Title: investigative reporter and 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 322 Posts
Cyanide devices remain part of predator control efforts in SD
Despite growing national pressure to end their use, small devices that issue a deadly dose of cyanide into the mouths of animals such as coyotes and foxes remain in use in South Dakota.
The devices, known officially as M-44s but referred to as “cyanide bombs” by opponents, are part of
New public-private plan could aid polluted Black Hills gold mine
LEAD, S.D. – A Canadian gold mining company has agreed to help clean up South Dakota’s most contaminated industrial site. The agreement is part of a trend of public-private partnerships that could expedite remediation of America’s polluted lands and waterways.
Agnico Eagle Mines of Toronto has entered into
Gap between low wages and high rents growing in South Dakota
RAPID CITY, S.D. – Like thousands of South Dakotans, Jade War Bonnett of Rapid City lives in constant fear of not having stable housing for her and her two children.
In a state where rents are rising far faster than incomes, the only way War Bonnett and many other low-wage
Opioid fentanyl causing spike in overdoses in South Dakota
SPEARFISH, S.D. – Drug dealer Eric Reeder of Spearfish got word in January 2017 that one of his customers was in trouble after smoking the fentanyl that Reeder had sold him.
“I told you only to take one hit every 20 minutes,” Reeder texted to the 31-year-old man.
But the
South Dakota losing fight against resurgent sex diseases
Once believed to be mostly under control, sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV/AIDS are all on the rise in South Dakota and across the nation, reaching near-historic infection rates.
Prevention efforts by South Dakota public health officials have not reversed a trend of increasing STD
Judge: Births not recorded at FLDS compound
PRINGLE, S.D. – A South Dakota judge’s ruling has confirmed that children were born on a remote Black Hills compound run by a secretive religious sect, offering new insight into life within the polygamous FLDS.
The ruling in September by Seventh Circuit Judge Jeff W. Davis revealed that births
USD Law School facing challenges but seeing opportunities
VERMILLION, S.D. – One of South Dakota’s most venerable institutions, the law school at the University of South Dakota, is facing academic and financial challenges unprecedented in the school’s 117-year history.
Applications are historically down. The balance sheet is barely in the black. More marginally qualified students have