Greg Hanscom
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Articles by Greg Hanscom
New leadership for HCN
Last month, we shared the news that our editor-in-chief, Jennifer Sahn, was leaving HCN. This month, we present the dynamic duo who’ll lead HCN’s editorial staff for the next leg of the journey: Kate Schimel, our new editor-in-chief, and Gretchen King, who has taken on new, expanded duties in her role as executive editor. Kate is on her third tour with HCN. She started as an intern back in 2015 and became an assistant editor later that year.
HCN farewells - High Country News
By now you’ve probably read Jennifer Sahn’s editor’s note explaining that she’s stepping down as HCN’seditor-in-chief. When HCN hired Jennifer more than five years ago, we were doing our best to respond to an unusually tumultuous time in what has never been an easy existence. We wanted to contribute in a serious way to the ongoing conversation about race and belonging in the West. And we needed someone with a steady hand, a sharp eye and a fearless approach to tackling tough topics.
Reporting on the West is a team effort
High Country News plays a unique role in the West’s news ecosystem, providing our readers with the information you need to take part in important discussions and decisions, while also supporting other news organizations across the region. We see that as part of our job: We want to keep the conversation going.
Meet the West’s new environmental reporters
Since the 1970s, more than 230 young people have come through HCN’s intern and fellowship programs, going on to use the skills and knowledge they gained here to make important contributions to the West and the wider world. Dozens have built successful careers in journalism, working as reporters, editors and photographers for The Washington Post, National Geographic, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Oregonian and a multitude of smaller local outlets.
The climbers of HCN
Mia Axon and Benjamin Rueck traveled very different paths on their way to becoming world-class rock climbers. Mia was captain of the gymnastics team at the University of Michigan and a conservatory-trained harpist — ideal for developing a strong body, strong fingers and a gift for memorizing complex sequences of movements. “I’m a kinetic learner,” she told me recently. Benjamin Rueck climbing in Penitente Canyon, located in Colorado’s San Luis Valley.
What happens when we die?
A recent gathering in Seattle drew a colorful flock of High Country News readers. Longtime subscriber Edith Forbes read from her new novel, The Lawnmower Lady, which opens with the death, in a New England pig shed, of Fay Kirkwood.
How HCN is helping fill a growing need for local news
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.
New board members join the team
We often say — and are proud to say — that High Country News is a reader-supported nonprofit. The “reader- supported” part is straightforward: You, our community of readers, provide three-quarters of our operating revenue through your subscriptions and donations. This organization would literally not exist without you. That’s why our Community Pages, which have a new look in this issue, are in the middle of the magazine: You are literally the heart of this organization.
New board members join the team
We often say — and are proud to say — that High Country News is a reader-supported nonprofit. The “reader- supported” part is straightforward: You, our community of readers, provide three-quarters of our operating revenue through your subscriptions and donations. This organization would literally not exist without you. That’s why our Community Pages, which have a new look in this issue, are in the middle of the magazine: You are literally the heart of this organization.
Unique Westerners inspire HCN
We want to thank everyone who pitched in to support High Country News’ year-end fund drive. It was a great success. Your subscriptions and donations comprise three-quarters of HCN’s operating revenue, compensating our writers and editors and keeping the lights on in our Paonia, Colorado, office. We’re humbled by your generosity and more grateful than we can say. Like nonprofits and news organizations across the country, however, HCN is not immune to the forces at work in the world today.
Unique Westerners inspire HCN
We want to thank everyone who pitched in to support High Country News’ year-end fund drive. It was a great success. Your subscriptions and donations comprise three-quarters of HCN’s operating revenue, compensating our writers and editors and keeping the lights on in our Paonia, Colorado, office. We’re humbled by your generosity and more grateful than we can say. Like nonprofits and news organizations across the country, however, HCN is not immune to the forces at work in the world today.
A wilderness warrior to the core
After 40 years of service and 80 years on Earth, Andy Wiessner — wilderness warrior, land wheeler-dealer and longtime friend to High Country News — is stepping off our board of directors. Andy attended a one-room schoolhouse in Stowe, Vermont, and his mother, Muriel, let him and his sister run free in the North Country woods. Andy’s father, Fritz, was a pioneering rock climber.
A wilderness warrior to the core
After 40 years of service and 80 years on Earth, Andy Wiessner — wilderness warrior, land wheeler-dealer and longtime friend to High Country News — is stepping off our board of directors. Andy attended a one-room schoolhouse in Stowe, Vermont, and his mother, Muriel, let him and his sister run free in the North Country woods. Andy’s father, Fritz, was a pioneering rock climber.
HCN’s journalism is having on-the-ground impact
This year marks the culmination of an ambitious three-year plan created by High Country News board and staff to “future proof” HCN by developing the tools, skills and strategy that will enable us to thrive and grow in a rapidly changing West and amid an ever-evolving media landscape. Already, we’ve done some exciting things. Our sophisticated new tools have enabled us to get our journalism into the hands of the people who need it, and our stories are having real, on-the-ground impact.
