Argus Leader

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Argus Leader
The July 27, 2005 front page of the Argus Leader
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	Gannett Company
Publisher	Arnold Garson
Editor	Randall Beck
Founded	1881 (as the Argus)
Headquarters	200 S. Minnesota Avenue Sioux Falls, SD 57106 United States
Circulation	54,192 Morning 76,319 Sunday^[1]

Website: ArgusLeader.com

The Argus Leader is the daily newspaper of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Executive Editor: Randall Beck

1 History
2 Controversy
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

The Sioux Falls Argus and Sioux Falls Leader were born in the boom days of the 1880s, when Sioux Falls was young and saloons outnumbered churches 32 to 14, and the city's 20 gambling establishments served 10,000 citizens.

These were the years when a newspaper was a civic booster, and had no trouble labeling those who disagreed kickers and croakers.

The first issue of the Sioux Falls Argus was published Aug. 2, 1881. The editors, W.A. Fulmer and Hibbard Patterson, were from Iowa and planned to take the paper to Gunnison, Colo., in hopes of curing Fulmer's consumption. Fighting in the West kept them here. Fulmer arrived on a November Saturday and died the following Monday, the "History of Minnehaha County" reports.

The Minnehaha Trust Co.'s Sioux Falls Leader began publishing in March 1883 - its primary purpose to promote the interests of the north end of town. In January 1885, Judge Wilmot Brookings, one of the members of the Western Town Co. that founded Sioux Falls, bought and edited the Leader.

"Sioux Falls was an invigorating young city in the 1880's, and its newspapers, of course, recognized this and responded with printed applause," Wayne Fanebust wrote in "Where the Sioux River Bends." "Rugged individualism is often linked to the frontier, but the newspapers appear to have been more concerned with uniformity and conformity. Unity and team work directed toward proper community goals produced the desired course of action."

The Argus and the Leader combined forces in April 1887, and Joseph Tomlinson Jr. and Charles M. Day bought the company in 1888. "Although biased to a fault, Tomlinson and Day exercised leadership and good business judgment and when the century turned, the Argus-Leader was Sioux Falls' leading newspaper." Fanebust writes. Day remained editor until 1945.

The paper was an evening paper beginning March 4, 1885, and remained so until 1979. The Argus Leader was considered the leading Democratic newspaper in the state until the summer of 1896 when the Democrats adopted the doctrine of free coinage of silver. The next election, the newspaper endorsed Republican William McKinley for president.

Once a fixture on Main Avenue, the newspaper moved its present home after an April 27, 1951, fire destroyed the business offices, news room and Associated Press Equipment. Speidel Newspapers Inc. bought the Argus-Leader in 1963. The Gannett Co. purchased it in July 1977.

Arnold Garson is today's publisher. The Argus Leader remains the largest newspaper in South Dakota.

[edit] Controversy

In March of 2006, the Argus Leader came under fire for attempting to control distribution rights within the city of Sioux Falls.

The Argus Leader through a subsidiary company, News Center Distribution (NCD), had local businesses sign contracts saying that the Argus Leader controlled the publications to be distributed in their businesses. ^[2]

The agreement allowed the Argus Leader to display and give away its free publications like Live, PetMag and City Style. Other independent publishers such as Prime, Renter's Guide, the Shopping News and others would have to pay the Argus Leader a fee to distribute their publications.

But if the independent publishers didn't pay the Argus Leader, they threatened to physically take their competitors magazines out of contracted businesses.

The Argus Leader’s move was viewed as a violation on First Amendment rights after they gained exclusive contracts to control distribution on property managed by the city of Sioux Falls. The City of Sioux Falls called the Argus Leader’s contracts with the city owned property: “A reasonable restriction on free speech.”

City lawyers said there was legal precedent to back up the move. They cited, ironically, cases where Gannett(the parent company of the Argus Leader) had sued and lost to gain access to the same type of property.

But when the controversy was made public, the city council canceled the contract with the Argus Leader distributor. The council said such a contract was a move in the direction of limiting free speech.

As for the private businesses that signed contracts with the Argus Leader distributor, many of them weren’t aware of what they had signed and said that they were mislead or confused by what the Argus Leader distributors had told them.

And the contracts themselves were shown not to hold much weight either. A local lawyer, Harry Engberg, said that if a client had brought the contract to him for review, he would tell them, “They were crazy to sign it.” ^[3]