Magazine
October 2, 2006
The Crested Butte News, a successful independent newspaper in a small Rocky Mountain town, has come full circle and is once again owned by a chain. Also in this issue: The North Coast Journal has been published in Arcata, Calif., for almost 18 years by Judy Hodgson, a journalist who believes in stirring the pot.
Feature
The Crested Butte News, a successful
independent newspaper in a small Rocky Mountain town, has come full
circle and is once again owned by a chain
Editor's Note
In an introduction to this special issue celebrating
independent media, High Country News associate
editor Jonathan Thompson recalls the exciting, exhausting,
high-caffeine years he spent publishing his own newspaper in a
small mountain town
Essays
A writer recalls the adventures he had had in Quincy,
Calif., 20 years ago, when he was the youthful editor of a
small-town independent paper called the Green Mountain
Gazette
Writers on the Range
Cell phones have their uses, but they do not belong in the
wilderness
Dear Friends
High Country News needs your support;
visitors; corrections
Dottie Fox, a tireless wilderness advocate and co-founder
of the group Great Old Broads for Wilderness, dies after a long
fight with cancer
News
Judge reinstates Clinton roadless rule
Interior Department blasted by its own watchdog
Nobody’s happy with BLM’s Roan Plateau
plan
Skull Valley Goshute Tribe’s nuclear-waste storage
plan rejected
Judges throw out some libertarian ballot
measures
Life expectancy in the West
Many Westerners live in poverty, but even more lack health
insurance
Quote by Wyoming Attorney General Patrick Crank
Navajo Times reporter Marley Shebala is
a fiercely determined journalist whose investigative reporting has
helped bring down two tribal presidents
Since 1992, Dan Price has been publishing a hand-drawn,
illustrated zine called Moonlight Chronicles from his tiny, hobbit-style home in a meadow in Joseph,
Ore.
A 38-year-old female deckhand who calls herself Moe
Bowstern created the zine called Xtra Tuf to
explore the turbulent culture of the fishing industry
Peter Richardson created an independent film called Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon, to
illuminate a culture clash that was tearing his hometown
apart
Hearing Voices, a collective of
independent radio producers, is working to add spice to public
broadcasting
Independent radio series and specials cover community
sustainability
Dave Frazier started the online Boise
Guardian in order to keep an eye on local government and
rile his fellow citizens
Jennifer Napier-Pearce uses her own money to produce a
Salt Lake City-based podcast called Inside
Utah
Rick Spilsbury, a Western Shoshone Indian, writes bitingly
and sometimes hilariously about Nevada’s water issues on his
"noshootfoot" blog
John Orr created his "Coyote Gulch" blog to follow
Denver-area politics and Colorado water issues
Several magazines and newspapers provide good independent
commentary on water in the West, but there is always room for
more
Keoki Skinner deals lemonade and information from his
yellow fruit-stand van in the border communities of Douglas, Ariz.,
and Agua Prieta, Mexico
1
Book Reviews
In Blood Struggle, law professor
Charles Wilkinson gives an inspiring account of Indians’
political and legal struggles during the last 50 years
David Schoenbrod explains why the nation’s
environmental laws are not being properly implemented in
Saving Our Environment From Washington: How Congress Grabs
Power, Shirks Responsibility and Shortchanges the
People
Yellow Cab is anthropology professor
Robert Leonard’s poetic account of his after-dark journeys as
a cab driver in Albuquerque
Heard Around the West
Bunker home for sale; Utah FastPass spins out; zinfandel
loses in California; fear of snakes in Mapleton, Utah; Redi Ripe
fruit stickers; fighting tamarisk in California
Letters
Related Stories
The North Coast Journal has been
published in Arcata, Calif., for almost 18 years by Judy Hodgson, a
journalist who believes in stirring the pot
The Taos Horse Fly, with its biting
journalism, does its best to live up to its name
Roughneck is a two-year-old monthly
devoted to covering the oil and gas industry in Sublette County,
Wyoming
