And that's a good thing, says blogger/documentary filmmaker and reporter Denise Ross.
Last fall, Ross walked away from a full-time daily newspaper job and started her own South Dakota political Web site, Hog House Blog. She reports, comments on and shares information on what's going on in Pierre and across the state.
The site went live in December and is now increasingly gaining attention from politicians and political junkies across the state.
"The Internet is just a new distribution system," Ross said. "So many people are putting stuff up ... it's ending big newspaper monopolies."
She tries to post at least one fresh story or comment a day. Ross went to Pierre several times during the session and attended all the crackerbarrels held in Rapid City.
Here's what she wrote about one of them:
"With a week to go in the SD Legislature, a crackerbarrel in Rapid City turned on those issues that folks were fighting over - emergency contraception information for rape victims, K-12 schools funding, tech schools governance, property taxes, prisons and smoking - to name some."
She posts a lot of photos on her site. "Electrons are free," she said. "On a blog you can post as many pictures as you can fit on there."
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Ross was reluctant to characterize the 2007 South Dakota Legislature's accomplishments. Nor would she say if it had performed well or poorly.
"I think that depends on your point of view," she said.
Maintaining a strict, unbiased approach for news is still her goal, Ross said. Unlike many bloggers, who are avidly partisan and highly opinionated, she said remaining objective has been and will continue to be her approach.
But she does admit that the hearings involving state Sen. Dan Sutton of Flandreau were a major part of the session, and her video clips of the testimony of Sutton and the young male page who accused him of improper sexual touching are the most-watched items on her site.
She relishes the details of politics and the people who make things happen.
Ross said she enjoyed going on long car rides with then-Sen. Tom Daschle and Sen. John Thune. It was great access and a chance to learn more about them as people as well as politicians.
"So many people want to demonize or lionize them," Ross said. "It's good to get to know them as people."
She interviewed Stephanie Herseth on Sept. 10, 2001, and intended to write a column about the then fledging politician. After the tragedy of 9/11, it never appeared in print as other duties called.
She kept working as a reporter and writing for a Journal political blog, but also longed to do something different. When she decided to create the blog, she and her husband sought a unique and South Dakota-oriented name.
Hog House, a reference to gutting a bill and replacing the language, is a term often used in Pierre. About 90 years ago politicians altered a bill at the last second to obtain funding for a hog barn at SDSU, and the term stuck like pig muck to a boot.
Gov. Mike Rounds complimented Ross on the name Hog House, she said, telling her it was a perfect name for a South Dakota political blog. While she's an old hand at South Dakota politics, blogging is a fairly new skill and duty.
At the Journal she was a reporter, a night editor and contributed to Mount Blogmore, the Journal's political Web site.
Ross said when she was first asked to start blogging in the fall of 2004 with a spirited Senate race between Daschle and Thune in progress, as well as many other duties, she reluctantly agreed.
"My attitude was begrudging," Ross said.
She soon discovered she enjoyed the chance to quickly share information with online readers. Ross said she also realized how much she could learn from them.
The feedback, ideas and story tips were amazing, she said. Ross said she used much of the feedback for story assignments for herself and other reporters. She had gone from a reluctant blogger to a passionate advocate of this new form of journalism.
Ross worked for the Journal for a decade before departing in October of 2006 and starting work on the documentary and the blogsite. She admits to missing the people and the energy of a newsroom, although she does do some freelance work for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
"I don't miss daily pressure," Ross said. "The blog helps a lot."
She tries to post every day and said people who start a blog find it fun for a week. Then it becomes a matter of discipline, Ross said.
While politics is her primary pursuit and main interest, she said other topics pop up from time to time. Ross said she also will add some humor from time to time, as she did when writing about legislative terms.
"There should be a band named Killed in Committee, and it's album should be titled Smoked Out on the Floor," she wrote.
While she can tease politicians, she's also a fan. People who run for local office and serve in the Legislature do so out of a sense of community service, not to advance a political career.
"Running for the (state) House or Senate, or serving on a city council or school board, you have to really care to do that," she said.
That doesn't mean she would ever run for office. Ross said that will never happen. "It's much more fun to be the observer and the analyst."
Her blog gets about 10,000 visits a month, Ross estimates, and she runs Google ads. She hopes to make it a viable concern at some point and said she can't afford to devote the time and energy to it if there is no economic support.
The whole state
is home
Ross considers herself a South Dakotan - literally. She has lived in so many places that she said she doesn't claim a hometown.
"I kinda consider the whole state my home," Ross said.
She was born in Mobridge to Jerry and Linda Ross, who are from Sturgis. Jerry Ross worked for Norwest Bank and his career took him on a tour of the state, from Aberdeen to Gregory to Chamberlain and Winner.
She attended SDSU, edited the school newspaper, The Collegian, and landed her first newspaper job in Kearney, Neb., writing and reporting for the Hub.
In 1996 she came to the Rapid City Journal. She worked there for a decade and still often refers to the paper on her site.
Her primary focus right now, as the session concludes and politics fades from the top of the agenda, is completing a documentary on the abortion battle in South Dakota.
Ross and her co-producers, Charlie Abourezk and local news anchor Jennifer Dowling, are nearing completion of the film, she said.
"That's my big project," Ross said.
They need to write a story outline, cut together the interviews and other footage and get the film ready, hopefully for airing on South Dakota Public Television and to enter in some film festivals.
In addition, she's spending time with "Mr. Hog House," as she refers to her husband, who takes pictures and offers some help on the blog. David Larson (Ross chose to keep her maiden name) is a former construction foreman who now works as a registered nurse at the Rapid City Regional Hospital. The two are hoping to have children, so Ross may give birth to a Web site, a film and a child all in short order.
"I tell people I'm busier now than when I had a job," she said with a smile.
For blog comments on South Dakota politics, go to www.hoghouseblog.com
