A Freebie at the Expense of Neutral Journalistic Reporting

We are starting to see more campaign ads on TV these days because of the upcoming municipal election. It is the norm for an election cycle. Local television stations have a delicate balancing act during this election cycle between reporting news that is public information and reporting news that includes a public interest's regarding a specific candidate.

Last night's story on KELOTV regarding cheap tickets brings the subject up for debate. Let's remember that the airport is separate entity governed by an airport authority, separate and distinct from city government. It is not a city department.  It is not under the administrative jurisdiction of the mayor. 

The story lead with the statement, "When he was elected in 2010, Mayor Mike Huether said one of his top priorities was to bring down the price of airfare out of Sioux  Falls.Four years later, that's happened, for some destinations." It continued with this statement, "The airline business has changed changed considerably since Mayor Huether took office calling for lower fares. He helped bring Frontier Airlines into the city. Frontier offered lower prices to the West."

The story did get Sioux Falls Regional Airport Executive Director on camera for a brief statement and it did include a statement from a travel agent but it continued with the airport cheerleader, Mayor Huether. The piece concluded with, "Huether believes as long as people continue to choose to fly out Sioux Falls, the airlines will come. But if you work toward it, if you devise a plan, if you execute the plan then ultimately yes, I think we've got a really good chance to make that happen, Huether said. " 

Why was a candidate for the mayoral position featured in this story about cheap airline tickets? I get that he is the current mayor, but we are in the middle of a local campaign. Was including Huether in a story about the airport's achievement in increased boardings and cheaper tickets important to the completeness of the story? I'm not sure you could tell the difference between publicly important information and information that projected a mayoral candidate's purported achievements.

I don't think of our local 6 o'clock news programs in the same light as I view cable news. I expect neutral reporting of local news. Including Huether in this story limited the independence of KELO's reporting on the story of cheap tickets when they used him as source of information during an election campaign where he is one of the candidates. 

During this election cycle, the incumbent mayor walks a fine line between being mayor and being a candidate. The blame does not fall on Huether in this case. He was handed a golden opportunity and he took it. He got a free campaign ad. The story was written on behalf of a mayoral candidate who just happens to be the incumbent who just happens to be a cheerleader for cheap airline tickets.

The story would have been more credible if it had just been about cheap tickets and the airport and actually featured the person who actually runs the airport and who should have received credit for the good things happening at the airport. Just once I'd like to see Dan Letellier get some credit for what's happening at the airport. Afterall, he is the executive director who runs things out there.

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Oh, and when I see a campaign ad, I don't want to see it reported by a journalist.

Just When You Think You are Living in a Big City........

I chuckled when I read airport security closes down at 8 p.m.  If you are not through security by 8 p.m. you are the loser.

Now we find out that airport officials and TSA officials will try to talk more to each other in order to make sure passengers can get through security and to their gate if they have a departure flight after 8 p.m.  They are in the same building but their business operating plans took off on different airplanes.


The concern has been overtime for security workers. How about meeting the needs of the traveling public who pay an arm and a leg to get on an airplane? Try out a little creative scheduling of security workers in order to serve the flying public instead of getting home in time to watch the new fall schedule on TV.  They must not have heard about all that business acumen down the road at City Hall.


We may be the "big" city in South Dakota, but we still are little town America where airport services and security close down at 8 p.m. and the city lights start flashing at 10 p.m.  Mayberry Falls has a ring.