Local news is in crisis: More than a third of the nation’s local newspapers have folded in the last 20 years, and the Western U.S. has been especially hard-hit. Utah, for example, has lost more than a third of its local papers since 2004, while nearly a quarter of New Mexico’s have gone out of business. Add recent cuts to public media funding, and rural and tribal communities are suffering from a serious lack of information and insight. And when reporting jobs get cut, the environment is often the first beat to go.
That’s why High Country News is teaming up with local and national partners to create a West-wide corps of environmental reporters to work in local newsrooms: the Western Environmental Reporting Collaborative, or WERC. We’re delighted to announce our first four partners, in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona.
Each partner will host a WERC reporter starting this July. They include:
Montana Free Press/Mountain Journal: Founded in 2016, Montana Free Press is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public-powered news organization dedicated to serving the information needs of all Montanans. The WERC reporter will be stationed at Mountain Journal, which covers the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem from its home base in Bozeman.
Wyoming Public Media: Based at the University of Wyoming, this NPR affiliate broadcasts to more than 90% of the state and maintains a robust online presence.
Its new WERC reporter will cover lightning-rod species — think grizzly bears, wolves and wild horses — as well as the state’s growing recreation economy and the increasing water stresses on ranchers, farmers and Indigenous communities.
Ouray County Plaindealer: This locally owned western Colorado publication has a mantra we proudly concur with: “Even small places deserve quality journalism.” Led by two veteran journalists, the Plaindealer has a reputation for fearless reporting and punching above its weight. Its WERC reporter will cover drought, wildfire risk and endangered species, including wolves, which are due to be released in the county soon.
Arizona Luminaria: Co-founded in 2022 by three veteran Arizona journalists, AZ Luminaria is an independent, nonprofit, community-centered news organization that publishes in English and Spanish. Its WERC reporter will focus on the crisis on the Colorado River, where decisions made at the interstate and federal levels will have massive impacts on farmers, low-income neighborhoods and Indigenous communities.
It’s a stellar group, and we’re honored to be collaborating with them. (If you don’t know their work, look them up!) Our goal is to add four more partners in 2027 and another four in 2028, thereby giving the collaborative a reporter in every Western state.
WERC reporters will spend roughly three-quarters of their time writing for their home news organizations and the rest with HCN on stories of regional and national interest, as well as collaborations between newsrooms. All stories produced by WERC reporters will be available for publication by every newsroom in the collaborative.
With help from HCN, our national partner, Report for America, will provide 50% of the reporters’ salaries during their first year on the job, 35% in Year 2 and 20% in Year 3. It will also provide additional training opportunities and fundraising/business development support for our partner news organizations, with the goal of making these positions permanent.
Our deepest thanks to the HCN readers who have contributed the funds we needed to get this partnership off the ground. We welcome additional support, both for HCN and our new partners. (All but the Plaindealer are nonprofits. Support for the Plaindealer can go through HCN.)
We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
This article appeared in the April 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “How HCN is helping fill a growing need for local news.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
