Tag Archives: South Dakota

Daily Republic receives top award in 2013 SDNA newspaper contest

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MITCHELL, S.D. – The Daily Republic has been judged the best small daily newspaper in South Dakota for the fourth consecutive year.
During a recent ceremony held at Mount Rushmore, the Mitchell newspaper was presented with the General Excellence award for South Dakota daily newspapers that circulate fewer than 12,000 printed copies.
The banquet was part of the first-ever joint convention of the South Dakota and North Dakota newspaper associations, held Thursday through Saturday with most events at the Ramkota Hotel and Conference Center in Rapid City, S.D.
The Daily Republic’s circulation division includes seven other daily newspapers in Brookings, Huron, Madison, Pierre, Spearfish, Watertown and Yankton. The competition, called the Better Newspapers Contest, is managed by the South Dakota Newspaper Association and was judged this year by members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
Other Daily Republic highlights from the contest included the Sweepstakes award for its circulation division, which is presented to the newspaper that compiles the most points from the individual awards; and the designation of Sports Editor Luke Hagen as the Outstanding Young Journalist among all daily newspapers in the state.
Hagen is the second consecutive and fourth overall Daily Republic winner of the award since the award’s inception in 2000. One winner is chosen annually from a weekly newspaper and a daily newspaper, and entrants must be younger than 30.
Overall, The Daily Republic won 27 awards in the contest, including 21 in news and six in advertising.
The SDNA contest results were the second round of awards announced last week for South Dakota newspapers.
In results of The Associated Press Great Plains Contest announced earlier in the week, The Daily Republic won first place in 10 of 15 categories in its circulation division, and won 22 of the 45 available awards in the division.
Following is a list of The Daily Republic’s awards in the SDNA contest announced Friday. Unless otherwise noted, the awards were in the division for daily newspapers with circulation of less than 12,000.
<strong>NEWS</strong>

Korrie Wenzel

- Best Freedom of Information Project, all newspapers daily and weekly, Korrie Wenzel, Seth Tupper, first place.
- Outstanding Young Journalist, all daily newspapers, Luke Hagen.
- Best Newspaper Website, all daily newspapers, Denise Ross, third place.
- Best Public Service Project, all daily newspapers, Korrie Wenzel, second place.

Seth Tupper

- Best News Series, Chris Mueller, Anna Jauhola, third place.
- Best Feature Story, Tom Lawrence, first place.
- Best Feature Story, Candy DenOuden, third place.
- Best Feature Series, Korrie Wenzel, Seth Tupper, Chris Huber, second place.
- Best Sports Reporting, Brooke Cersosimo, first place.

Luke Hagen

- Best Sports Series, Luke Hagen, third place.
- Best Sports Column, Luke Hagen, second place.
- Best Editorial Writing, Korrie Wenzel, first place.
- Best Editorial Writing, Seth Tupper, second place.
- Best Local General Interest Column, Korrie Wenzel, first place.
- Best Local Humorous Column,

Denise Ross

Candy DenOuden, third place.
- Best Spot News Photo, Chris Huber, first place.
- Best Sports Photo, Luke Hagen, first place.
- Best Sports Photo, Chris Huber, third place.
- Best Typography and Design, Korrie Wenzel, Seth Tupper, second place.
- General Excellence, Korrie Wenzel, Seth Tupper and staff, first place.

Chris Mueller

- Sweepstakes, Korrie Wenzel, Seth Tupper and staff, first place.
<strong>ADVERTISING</strong>
- Best Use of Color, Jen Phillips, first place.
- Best Classified Section, Penny Hohbach and staff, first place.
- Best Use of Art Service, Krissy Weber, third place.
- Best Use of Local Photography, Janet DeRouchey and Chris Huber, second place.
- Best Use of Local Photography, Lorie Hansen, third place.

Anna Jauhola

- Best 2×4 Ad, Laura Senska, third place.

The Daily Republic is owned by Forum Communications Co. Forum Communications is a multimedia information company based in Fargo, and owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Candy DenOuden

Laura Senska

Lorie Hansen

Janet DeRouchey

Krissy Weber

Penny Hohback

Jen Phillips

Brooke Cersosimo

Chris Huber

Tom Lawrence

2012 Forum Forward class graduates during ceremony in Fargo

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The 2012 Forum Forward graduating class and mentors, from left to right: Dickinson Press Publisher Harvey Brock, JobsHQ Employment Specialist/Sales Team Leader Lisa Tillotson, Forum Regional Operations Manager Curt Christensen, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo Customer Service Representative Kari Saylor, FCC Director of Multimedia Sales Operations Amy Fredrickson, Forum Features Editor Heidi Shaffer, Duluth News Tribune Ad Director Roz Randorf, FCC Digital Accounts Manager Chad Jacobsen, RiverTowns Newspaper Group Multimedia Producer Roger Sievers, Echo Press Variety Editor Tara Bitzan, Grand Forks Herald Editor Steve Wagner, WDAY-TV Regional Sales Manager Joshua Rohrer, FCC CEO Lloyd Case, Forum General Manager Aaron Beecher, Forum Reporter Ryan Johnson, FCC Executive Vice President and COO Bill Marcil Jr. and Daily Republic Publisher Korrie Wenzel.

