioux Falls.
The two had already spent years covering South Dakota politics and government in traditional newsrooms. Both longtime South Dakota journalists, Ellis and Sneve left legacy media to build a news organization they own and operate themselves — free of corporate newspaper chains. Today, the organization relies on a mix of reader revenue, advertising, sponsorships and other business activity to support its journalism.
Those are precisely the pressures the Syracuse researchers found across the independent-news industry.
More than half of the publishers surveyed — 51.9 percent — identified balancing journalism and business operations as one of their biggest challenges. Another 21.8 percent identified growing beyond a one-person operation as a major financial challenge.
In a traditional newsroom, those responsibilities were divided among reporters, editors, advertising departments, circulation staff, marketing teams, publishers and technology departments. For an independent publisher, they can land on the same desk.
Sneve’s advice to the researchers reflected that reality.
“Don’t underestimate the psychology of the consumer. Don’t complain. Run the business. If you have the skills and commitment, just do it while understanding the consumer,” the 42-year-old Dell Rapids native is quoted saying in the report, where researches note that the challenge facing independent news publishers isn’t simply how to produce journalism. It is understanding the people who consume it, building a relationship with them and creating a business that can support the journalism.
The Scout’s shift reflects national trend
The Syracuse study found that independent publishing is not primarily a fallback for journalists who have lost traditional jobs.
Only 4.5 percent of respondents said they became independent publishers out of pure necessity, such as being laid off or unable to find stable work.
Instead, nearly a quarter cited editorial freedom as a primary motivation, while others saw a gap in local coverage and decided to fill it.
More than 61 percent of respondents had been publishing independently for at least five years.
And they generally aren’t looking to go back.
Only 1.9 percent said they were actively open to returning to a traditional newsroom. Among publishers with at least 20 years of traditional-media experience, nearly four in five said they would not return or were unlikely to return.
The independent-news movement, the researchers concluded, is becoming a deliberate career and business choice — not simply an escape route from a shrinking newspaper industry.
There is no single formula
The study found no magic business model waiting to solve the local news industry’s financial problems.
About 82 percent of respondents use advertising or sponsorships. More than half have used grants or fellowships. Only 6.3. percent rely exclusively on subscriptions.
Most are using some combination of revenue sources.
The researchers argue that is likely to remain the reality because local news markets are fundamentally different. What works in an affluent suburb may not work in a rural county. A state-focused publication has different opportunities from one covering smaller communities.
Regardless, Spudich and Brown contend the result is a model that has to be built locally.
“Successful local news businesses are likely to be intensely local businesses — not merely local editorial products,” the researchers wrote.
That distinction is important for The Scout, which prints both a weekly newspaper distributed across eastern South Dakota and an online news website — TheDakotaScout.com — where they now boast more than 10,000 subscribers.
The Scout isn’t simply producing journalism for a South Dakota audience. It is operating a South Dakota business, building relationships with South Dakota readers and businesses and trying to create an institution that is useful to the community it covers.
“That’s what we’re trying to do — to keep journalism strong even after Jonathan and I aren’t around,” Sneve said. “Fortunately, South Dakotans see the value in local newspapers that show they value their readers.”
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