Retired Sioux Falls Argus-Leader editor David Kranz has died. The veteran reporter and manager retired from his media career in 20-10. The Journalist-in-Residence at the University of South Dakota, Chuck Baldwin, worked for Kranz for several years.
“If I had to guess, I would think he would have been most proud of his efforts to treat everyone fairly. Which of course—I think it was in the Thune-Daschle race, and the Republican blogs had so-called information on how biased David was. That was just not David—he was very proud of giving people equal treatment and being fair.”
Baldwin says, despite Kranz’ reputation for toughness and old-school journalism, he wasn’t afraid to show he cared for people.
“And I’ll give you a couple of examples of that. One is—each year, he would play an elf during a Christmas thing. And he loved doing it; he would put on the ears and everything, and he loved being around the kids. And another is, when I first got to the Argus-Leader, he had heard somehow—and I don’t remember how this was, but he found out I was starting to collect political buttons. And, I showed up at the Argus-Leader on the first day, and he handed me an envelope and I said ‘What’s this?’ and he said ‘Well, I heard you collected political buttons, so I just thought I’d give you a few.’”
Kranz worked at the Mitchell Daily Republic before more than a quarter-century with the Argus Leader. He died Saturday at age 72.