Argus on Trial

KELO has the story and a video about Dan Scott's lawsuit against the Argus Leader.

You might recall a few months ago that a fight erupted between the Argus and Scott after Scott made a speech (transcript available at Belfrage Online) containing some rather mild negative comments about the Argus Leader. Former governor and disgraced congressman Bill Janklow is Scott's attorney (I wouldn't hold that against Scott, however).

Randall Beck went off the deep-end and responded by writing an op/ed that he later claimed was parody...but while I've both read and wrote plenty of parody, I certainly didn't take it that way until I heard later that "it was intended to be parody." Though I can't find it online now, the piece was written in such a way as to make you think it was transcript or close paraphrase of what Scott had said...only it said things that were VERY different than what Scott had actually said. The Beck piece also said something about Scott's comments being offensive to people from areas other than Sioux Falls (though I think Beck was the only one who came up with this supposed offense).

From KELO:

This happened in July after Dan Scott gave a speech before South Dakota Legislators. The Argus Leader ran a couple articles about comments Scott supposedly made in the speech, that some viewed as arrogant toward legislators from outside Sioux Falls. Then came the column in question, written by executive editor Randell Beck, which some people thought was actually an arrogant letter written by Scott.

The question posed before Judge Kathleen Caldwell is whether a reasonable reader would be able to tell that an article on the editorial page of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader was actually a parody.

Was I the only one who failed to recognize Beck's piece as "parody?"

"There's an awful lot of parody that is far less obvious," Scott says.

"Except he reads it with slow drama and left the lead-in out. Did you hear him say the word news item?" Janklow says.

Janklow says it's not so clear the article is supposed to be funny. It's labeled a 'news item,' and at first it even fooled him.

"When I first read it, I actually called someone who's a mutual friend of Scott's and mine, and I said, 'Dan's lost his mind! Did you see what he wrote?'" Janklow says.

And based on comments left on the Argus Leader website, several readers also believed Scott really wrote the letter. But the decision on whether it constitutes parody is up to the judge.

The Argus Leader, a newspaper that claims to be "objective," has for a long time acted like the South Dakota version of MoveOn.org. It's about time they were called to account.

UPDATE: Bob Schwartz has the text of that Randall Beck piece at South Dakota Moderate. Try and forget what you've already heard about this, and put yourself in the shoes of the person who's heard nothing of all this controversy--and see if it sounds like "parody" to you.