FARGO, N.D. – Eight Forum Communications Co.employees were feted this week as the 2012 Forum Forward class graduated and became alumni of the company’s leadership training program started several years ago. Graduation was held Tuesday at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Fargo. Members of FCC’s senior management team were on hand to celebrate, as were each of the graduates company mentors, who are an integral component to the program. “This is a culmination of a year spent visiting various divisions within our company, including Broadcast, Commercial Printing, Digital and Newspaper,” said program facilitator Sonjia Anderson. “This has provided them insights into leadership skills, professional growth, and the opportunity to share best practices.” The graduating class also participated in brainstorming session on company innovation to generate ideas relating to reducing expenses and increasing revenue. Projects coming out of the past innovation sessions include the Forum News Service, the Green Team, and the “We Are Forum Communications” branding video. The 2013 Forum Forward participants and mentors also gathered in Fargo this week to begin their year of training.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Tara Bitzen with her certificate. Her mentor, Grand Forks Editor Steve Wagner stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Ryan Johnson with his certificate. His mentor, Daily Republic Publisher Korrie Wenzel stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Joshua Rohrer with his certificate. His mentor, FCC Executive Vice President and COO Bill Marcil Jr. stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case gives Forum Forward graduate Heidi Shaffer and her mentor Amy Fredrickson a hug.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Lisa Tillotson with her certificate. Her mentor, Dickinson Press Publisher Harvey Brock stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Kari Saylor with her certificate. Her mentor, Curt Christensen stands at right.

The 2012 Forum Forward graduating class included: – GRADUATE: Tara Bitzan, life/variety/special projects editor, Echo Press, Alexandria, Minn. MENTOR: Steve Wagner, editor, Grand Forks Herald, Grand Forks, N.D. – GRADUATE: Chad Jacobsen, digital accounts manager, Forum Communications Co., Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Roz Randorf , ad director, Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, Minn. – GRADUATE: Ryan Johnson, reporter, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Korrie Wenzel, publisher, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D. – GRADUATE: Joshua Rohrer, regional sales manager, WDAY-TV, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Bill Marcil Jr., executive vice president and chief operating officer Forum Communications Co., and publisher, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, N.D. – GRADUATE: Kari Saylor, customer service representative, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Curt Christensen, regional operations manager, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Heidi Shaffer, features editor, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Amy Fredrickson, director of multimedia sales operations, Forum Communications Co., Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Roger Sievers, multimedia producer, RiverTown Newspaper Group, Red Wing, Minn. MENTOR: Aaron Becher, general manager, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Lisa Tillotson, employment specialist/sales team leader, Jobs HQ, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Harvey Brock, publisher, The Dickinson Press, Dickinson, N.D.

Daily Republic earns 10 first-place awards in 2013 Great Plains Newspaper Contest

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The Daily Republic of Mitchell, S.D., took first place in 10 of the 15 categories in its division of the 2013 Great Plains Newspaper Contest.
The Daily Republic competes in the Medium Markets division, which includes 14 daily newspapers in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. The contest is managed by The Associated Press, which recently announced the award recipients.
Overall, The Daily Republic won 22 of the 45 awards available in its division.
The Great Plains contest is the first of two annual contest announcements for South Dakota newspapers. Results from the South Dakota Newspaper Association contest will be announced in the coming days.

The Daily Republic received the following awards in the Great Plains contest:

Seth Tupper

- Spot news, Seth Tupper, “From Avon and Mitchell … scaled high political heights,” first place.
- Spot News, Tom Lawrence, “Rush to cash checks collapses bank floor,” second place.
- Enterprise story, Tom Lawrence, “Transporting trouble,” first place.
- Enterprise story, Anna Jauhola, “Unsafe bacteria found in 6 of 11 hotel pools, spas,” second place.
- Spot sports story, Luke Hagen,

Tom Lawrence

“Mudcats beat Crofton in a thriller,” first place.
- Spot sports story, Luke Hagen, “Burnell Glazer retires from coaching,” second place.
- Sports feature story: Luke Hagen, and “Is Cadwell Park too big?” first place.
- Sports feature story: Brooke Cersosimo, “Uniforms shrink, concerns linger,” second place.
- Sports column: Korrie Wenzel, “Record spurs memories of Morgan’s night in 1992,” first place.

Anna Jauhola

- Personal column: Korrie Wenzel, “Janklow the Moody,” second place.
- General news: Chris Mueller, “Police chief accused of meth cover-up,” first place.
- General news: Tom Lawrence, “Sheriff: Sleeping guard allowed escape,” second place.
- Editorial: Korrie Wenzel, “Lack of alert after escape shows system is badly flawed,” first place.
- Headlines: Seth Tupper, “Head, heart, hands, health … and hair: In wake …,” second place.

