It was Newspaper Day 2020 at the South Dakota Legislature. The morning was filled with press conferences featuring the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties. Then newspaper editors and publishers hosted a lunch at the Ramkota for their legislators, using the time to explain why House Bill 1241, which sought to change the definition of a legal newspaper, was such a bad idea.
Well fortified, the legislators made their way back to the Capitol for a brisk afternoon of debating and lawmaking. That’s when Gov. Kristi Noem stopped in to say a few words to the journalists. Seen through the lens of 2024, what Noem had to say that day seems out of character. She was full of praise.
“You really are the heart of every single community,” Noem told about 30 people who worked for newspapers. “It really is important work.”
The mood in the room changed swiftly when Noem was confronted by her own words in a political fundraising letter. In part, the letter said: “You know as well as I do that we can’t trust the liberal media to tell the truth.”
Jack Marsh, former executive editor of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader and co-founder of South Dakota News Watch, asked Noem which of the media organizations represented in the room could not be trusted to tell the truth.
Visibly shaken by the confrontation, Noem said her comments were directed at the national media. “Everyone in this room knows, in their heart of hearts, that this doesn’t apply to all of them.”
It’s likely Noem didn’t dream up the message in the fundraising letter all by herself. She was parroting Donald Trump, whose message about fake news is still popular in conservative circles today. It’s a theme that Noem hit on more than a few times in her new book, “No Going Back.” In the book, she has a few choice four-letter words for the media like “woke” and “fake.”
“No Going Back” includes a perfect example of a conservative leader praising our freedoms while simultaneously trampling on them. Near the end of her book, Noem notes the tendency of presidential candidates to talk about what they would do on “day one” of their administration. Noem gives that a try, and among her day one priorities is signing a 22-point “Declaration of Common Sense.” Number 15 is enough to warm the heart of anyone who loves the First Amendment. It says: “Free speech is sacred (including speech that you might not like).”
It’s odd to hear Noem espouse that freedom, since a couple of times earlier in her book she took credit for banning critical race theory from the state’s universities.
Critical race theory, a 40-year-old academic idea, asserts that racism is more than a personal bias, but also ingrained in legal systems and policies. Somehow the idea became hot in conservative circles, with right-leaning state legislatures across the nation banning the teaching of a concept that some educators had never heard about.
If No. 15 in the Declaration of Common Sense is true, Noem should have been fighting to protect the right of college professors to teach critical race theory, not leading the charge to get it banned from state campuses.
Throughout her book, Noem talks about how much she engages with the public. This engagement must be harder work for her than it needs to be, because she does it by largely bypassing the South Dakota media. While she makes her case for being engaged with the public, journalists find her distant and her office often unresponsive. That makes sense, however, because as far back as 2020, she said journalists couldn’t be trusted.
This remoteness from the state media is particularly apparent during the legislative session, where Noem has taken to shunning events like Newspaper Day as well as giving up on the governor’s traditional weekly news conference.
Her standoffish attitude toward the media changed during the recent flooding as she held daily news conferences to keep the public informed. This has to send a mixed message to the people who are accustomed to hearing from Noem that the media is dishonest.
Noem’s description of the media in her 2020 fundraising letter remains a common theme for the governor and politicians like her. Because of their dubious efforts, distrust of the press is at an all-time high. That distrust is exacerbated by politicians like Noem, who use the press to get out vital information, then label the news as “fake” when journalists insist on telling the truth.
Dana Hess spent more than 25 years in South Dakota journalism, editing newspapers in Redfield, Milbank and Pierre. He's retired and lives in Brookings, working occasionally as a freelance writer.
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