Seems someone is a little butt hurt about the suit, even though the Argus isn’t suing them;

Not to mention three owners are NOT local. Funny how the council and school board said they needed to use a local publisher, yet HALF of the owners don’t even live here, one is from out of state!

Funny how they needed to contract with a LOCAL publication but about a third of city employees and directors don’t live in Sioux Falls or even the state. They consistently use professional services from out of state (even though well qualified professionals exist in Sioux Falls). Heck, we are even teaming up with an Iowa developer, and giving him a TIF to boot! So you local yocal crap doesn’t fly with me.

But the big story here is that Matt Paulson is one of the investors. (not sure why is name is spelled wrong in the Smello story?)

Whether he contributed $10 or $100,000, doesn’t matter. His campaign funding of almost every single councilor sitting on that dais has just created a massive conflict of interest. In respects, there is not much we could do to Paulson to remedy this but we could file an ethics complaint against EVERY SINGLE CITY COUNCILOR that voted for this contract, you all received money and assistance from this guy, and now you are rewarding him with a contract, and don’t even f’ing get me started on controlling the media and burying stories!

But what is even more funny is that Joe flat out lied to me about the ownership group in a text exchange (I will share it eventually). He said only him and Jon own the scab rag.

So you didn’t file your paperwork on time, you received a contract before state law was in effect, you have an investor who basically bought city government and now the media, and you think you are qualified to be our legal paper!?

These folks are clowns!

I urged councilor Thomason on May 30 he MUST request the investor data before voting for this. Five minutes after I hang up I start getting nasty texts from Joe, littered with lies.

They should change the name to The Duped Scab.

This city council better grow up! And FAST!

By l3wis

12 thoughts on “UPDATE: The Dakota Scout has massive conflict of interest in ownership group”
  1. I know I sound like a broken record, but watch what they do and not what they say.
    The huge GOP ads, that run in the Dakota Scout at election time, are very telling about this paper, and who backs it and who owns it.

    ( and Woodstock adds: “Say, do you think that Matt has a Mini-Me?”…. )

  2. As soon as I saw Matt’s name I knew the site was trash. Getting sick of seeing his money control our freedoms and city.

  3. “So who exactly do you think owns this newspaper besides Jonathan and I?”

    that didn’t age well.

  4. Is Sneve related to Gary Hart (candidate in ’84 and ’88 for Democrat nomination to office of POTUS)?
    And does anyone involved in the ownership of Dakota Scout have a boat named “Monkey Business”?
    Because that bold query (“So who exactly do you think owns this newspaper besides Jonathan and I?”), especially in light of the fact that the truth had (necessarily) been filed with the South Dakota Secrerary of State, was a real Gary Hart moment (paraphrased, “go ahead, follow me around”).

  5. Honestly I’m a bit shocked and stand corrected. Paulson invested in the Scout to not have any scrutiny over his shady BS. Thats the only name on the list that I would consider not close family or friend to Jon or Joe. Doesn’t change a thing as far as the Argus BS goes. The Argus and the Wat PO are literally bad for our community.

    Your real problem is the Scout’s politics. You faun over them when they started and then you turned sour when they didn’t have the same politics as the Argus.

    I’m a subscriber to the Scout and will continue to be. at the current price But I will say that having MarketPuke as a business partner is very shady.

  6. Soon the city council will be vindicated in not paying attention to what you thought about the matter, like they do on most other deals. Keep up the cope blogging, it’s fun to read, albeit difficult between the insane amount of spammy ads.

  7. I actually believe that some councilors were taking my advice and asking who the investors were. I think they were all well aware that Mr. Paulson was involved and didn’t care. Not sure what Joe and Jon are worried about, it is the councilors that are in deep doo-doo over this. Knowing there is a conflict of interest and voting for the contract. All 9 councilors have received campaign assistance and money from MP. As for the politics of the editorial content of the Scout, you are exactly right, can’t stand reading Republican propaganda between actual good political stories. Joe and Jon have really shot themselves in the foot by not being non-partisan from the beginning.

  8. Stay tuned for our next The Dakota Bigot subscriber only podcast with regular guests Fred Deutsch and Jon Hansen as they share exciting ideas for bills in the 2025 legislative session after their recent trip to Iran and Saudi Arabian meeting with their lawmakers. Fred will be on the sidelines but play an active role in Pierre.

  9. Every article is emailed to subscribers and I read nearly all of them. I’ve seen several that hae been tough on the republicans and elected officials. Remember it was the Scout that broke the Noem book debacle first. They pick up some national politics articles that are clearly skewed but those are the ones I dont read. Pretty much all of their local viewpoint guest articles have a counterpoint.

    As far as the political ads, I know they don’t turn down add money regardless of party affiliation. SD Dems just don’t buy ads.

    We’ve become siloed in our hate groups. Cable news and Hatebook are perfect examples. Thats sad. The only time I clicked on DakotaWarCollege is when you added a link to his crap. I wouldn’t pay for the Scout if it were political propaganda. I stopped paying the Argus for that reason.

  10. Did they break the story? Thought it was politico? Anyway, don’t see the value in reading 6 free articles a week. No doubt they are good journalists, maybe they should just stick to that because they look like a bunch of whining babies. Joe sent me another love note today, trying to accuse me of spreading lies. Good stuff. maybe Joe needs some reading glasses so he can read his own texts.

Comments are closed.