Luke Hagen

- Headlines: Tom Lawrence, “Wing contests a saucy affair; Thunderstorms slam …,” third place.
- Spot news photo: Chris Huber, “Local lake house destroyed by fire,” second place.
- Feature photo: Chris Huber, “In honor of 9/11,” first place.
- Feature photo: Chris Huber, “O’Gorman spoils Kernels’ title hopes,” second place.
- Sports action photo: Luke Hagen, “Cats win it,” third place.

Brooke Cersosimo

- General news photo: Chris Huber, “City hit hard by fires,” first place.
- General news photo: Chris Huber, “Driver has court appearance, details emerge in fatal crash,” second place.
- Website: Denise Ross, first place.

The Daily Republic is owned by Forum Communications Co.

Korrie Wenzel

Forum Communications is a multimedia information company based in Fargo, and owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Denise Ross

Chris Huber

Chris Mueller

Forum News Service adds veteran copy editor

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Mike Florio has been hired as a copy editor for the Forum News Service.

FARGO, N.D. – The Forum News Service has added a veteran copy editor to its ranks to bolster the unit’s ability to produce, edit and distribute news, company officials have announced.

Mike Florio joined the staff earlier this month and has been tasked with evening and night editing duties for the new service. Florio worked last in Kentucky where he was a copy editor at the Daily News in Bowling Green for four years. Prior to that, Florio spent 10 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a copy editor, a position that focused on news but also involved some work in sports.

Earlier in his career, Florio worked as a copy editor for The News-Times in Danbury, Conn., and for The Express-Times in Easton, Pa. He received his journalism degree from Penn State.

Mary Jo Hotzler, director of the Forum News Service

“We’re pleased to have hired someone with Mike’s copy editing experience,” said Forum News Service Director Mary Jo Hotzler. “Mike’s position will add to our talent level and help us to produce even more high-quality news that we can provide to our internal and external clients.”

Forum Communications Co. launched the news service in January 2012 to distribute content to news organizations in the Upper Midwest. Hotzler was named director of the service in February 2013.

“Forum Communications is committed to the growth of our news service and that takes talented people like Mike,” Hotzler said. “We will continue to invest in the people and resources necessary to be a complete regional wire service.”

The Forum News Service is owned by Forum Communications Co.  Forum Communications is a multimedia information company based in Fargo, and owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Forum Communications Co. debuts video-only website InforumTV

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Robin Huebner goes through a test run of an InforumTV webcast in the video studio of The Forum building in Fargo. InforumTV launched today at InforumTV.com. Photo by J. Shane Mercer / The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

By Shane Mercer
FARGO, N.D. – The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead and WDAY-TV and radio today launched the InforumTV website with three live morning news webcasts anchored by Robin Huebner.
Plans are to eventually offer top-of-the-hour updates throughout the workday.
Huebner’s webcasts will air at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. Monday through Friday on Inforumtv.com. The site will also have the capacity to deliver news live from the field.
InforumTV will be a separate site from The Forum’s Inforum.com website, and focuses strictly on video.
There are plans to develop a morning show for InforumTV, said media manager Jim Manney, who heads up the video department at The Forum.
Manney said InforumTV will also produce and webcast live talk shows in the future.
“It’s a place for us to deliver news, information and entertainment to readers, viewers and listeners,” Manney said.
He has big dreams for the site.
“I can see it becoming, at some point, a 12-hour-a-day network,” Manney said. “It’s very ambitious, I know, but it’s something that I think will definitely happen over the course of the next few years.”
In addition to the live offerings, the site will be home to “the nearly 27,000 videos that Forum Communications Co. has shot,” Manney said.

Multimedia developer Ryan Babb works behind the boards in the video studio at The Forum building. Photo by J. Shane Mercer / The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Communications is the parent company of The Forum, WDAY and other media outlets in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. New video from these various outlets will be added to InforumTV’s searchable archive as it is created.
“What we want people to do is explore; to jump on the website and search the stories that they’re interested in,” Manney said. “And we want you to kind of get lost and explore and have some fun and see what we have available.”
WDAY News Director Jeff Nelson said the site will enhance what WDAY.com is already doing.
“InforumTV is going to allow us another avenue to get those stories out to people,” said Nelson, who described it as “an opportunity for Forum Communications as a company to really go out and be everywhere with everybody.”
While The Forum has already been producing video for the Web, Forum Editor Matthew Von Pinnon believes the InforumTV venture marks a new emphasis on video newsgathering for the staff.
“If there’s a news event happening, we’ll bring it to people, and we’ll stream it, and we’ll show it,” he said. “It could be a press conference; it could be breaking news, fires, weather, whatever. We can be out in the field and sharing that information with people in real time.”

Bill Marcil Jr. publisher of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Publisher Bill Marcil Jr. sees InforumTV as a “big part” of the company’s future.
“We will still provide the very best platform for news and advertising with Inforum, but by separating the two, we will have a better user experience for the person that just wants video,” he said.
“We will provide not only news updates but local news stories, weather and original content with the ability to go live any time of the day or night,” Marcil said.

Shane Mercer is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a Forum Communications Co. newspaper.

The Forum, WDAY-TV and InforumTV are all owned by Forum Communications Co. Forum Communications Co. is a multimedia information company based in Fargo. Forum Communications owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.