While I have been laughing for about an hour, I do find this also damaging to journalists across the state;
Political reporter Austin Goss of Dakota News Now was arrested for making a prank phone call while impersonating Governor Kristi Noem.
While his employer hasn’t said whether they will or have terminated (he was removed from the bio page) Mr. Goss my assumption is he will probably get the boot (rumor has it he already has a job offer from another media organization in town that gives away free papers – Not the Shopping News or Tidbits).
He may have gotten the number from the Federal Data Breach but if he is the Capital reporter in Pierre for Dakota News, my assumption is he got the number directly from Noem (hopefully this comes up in the hearing).
While satire is allowable under the 1st Amendment it has to be reasonably recognized by most who are experiencing it. Impersonating others, especially elected officials without identifying yourself or the prank is against the law, or is it?
The unfortunate part, that is NOT funny, is this will have an affect on the trust elected officials have with the media. I don’t want to sound like some ‘fake news’ crier, but I have a feeling the anti-media wing-nuts in our state are going to use this to their advantage saying we can’t trust the media. It appears Mr. Goss used Noem’s number to call former GOP chair Dan Lederman. While he did identify the call as a prank, where Mr. Goss may have stumbled was impersonating Noem’s personal cell number.
The sad part is that will get turned into a political football about Federal Data breaches when this is really just about prank calls.
I have NO defense for Mr. Goss. He hurt his industry today, and not in a good way. So let’s have a laugh;
