Traditional Corruption of North Dakota Media

By Dennis Stillings
Contributing Writer

On the night of August 28-29, 1889, a “mob” destroyed the offices of the Valley City Times-Record. It was speculated that local anti-prohibitionist businessmen were involved, since the stance of the Times-Record was prohibitionist.

When Don C. Matchan was the owner and editor of the Times-Record (1944 to 1947), his somewhat left-of-center editorials went against the grain of some local businessmen. They forced Matchan out against the will of the community. The Matchan Affair was reported in Time magazine.

Whatever one may have thought of Matchan’s views, he was an exceptional person, and he moved on to…well, anywhere else. After Don Matchan, the Times-Record was partly or wholly owned by out-of-state individuals or corporations, finally ending up in the hands of Horizon Publications of Marion, Illinois, in 1999.

In brief, one of the Times-Record employees, reporting to the T-R Publisher, Nikki Zinke, went over Ms. Zinke’s head to Melanie Radler, President of the Times-Record’s owners, Horizon Publications. This individual reported to Radler that Zinke was causing problems in Valley City that were, in turn, affecting advertising revenues.

As far as I know, no evidence of revenue losses were presented, but apparently even a whiff of such a possibility got the attention of Radler and Horizon.

I do know, however, that many others—outside of the local “elites”—welcomed the genuine hard-hitting investigative reporting that had become part of the editorial policy of the Times-Record, in contrast to the puff-and-fluff pieces that had hitherto focused on creating an image of Valley City as some sort of up-and-coming Mayberry.

Horizon Publications then sent an agent to interview “influential” townspeople. The result was that Zinke was fired.

On August 15th, Editor Lee Morris, sick of the intrigue and backstabbing taking place, wrote a camouflaged account of the events leading to Zinke’s firing. His highly critical column, vaguely titled “An American Pastime and Politics,” was disguised by using the byline of Gene Lyons, a syndicated columnist whose opinion columns appear regularly in the Times-Record.

Lee then slipped this column into the Times-Record copy just before it was sent to the printer.
Lee’s exposé was picked up by dozens of blogs and other news outlets worldwide. In addition to media sources throughout the entire eastern part of this state, other news outlets re-telling Lee’s story included Forbes, Stinky Journalism, The Fort Worth Weekly, Mondo Times (“media coverage involving 31,250 media outlets worldwide”), Inside Milwaukee, Media Jobs Daily, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, even LankaWeb (Sri Lanka) and The Paepae (Auckland, New Zealand).

Triad Watch of North Carolina commented: “An amazing story of how local newspapers manipulate the news.” And, in the words of Gillian Shaw of Google+, “A stunning commentary on the state of journalism or lack thereof at the North Dakota Valley City Times-Record. Even more stunning is the fact that departing Lee Morris managed to get [his opinion of it] printed in that paper as his final contribution.”

Online articles and comments were 100% in support of Nikki Zinke. It is also clear from these comments and articles that policies of censorship-for-profit are common in small-town newspapers.

It should be clear by now that the efforts of certain Valley Citians, in consort with outside controllers, have given Valley City a widespread reputation for scandal far beyond what could have been caused by letting the newspaper operate by its own lights under Nikki Zinke.

What we currently have is control of Valley City Times-Record news and editorial content involving collusion between an outside agency and local malcontents.

What is the character of Horizon Publications, the owners of the Valley City Times-Record—the people who dictate the nature of its content?

Melanie Radler at Horizon Publications—who had set in motion Nikki Zinke’s firing on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations from Nikki’s in-house enemy—took over as president of Horizon when her father, David Radler, the founder of the business, was sentenced to prison. David Radler was convicted of fraud, along with his partner in crime, Conrad Black, both of whom illegally pocket millions.

Nikki Zinke has since gone on to publish North Dakota’s newest newspaper—The Independent of Barnes County (launched October 28)—dedicated to area issues, events, and culture. Her efforts will cause the Horizon-controlled Times-Record some problems.

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