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	Randell 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.

Publisher: Arnold Garson Executive Editor: Randell Beck

1 Description
2 Controversy with Free Magazines and Freedom of Speech
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Description

The Argus Leader is South Dakota's largest newspaper in size and circulation. For the past 3 years it has also been host to South Dakota's #1 website receiving an average of 200,000 hits per day. The weekday circulation for the newspaper is just under 55,000 with the weekend circulation reaching over 76,000.

The newspaper and website's most recent update happened in September 2006. The new goal is to bring more local coverage and allow readers to voice their opinions in an open format. To do this a new section of the paper was created called "Voices" in conjunction with the online "Your Voice" section.

Along with the daily newspaper the Argus Leader owns smaller local papers in the region.

The newspaper also publishes an economic weekly, the Sioux Falls Business Journal, and a handful of magazines.

[edit] Controversy with Free Magazines and Freedom of Speech

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. [1]

The agreement allowed the Argus Leader to display and give away its free publications like Live, PetMag and CityStyle. 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.

It was a practice not officially mandated by Gannett, the parent company of the Argus Leader, but a practice put into place at several papers in the chain. Some claimed these new business practices created a monopoly on space and forced the competition of other free, independent magazines to close.[2]

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

The Argus Leaderâ€™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 Leaderâ€™s contracts with the city owned property: â€œA reasonable restriction on free speech.â€

City lawyers said there was legal precedent to back up the move. They cited, ironically, cases where Gannett 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 went too far in the limiting free speech.

As for the private businesses that signed contracts with the Argus Leader distributor, many of them werenâ€™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, â€œThey were crazy to sign it.â€ [3]

1. KSFY-TV March, 3 2006

2. Editor and Publisher July 1, 2006

3. KSFY-TV March, 3 2006