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How (Not) To Quit a Journalist Job

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News from South Dakota that got missed recently, because almost no one pays attention to local political stories out of Rushmore state. 

It seems that the “journalist” tasked with covering politics in our state capital found an extremely creative way to quit his job. Utilizing a website that allows people to spoof a phone number and prank call another number with a variety of pre-recorded “funny” messages, this brainaic decided to spoof our governor’s personal cellphone number while prank calling the former chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party. 

It’s probably purely coincidental that although South Dakota is a deep red state, most of the folks in the journalism field even in this state still run hard to the left. Maybe not as far left as someone say, working for MSNBC and living in New York City, but still, if you want to see a fine collection of fading and weathered BLM, rainbow, and Biden 2020 bumper stickers, check out the employee parking lots of the local news organizations (or schools, for that matter). 

Unsurprisingly, the target of this prank was less than amused to receive a weird and somewhat threatening call from the state governor’s personal number. A brief police investigation and subpoena of the local ISP traced the perp’s IP address (seriously, you couldn’t have done this from a coffee shop while using TOR? Or at the very least, a VPN? Hypothetically, I mean?) to his Pierre apartment, and just like that, misdemeanor charges filed, publicity gained, and job lost. 

Really, I wonder what was going through this dude’s head. What made this seem like a good idea? A night of heavy drinking? A dare from soon-to-be-laid-off J-school friend at VICE? Just feeling generally upset at the governor and the state and wanting to tweak some senior state Republicans? 

At 26, he’s been in the industry for at least a couple of years, and although the political beat in South Dakota isn’t likely to be the most prestigious posting, it’s got to be a decent stepping stone to bigger and better things. Now he’ll be lucky if he can get hired to cover local weather in Nome, Alaska. Or who knows, maybe I’m totally wrong and this is a career enhancer. This might very well be the big step up to a job with CNN or MSNBC.