Journalism

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Fake news and misinformation about the pandemic run rampant these days. One of the culprits is the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns more than a dozen popular television stations across the Mountain West.

PMJA, Public Media Journalists Association, has named Kate Concannon it’s 2020 Editor of the Year. PMJA is a leading industry group for public media journalism.

Concannon has led the Mountain West News Bureau as its Managing Editor since its launch in 2018. This regional journalism collaboration is made up of reporters at different public radio stations across several Western states. The bureau’s journalism is shared daily with the station partners and affiliates across the region. The bureau was launched with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

This story was powered by America Amplified, a public radio initiative.

A small-town newspaper in the region that lost most of its staff due to the economic impacts of COVID–19 received a helping hand Friday. The Sandpoint Reader in North Idaho, a free weekly, was able to temporarily rehire its employees for the next six weeks using an influx of reader donations and the stimulus package's Paycheck Protection Program.

This story was powered by America Amplified, a public radio initiative. 

Sitting at his desk within the small office of the Sandpoint Reader, a weekly newspaper in northern Idaho, publisher Ben Olson is exhausted. 

America’s biggest supermarket chain is removing free publication racks from its stores beginning this month, prompting criticism from alternative weekly newspaper publishers. 

“These are some of our largest distribution sites,” said John Weiss, founder of the Colorado Springs Independent. “As fewer people are reading the dailies, more people are getting their newspaper fix from a free weekly. It’s hard to beat our price.”

Many parts of the Mountain West are news deserts -- and it’s getting worse. More than 20 counties in our region have no local newspaper. The ones that are left are struggling. And research suggests news deserts contribute to low voter turnout and increasing partisanship. 

The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA)  announced Tuesday the winners of the 2019 national Edward R. Murrow Awards. These awards honor the highest caliber journalism being produced by radio, television and online news organizations around the world. The Mountain West News Bureau's Amanda Peacher won best in feature reporting for her story on a student in Boise experiencing homelessness.

The Rocky Mountain News. The South Idaho Press. The Lone Peak New Utah.

These long-gone newspapers range from a Pulitzer-winning metro-area daily to small weeklies in rural towns. All are victims of an ongoing trend that’s pummeling the local American newspaper.

On Thursday night, President Trump rallied in Montana for Republican candidates. At the rally, he congratulated a Montana congressman for body-slamming a reporter last year.

Newspapers across the Mountain West have faced troubling times recently. There have been layoffs, budget cuts and, on Tuesday morning, Montana’s biggest alternative weekly was abruptly shut down by its parent company.

The Denver Post wasn’t dying, says Larry Ryckman; it was being murdered.

“We were under attack by our own owners,” says Ryckman, who was until recently senior editor of news at the newspaper.

The Pew Research Center is reporting that more than a third of large newspapers laid off staff in the last year or so, including in our region.

When The Denver Post laid off about a third of its newsroom earlier this year, senior editor for news Larry Ryckman left to start something new, The Colorado Sun.

In 2016, a wealthy Utah family bought The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah’s biggest newspaper.  Now, the owner has shrunk the 90-person newsroom to just 56, citing waning ad revenue and dropping print circulation. It joins a growing pattern across the country and the Mountain West.