Rural South Dakota paper honored for open-records fight that began with a reader seeing a legal ad

For the past four years The Daily Republic has been named the best small daily newspaper in South Dakota. The 11,000-circulation paper in Mitchell recently received another honor: the inaugural Public Notice Journalism Award. The Public Notice Resource Center awarded it to the Republic for using public notice to champion open records and freedom of the press. The paper will receive the award March 13 at the National Press Club.

"The newspaper is recognized for a series inaugurated by an alert reader who spotted a payment by a local school board in a public notice," the PNRC says on its website. "The reader’s tip to the newspaper led to a protracted open-records lawsuit by the newspaper against the school district. The conclusion: the revelation of a $175,000 severance agreement with a former school superintendent that otherwise would not have reached the readers’ attention."

Republic Editor Seth Tupper told PNRC that the series "all started with the reader who saw the payment in the legals and called us with the tip. Without those legals, I don’t believe anyone outside of the school district board and administration would ever have known about the amount or nature of the $175,000 agreement between the school district and the ex-superintendent."

PNRC President Bradley L. Thompson II, chairman and CEO of the Detroit Legal News, said, “This series is a terrific illustration of why it is important for governments to keep these notices where the public is likely to find them. The reader in this case helped to point to the story.  The reporting staff and their freedom-of-information lawsuit did the rest." (Read more)  To view the Daily Republic click here.

In many states, local governments are asking legislatures to reduce legal-notice requirements to reduce costs. "We think that cost is a small and worthy investment in keeping the public informed about the workings of government," said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog, and a former president of the Society of Professional Journalists. "Public-notice laws are the often-overlooked third leg of the three-legged stool that supports freedom of information, the others being laws for open records and open meetings, including open courts."

Here are links to the Republic series, all in 2013: Secretive contract ordered public, Secret agreement goes to court, Paper wins lawsuit against school, Secret agreement still secret, Huron secret agreement unsealed, read aloud, Amount of secret agreement confirmed, and the column above: We raise hell – because it’s our duty.