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ABOUT US
Phone (Gary): (701) 202-8748
P.O. Box 2332
Bismarck, ND 58502
The Great Plains Examiner is a periodical newspaper based in Bismarck, North Dakota. The newspaper’s mission is to provide high-quality journalism with a focus on local businesses, politics and the people who live, work and play in Bismarck and Mandan. Our staff of veteran journalists have made a commitment to investigative news, in-depth coverage of our communities and the most accurate analysis of important local issues. We practice nonpartisan journalism, providing detailed information and allowing readers to make up their own minds. The newspaper is owned and operated by North Dakotans, and its parent company, Highground Publishing Inc., is also based in North Dakota. We circulate 10,000 copies in Bismarck-Mandan via direct mail, hand delivery and in racks set up in areas with high foot-traffic. Direct-mail delivery is available to North Dakota residents for $37.50 per year; e-mail dustin@greatplainsexaminer.com to be added to our mailing list or send a check or money order, along with your address, to Great Plains Examiner, P. O. Box 2332; Bismarck, ND 58502
OUR STAFF AND CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
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Gary Emineth, Publisher
(701) 202-8748
Gary@GreatPlainsExaminer.com
Dale Wetzel, Managing Editor
(701) 400-8557
Dale@GreatPlainsExaminer.com
Matt Bunk, founder and partner
(701) 645-1270
Matt Bunk has more than 12 years of experience in journalism and has won dozens of state and regional journalism awards. His career includes six years of newsroom management and four years of directing online news and multimedia projects. He also led marketing efforts as vice president of a magazine publishing company. His most recent position was as managing editor of the Arizona Capitol Times, the most-respected political news source in Arizona. He directed coverage of the 2008 presidential election, including the Republican and Democratic national conventions. He also appeared as a political analyst on ABC News, C-Span and National Public Radio. Prior to the 2008 presidential election, he was the political editor for the East Valley Tribune, a 100,000-circulation newspaper in Mesa, Arizona. In his early years as a journalist, he was a business writer for a 280,000-circulation newspaper group in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the economy and public companies such as Clorox, Disney, Chevron and Safeway. He also has written for State Legislatures Magazine and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He grew up in Bismarck, graduated from Century High School and attended college at Montana State University, Bismarck State College and Dickinson State University.
Kelly Hagen, features writer/columnist
Kelly Hagen is a familiar face to readers in western North Dakota. He has been featured weekly in the Bismarck Tribune as a columnist for nearly five years. His writing abilities have earned him top honors in humor writing from the North Dakota Newspaper Association, numerous other awards, a feature on KFYR TV news and recognition from readers across the state and nation. While at the Tribune, he was a copy editor and special sections editor. He wrote feature stories, administered the paper’s website, wrote headlines and edited and designed the paper’s pages. He also planned and coordinated editorial material for the daily paper and its niche publications. His front page design on the event of President Barack Obama’s inauguration was named one of the 10 best in the U.S. by Newseum. He also was a copy editor at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead and a feature writer at the High Plains Reader. Hagen was born in Bismarck and grew up in Wilton. He graduated from Bismarck State College with a degree in journalism and received a bachelor’s degree from Minnesota State University-Moorhead. He lives in Bismarck with his wife, sweet Annette, and their infant daughter.
Erik Hagen, blogger/columnist
Erik Hagen has one of the longest tenures as a blogger in the Bismarck-Mandan area, as well as being one of the area’s most well-known. As one of the original bloggers on the Bismarck Tribune’s TriBlogs section in 2003, his blog The Expatriate Act lasted longer than any other blog featured on the site, as well as being one of the most-read. In addition, in 2007, Erik became the featured writer on SodBlog, an independent website consisting of a collection of local bloggers focused on politics and entertainment. Erik is a copywriter and social media director for KK BOLD, one of North Dakota’s largest advertising agencies. He is a graduate of Bismarck State College and Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he graduated with a degree in writing with an emphasis on English. During his time at Moorhead, he worked as an intern at New Rivers Press. Hagen was born in Bismarck and grew up in Wilton. He now lives in Bismarck with his wife and their daughter.
