Title: content director / investigative reporter
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 307 Posts
As Native students struggle in SD schools, a Lakota-immersion model emerges
For the third time in five years, Native American legislators and supporters of improving Native education in South Dakota have proposed legislation that would allow for creation of state-funded charter schools aimed at immersing students in Lakota Indian language, culture and history.
And once again, the measure has failed in
Rising anger and violence toward healthcare workers hampering patient care in SD
Increasing anger and even violence toward healthcare workers in South Dakota and across the U.S. is adding great stress on practitioners who are already enduring the pain and hardship of providing care during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
Healthcare workers in South Dakota have been called offensive names, faced threats
News Watch to host panel discussion March 3 on proposed Native-focused charter schools in S.D.
Use this link to register to listen live to the March 3 Native education panel
Click THIS LINK to be taken to a web page where you can sign up to watch the March 3 panel discussion live.
South Dakota News Watch is convening a panel of experts for an
Veteran journalist Stu Whitney joins South Dakota News Watch as investigative reporter
South Dakota News Watch continues to strive for excellence with its latest addition to our award-winning investigative news team.
A 30-year veteran of newspaper journalism, Stu Whitney of Sioux Falls joins South Dakota News Watch as an investigative reporter starting Feb. 22, 2022. Whitney is a graduate of the journalism
Legislation seeks to clarify who decides what happens to the dead in South Dakota
South Dakota has some of the weakest laws in the nation when it comes to regulating who decides what should happen to the body of someone who dies, and the vague laws are causing greater expense for survivors, creating emotional trauma for grieving families and funeral directors, and occasionally leading
South Dakota tribal college part of NASA plan to build housing for use on the moon and Mars
Sinte Gleska University, a tribal college in Mission, S.D., may soon enter into a partnership with NASA that would result in new science education programs, more affordable housing for state reservations and the development of 3D housing that could someday be used on the moon or Mars.
The National
Improving education top goal of Native American agenda in 2022 South Dakota legislative session
One way to understand which issues are most important to the South Dakota Native American community — the state’s largest minority group — is to examine the bills that are filed each legislative session by the handful of Native lawmakers serving in statewide office.
This year, about three dozen bills were