An interesting blogosphere debate has begun over the apparent "early retirement" of Terry Woster, perhaps South Dakota's best-known print journalist.

Woster has covered statehouse politics from Pierre for the Argus Leader for a lot of years. He's a Reliance farm kid and SDSU alum with thick ties to many people and institutions in our state. And of course he's part of the Woster clan — also including Jim, Kevin and baby sister Mary Haug, who has contributed to South Dakota Magazine.

You should check out the "comments" discussion at Pat Powers' South Dakota War College. Of course, many are blaming the Argus Leader. Some just blame the state of journalism. And one poster blames South Dakota publishers who sold their family newspapers to the big media conglomerates over the years.

There has been constant pressure, even among weeklies and small magazines like ours, to sell to chains. Publications have been like farmland — corporations felt there were only so many to go around so at certain times in recent history they begged and bid like crazy to get their share of the market.

I imagine the harried hometown publishers grew weary of worrying about payrolls, ever-changing technologies, expensive but necessary health and retirement benefits, tax complexities and the like. The corporates just had to wait for a publisher to have a really bad month or two, and suddenly he or she found that "cashing in" was quite tempting. But once the paper was sold out of the community it was gone forever.

There was a "corporate buyer" who really wanted our magazine a few years ago. After saying no a dozen times as nicely as I could, I finally put it to him this way: "The town drunk is walking by outside my window. He lives here in Yankton and he knows more than you do about South Dakota. If I wanted to sell, I would sell it to him on a contract for deed and nothing down for a tenth as much as I'd sell it to you for cash." He finally understood NO.

I tend to agree with the fellow who blames the hometown publishers for selling out their communities. A weekly or daily paper (and I'd like to believe the same is true of our magazine) is a public trust. If you're blessed to have the privilege of being the caretaker of it for a few years, then one of your biggest concerns should be to pass it onto another generation who will care for it as you tried to do.

The same may be true of land owners and business owners in general. But certainly when it comes to the Fourth Estate, the people of the United States would be better served with five thousand independent and creative newspapers and magazines than the fluff and mush served up by today's corporate media.

Terry Woster will do just fine. Worry about the Argus Leader.