Reid Wilson, Washington D.C. correspondent
Reid Wilson is editor-in-chief of National Journal Hotline, and he contributes analysis of the national political environment in his weekly column, On The Trail. Reid is also a political contributor to Sirius-XM Radio. Before becoming editor-in-chief, he was editor of Hotline On Call, Hotline’s political blog. He also served as a staff writer at The Hill newspaper, where he covered Congress, politics, campaigns and elections. He has covered the Supreme Court, the Federal Election Commission and top political races as they develop across the country. Reid spent the 2008 election cycle authoring a popular blog at RealClearPolitics.com, where he covered the presidential caucuses in Iowa, the primaries in New Hampshire and several debates across the nation. He also hosted a nationally broadcast political talk show on XM Satellite Radio, on which he hosted the top newsmakers, reporters and analysts in the nation, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, Democratic Congressional Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, and top advisors to both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. In 2006, he covered polls and polling for The Hotline. He also has written for The New Republic, the Arizona Capitol Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and National Journal. He has appeared as a guest analyst on dozens of radio shows across the nation and on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and C-Span. A native of Seattle, Reid graduated from The George Washington University.
Steve Hoffbeck, contributing writer
Dr. Steve Hoffbeck is a professor of history at Minnesota State University-Moorhead. Specializing in the history of the Upper Midwest, Hoffbeck has written about topics that range from dust storms to B-52 bombers to fallout shelters. A book that he wrote about the trials and joys of farming, “The Haymakers: A Chronicle of Five Farm Families,” won a Minnesota Book Award in 2001. Hoffbeck’s second book, “Swinging For The Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota,” won the 2005 Sporting News/SABR Baseball Research Award. Hoffbeck and a team of writers wrote of black athletes who had to overcome the color line to find fulfillment on the baseball diamonds of Minnesota and North Dakota. Professor Hoffbeck has published several articles in Minnesota History Magazine and in North Dakota History. Additionally, he has written articles about baseball and agricultural topics for regional magazines. He lives in Barnesville, Minn., with his wife and family.
Just read about your hopeful publication in, of all places, The Forum. I’m pleasantly surprised that they included the quote: “A lot of times, the editors and publishers … often they’re just trying to find something to sell ads around. They don’t really care what it is, and the last thing they want to do is make anybody upset,” Bunk said.
That is EXACTLY what the Forum is. I know you’re early in your publication but I hope you have the Fargo/Moorhead metro area in your coverage plans as well. I love that the High Plains Reader has made inroads into covering stories the Forum will have little or nothing to do with, but I imagine the synergies of your two publications – sharing reporting, perhaps having a Bismarck based reporter cover controversial Fargo stories (with local support, guidance, etc.) and vice versa. A non-resident isn’t as likely to soft peddle sensitive aspects of a story.
Show North Dakota residents how the established press is doing them few favors. Radio and TV cover innocuous stories adequately enough between “these important messages.” Show them what print media really can do to reveal, educate and motivate by telling us more about how things really work. My fervent hope is that you have the next Matt Taibbi lurking around your news room and that he/she loves ND enough to hang around for a very long time….to inspire our future home-grown journalists.
Here’s to a successful venture! I’ll be reading.
Thank you.
John Trelstad
Fargo
Here’s wishing you great success! You’ve put together a stellar team! About time someone gives the old guard a run for their money. I look forward to the day when the Examiner is a daily.
Congratulations on your daring idea. I hope it works. I also hope that once you get settled you can expand coverage statewide. Certainly we in Fargo could use some decent reporting of important stories rather than seven consecutive hyperventilating front pages about glorious Microsoft and the great Doug Burgum while leaving coverage of the Bismarck and Minot floods to the AP. The media, print and broadcast, in this state is so geared to promote the chamber of commerce view of the world that we really need a counterpoint to get the other side out. Good Luck.
Wishing you a lot of success in your new exciting venture! I will be reading it here in Minot.
Good luck!
I am the father of an aspiring jounalist, Kelsy Johnson. She is a a Journalism student at Concordia in Moorhead an a veteran with the ND National Guard. Born and raised in ND with international experience, she would be an excellent contributing writer to your staff.
