Title: Content Director
Contact: 605-937-9398 / bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org
Language spoken: English
Demographic expertise: South Dakota, including the Rapid City area, the Black Hills, rural towns and reservations
Topic expertise: agriculture, state government, education, rural issues, Indigenous people, poverty
Potential conflict of interest: Pfankuch serves on the board of the Oyate Prevention Coalition in Rapid City, which works to prevent substance abuse among Native American youth. He will recuse himself from reporting on the organization.
Biography: Pfankuch (pronounced FAN-cook) is Wisconsin native and former editor of the Rapid City Journal. He has worked for more than 30 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Wisconsin, Florida and South Dakota, including as reporter or editor at the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram and Capital Times in Wisconsin, and at the Florida Times-Union and Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida. He also is a syndicated writing coach who has presented at newspaper conferences across the country. Pfankuch has won more than four dozen state, regional and national journalism awards, including, while at News Watch, agricultural writer of the year from the North American Agricultural Journalists association in 2020, 2021 and 2023 as well as first-place reporting awards in the Great Plains Journalism Awards sponsored by the Tulsa Press Club and South Dakota NewsMedia Association. Pfankuch lives in Black Hawk.
Professional memberships: Investigative Reporters and Editors, North American Agricultural Journalists, South Dakota NewsMedia First Amendment Committee
Social platforms: X/Twitter; LinkedIn
Archive of work: South Dakota News Watch
Bart Pfankuch
Total 337 Posts
11 billion-pound mystery: The chemicals South Dakota trains carry
Each year, trains carry nearly 11 billion pounds of chemicals through South Dakota’s cities and countryside, much of it on century-old tracks, a South Dakota News Watch analysis has revealed.
Finding out which specific compounds are in those potentially toxic payloads is extremely difficult or even impossible for the
Civil civics: Observers note more positive pulse in South Dakota politics
As it winds to a close, the 2023 legislative session in South Dakota will likely be remembered as the year of the great tax cut debate and for the somewhat surprising willingness of the GOP-led Legislature to reject several proposals from a popular Republican governor.
But many observers and participants
Exclusive: How South Dakota spent $14 billion of pandemic relief funds
South Dakota received nearly $14 billion in federal COVID-19 funding from March 2020 through January, according to an internal state fiscal report obtained exclusively by South Dakota News Watch.
The document tallies the $13.84 billion intended to help governments, businesses, organizations and individuals survive and recover from a pandemic
Unexpected expenses: State project costs jump by millions
South Dakota taxpayers could pay millions of dollars in unexpected expenses caused by inflation and workforce challenges that are hitting the construction industry.
Nine bills have been filed in the current legislative session in Pierre to increase funding for construction projects that were passed in prior years but have gotten
CEO of large SD non-profit agency remains in his job despite federal sexual harassment settlement
Editor’s note: This article is the result of a reporting collaboration between South Dakota News Watch Content Director Bart Pfankuch and Kristi Hine, editor of the True Dakotan newspaper in Wessington Springs.
WAGNER, S.D. – The director of one of the largest non-profit social service agencies in South Dakota
Hurdles to homeownership: Why buying a home is out of reach for many South Dakota residents
A series of economic factors has coalesced over the past two years to make it extremely difficult or even impossible for many people in South Dakota to achieve the American Dream of homeownership.
The price of new and existing homes has skyrocketed in recent years at a time when modest
Hurdles to Homeownership in South Dakota: Sign up now to watch Dec. 15 online panel discussion
Is the American Dream of homeownership fading in South Dakota?
Experts differ on whether that is completely true, but it’s clear to everyone in the South Dakota housing ecosystem that in the current real estate market, purchasing a home has become harder than ever if not impossible for many