High Country News has told the environmental and ecological stories of the Western United States for more than 50 years. In so doing, the publication has reached an audience that wants to protect the earth and landscape in which they live.
It’s a complicated assignment. From climate change that looms silently in the skies to the roles that flea-infested pesky prairie dogs play in the desert dirt, the journalists who write and capture photos for High Country News consider a panorama of stories to bring to their readers. Sometimes, that responsibility pulls them into the political muck of Congress or the White House. It often brings them into the communities that make up the culture of one of the world's most aesthetic yet vulnerable places.
In recent years, the magazine has concentrated on telling those stories from the perspective of its Indigenous population, who often have a different outlook on land management and use than colonial practices.
“You know, High Country News has been known for a long time as sort of the go-to source of reporting on Western water, public lands, wildlife, endangered species and climate change,” said publisher Greg Hanscom. “We built our name on environmental reporting. In the last seven years, we have really embraced Indigenous Affairs reporting. We were among the first non-native publications in the country to create a desk with a team of journalists specifically dedicated to issues of concern to Native communities. And it is led and largely staffed by native journalists, so they know about what they speak. They have broken a lot of important ground. ... They’ve changed how we do our work across the board.”
Sunnie Clahchischiligi, the Indigenous Affairs editor, is not the first to head the desk, but she’s helping to carry on the responsibility of Indigenous representation.
“It was answering a call in that there were more and more stories about Indigenous folks being written or seen or heard within mainstream media, but not being tackled in a way that they should be. So Indigenous folks were starting to really be more visible, if you will. And as a result of that, no mainstream outlet dedicated its coverage to Indigenous communities and people. High Country News had an opportunity to do that, and it turned out to be a wonderful investment, in my biased opinion, because it’s still one of the few that exists.”
HCN’s Indigenous Affairs desk includes Clahchischiligi, the desk editor; Anna Smith, the Indigenous desk associate editor, who focuses primarily on tribal sovereignty and environmental justice; and B. “Toastie” Oaster, a reporter who covers, among other topics, “green colonialism.”
“A lot of that has to do with coverage of green energy within Indigenous communities and kind of looking critically at what that means when people want to explore alternative energy or alternative resources within Indigenous communities,” Clahchischiligi said. “So we pick up different topics, and a good chunk of our work comes from freelancers. We pride ourselves on welcoming in and finding Indigenous writers, photographers, illustrators and fact-checkers. We try to ensure we provide opportunities for a greater Indigenous journalist community.”
An article written by Oaster and published on the publication’s website in December focused on the community of Farmington, New Mexico, and its history of anti-Indigenous violence. The town of 46,000 had a history of oil and gas settlers beating and harassing Diné people in what was described as a “cruel coming-of-age game known as ‘Indian rolling.’” In 1974, three white teens put firecrackers in three Diné men’s orifices and beat them, killing them, according to the article. Protestors at the time were met with tear gas and 30 arrests by police. The article addressed the ongoing violence of the Diné in the 50 years since what was known as the Chokecherry murders. A September march was held in memory of the murder victims. The city sponsored the event, providing bottled water and blocking off streets for the event. Despite the change in tone in the city and public sentiment for a desire to heal, the piece delved into the ongoing racism experienced by Native people there.
Clahchischiligi said she encourages editors and publishers to spend more time thinking and acting on efforts to hire more Indigenous journalists. She said she recommends editors attend the Indigenous Journalists Association Conference to meet Native journalists and learn about the issues that are important to their communities.
High Country News covers more than solely Indigenous issues. Environmental coverage and land use remain pillars under its editorial canopy. The publication covers 12 states, including Alaska. That’s nearly 2 million square miles. Hanscom said about half of that land is public land — meaning national forests or grazing lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, national wildlife refuges or military lands.
“That’s the big thing that really distinguishes this region from other parts of the country. There’s just a vast portion of this land that, in theory, belongs to all of us. In reality, it was largely stolen from Native people. In practice, it's often managed more on behalf of oil and gas companies, mining and timber companies — industries interested in making money versus dealing with climate change and protecting native species and wildlife populations. So that’s a big part of HCN work right there.
“But it’s also a patchwork, right? It’s not this neat picture of public lands encompassing river basins or ecosystems. It’s this crazy quilt of public, private and tribal lands, and it’s no small task to protect native wildlife populations or intact ecosystems, given that crazy mix of jurisdiction.”
To that end, Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Sahn said she is quite proud of her team’s partnership with Grist, a nonprofit media organization that covers environmental injustices. Their reporting focused on how states own lands on reservations, and tribes must pay to use them. The story told how schools, hospitals, prisons and other institutions profit from land and resources in 79 tribal nations. The piece reported that Montana manages 5.2 million surface acres and 6.2 million subsurface acres, which distributed $62 million to public institutions in 2023. The reporting showed that most of that tax revenue went to K-12 institutions primarily serving non-Indigenous people. High Country News and Grist scoured publicly available data to identify reservations affected by state trust land laws and policies. There were small pockets of these state trust lands that, for example, covered 3.6% of the Flathead Reservation.
“One of the most important impacts of this story is that there were actual tribes and citizens of tribes who read this story, who first learned about these state trust lands on their reservations from our reporting,” Sahn said. “This is a piece of reporting I’m super proud of.”
Hanscom said High Country News has a broad audience — approximately 20,000 paying subscribers across the 12 states. It’s a nonprofit journalism organization that shares many of the same struggles as other journalism institutions regarding reach and its business model. However, it helps that HCN brings 50-plus years of experience and influence to the table.
there.
The website has drawn some 6 million impressions in 2024. HCN's work is also seen in many other big and small publications with syndication arrangements. It’s hard to exactly nail down the publication’s reach because of all the distribution channels.
HCN employs a team of about 30 people. About two-thirds of those are on the editorial team, with a huge boost from a vast freelance network, which includes experts in various areas. It operates on revenue generated mostly from donations, grants and other contributions.
“This is a publication for restless minds, right?” Hanscom said. “We’re always asking that next question and searching for the story that pushes people to see this place differently. But the other thing is we’ve got roots. We’ve got boots on the ground across the West in small towns and rural areas. And so we know the politics, we know the people, and we know the things that divide Western communities and the things that bring people together.”
Despite political or ideological differences, one issue that brings most Western people together is the conservation and protection of land.
That protection may be threatened in the coming years as President Donald Trump has promised to usher in a deregulatory era emphasizing more extraction of energy resources. He also has previously issued orders to dismantle policies aimed at reducing climate change and its environmental impacts.
“So much of what we and our readers care about is under threat by the new administration,” Sahn said. “You know, we will be watching closely. Oil and gas places on public lands; timber sales on public lands; immigration. … We will not let chaos deter us from getting out there and sharing stories of what’s happening in the communities that we cover.”
Bob Miller has spent more than 25 years in local newsrooms, including 12 years as an executive editor with Rust Communications. Bob also produces an independent true crime investigative podcast called The Lawless Files.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here