Kelsy is gearing up for her first story in the Examiner. Glad to have her on board.
Very pleased to hear of your existence. Best of wishes to you and your future.
Right on! I wish you all the best. I look forward to picking this up my next time through.
I am very much enjoying your articles. I love having a different perspective on the news. However, it is rather difficult to read the comments in bright blue and underlined. The quality of writing makes up for it!
Best of luck! Something many small towns need is a paper that doesn’t sugar coat things. I live in a community where our editor was run out of town by those who didn’t want the truth printed and the west coast owner went along with it because he is about profits and not journalism.
Great to see a paper not pulling any punches. Your “what went wrong” cover was refreshing; at least there is a newspaper who will acknowledge that something went wrong and someone (or many) are at fault. Keep up the good work.
I would like to send Tommy some butter. How can I get an address?
thanks,
Jeffrey
I just read the entire January 2012 issue. Awesome! I can’t believe that the “mainstream media” doesn’t ask these kinds of questions.
A column about music/arts within the community would be pretty awesome. Just sayin!
Lauren
Fellow Musician
Most people remember how the tobacco industry denied that smoking is harmful and addictive. And most people also remember that it was finally declared as harmful and addictive.
The present debate in North Dakota about property taxes reminds me of the episode with the tobacco industry. We know that the property tax abuses us more than any other tax. But those facts are denied, and covered up, by a coalition called “keep it local ND” that wants to retain and perpetuate the property tax habit.
Property tax is comparable to smoking as an addiction. It must be an addiction. Why would we keep using it when it is bad for us? It is like the smokers who keep on smoking while knowing that it is bad for their health.
The “keep it local ND” coalition is like the tobacco industry that is trying to perpetuate a bad addiction. The tobacco industry did not get away with their self serving rhetoric, and neither should the “keep it local ND” coalition with their rhetoric.
On June 12, 2012, the citizens of North Dakota will have an opportunity to affirm, by voting YES on Measure 2, that the property tax is a harmful addiction.
Every citizen must be informed that Measure 2 is more than just saying NO to property taxes. It is a plan how local governments will be funded during the immediate aftermath of property tax elimination and all the future fiscal conditions of the state. Also, the revenue stream to the local governments will be equal or better than under the present property tax concept.
So, go and tell the “keep it local ND” coalition that there is no need to alarm people that local government control will be lost if Measure 2 is passed. Every one should know that Measure 2 is not taking away all local government authority to tax, but rather just the property tax.
Tell everybody that nobody will get sick from the withdrawal symptoms when the property tax addiction is kicked. Instead we will all be better off for kicking the habit.
What’s Kelly like in person? I’ve lived near this guy for the last 2 years and he’s never spoken a word! It almost seems like he runs the other way when any of his neighbors get near him, it’s the weirdest thing.
I apologize, Frank. Which house do you live in? I’m not stuck up, I’m just incredibly shy and socially awkward. Say hi sometime. I promise not to run.
It seems to me in the two issues since the big change at Great Plains examiner that the paper I used to love for its actual stories by real people has turned into a political based paper. I understand times are tough and I will continue to read your paper but just thought I would give my two cents.
Looking forward to someone who will ask the EXTRA questions, not just the story that sells.
Ask who has the mineral acres and who benefits financially or is jealous because they don’t when stories are done about all the BAD things in the western ND oilfield.
Such as the Tribune article about Target Logistics moving a man camp to McClusky, ND.
Andy Werth was complaining about it, seems my source says he had a different property to rent them that they turned down and now he sees them as a problem, yes financially to him
How about the unspoken reason that most people do not want man camps is that these men may take a local wife or girlfriend.
O that spell check is not proofreading?
Tribune reported a semi trailer killed 6 men by Jamestown last spring.
I have not seen any semi trailers traveling our roads without a truck pulling them, sure makes them look stupid to me.
Many others writing articles without doing their homework and finding out later they did not have facts to support them, but maybe they don’t care, just sell. Clay Jenkins.