HCN’s journalism is having on-the-ground impact
This year marks the culmination of an ambitious three-year plan created by High Country News board and staff to “future proof” HCN by developing the tools, skills and strategy that will enable us to thrive and grow in a rapidly changing West and amid an ever-evolving media landscape. Already, we’ve done some exciting things. Our sophisticated new tools have enabled us to get our journalism into the hands of the people who need it, and our stories are having real, on-the-ground impact.
Hosts with the most
In September, we held our fall board meeting in Boulder, Colorado. And once we were caught up on business, we got together with friends old and new to celebrate Andy Wiessner, who marks 40 years on the HCN board this year. (You’ll read more about Andy in a future “Dear Friends” column.) We want to thank our hosts at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado Boulder: Thomas Andrews, Tamar McKee, Brooke Neely and Ryan Lueck.
Hosts with the most
In September, we held our fall board meeting in Boulder, Colorado. And once we were caught up on business, we got together with friends old and new to celebrate Andy Wiessner, who marks 40 years on the HCN board this year. (You’ll read more about Andy in a future “Dear Friends” column.) We want to thank our hosts at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado Boulder: Thomas Andrews, Tamar McKee, Brooke Neely and Ryan Lueck.
A season of grizzlies and get-togethers
There’s nothing like gathering with family and friends and enjoying the fruits of the harvest. HCNers love get-togethers, so here’s a few recent ones. Way back in May — ancient history now — the editorial and design teams assembled at the B Bar Ranch in Montana’s Tom Miner Basin, on Yellowstone National Park’s northern border.
Meet HCN’s incredible Customer Service team
When was the last time you called customer support — anywhere, for any reason — and got another live human being on the line? I suspect it’s been a good long while. Does anyone else immediately start punching “0” the second the automated answering system fires up, in hope of somehow snagging another sentient being? Just me?
Meet HCN’s incredible Customer Service team
When was the last time you called customer support — anywhere, for any reason — and got another live human being on the line? I suspect it’s been a good long while. Does anyone else immediately start punching “0” the second the automated answering system fires up, in hope of somehow snagging another sentient being? Just me?
Out and about in the West
The HCN staff has been out connecting with readers and making new friends around the region as spring melts into summer. Over Memorial Day weekend, we proudly sponsored the annual Mountain Words Festival in Crested Butte, Colorado, at a heavenly 9,000 feet above sea level. The festival was filled with workshops, readings, panel discussions and other programming that highlighted journalism, long-form storytelling, nature writing, climate reporting, nonfiction, fiction, poetry and more.
Out and about in the West
The HCN staff has been out connecting with readers and making new friends around the region as spring melts into summer. Over Memorial Day weekend, we proudly sponsored the annual Mountain Words Festival in Crested Butte, Colorado, at a heavenly 9,000 feet above sea level. The festival was filled with workshops, readings, panel discussions and other programming that highlighted journalism, long-form storytelling, nature writing, climate reporting, nonfiction, fiction, poetry and more.
HCN welcomes our newest board member
The members of the High Country News Board of Directors recently welcomed Chris Winter to their ranks. Chris is an attorney and heads the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment at Colorado Law School, an environmental law center at CU Boulder with close ties to Indigenous communities.
The people who care about the West
First, a heartfelt thank-you to all who have contributed to our spring fund drive — and a quick nudge to get in on the action if you haven’t done so already! In a year when journalism is under attack and an administration in Washington is spreading chaos, your notes and contributions renew our sense of purpose. We’ve said it before, but it’s absolutely true: The West has never needed High Country News more.
The people supporting our work
These are dizzying times. The Trump administration is clear-cutting the agencies that oversee our beloved national parks and forests and rangelands and refuges — the public lands that make up half of the Western U.S. At the same time, it has frozen funds for conservation and restoration work on private and tribal lands, as well as for clean energy and climate adaptation projects.
After 35 years, farewell to an indefatigable art director
In the past three and a half decades, a lot of names have appeared on the High Country News masthead: three publishers, five or six chief editors, a few dozen assistant editors and staff writers and something like 200 interns and fellows. But in all that time, HCN has had only one art director.
High Country News: Telling environmental, ecological and Indigenous community stories of the Western United States - Editor and Publisher
Posted Tuesday, February 18, 2025 12:00 am 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.” High Country News has told the environmental and ecological stories of the Western United States for more than 50 years.
What are you reading?
In my work as executive director of High Country News, I get to travel around the West, visiting with the remarkable people who are the backbone of this institution — the readers and supporters who have kept HCN going for an amazing 55 years. Lately, the conversation has often turned to our news consumption habits. Many people have told me that, after a year of obsessing over the election and the polls and all the bumps and tremors along the way, they’re done.
Can we find common ground?
In the days after the November election, I sent out a raft of emails to friends and family and readers across the country. It was my way of making sense of what had just happened and trying to sort out HCN’s role in the coming year. Some of my thoughts appeared in this column in December.
Finding common ground in divisive times
By the time you read this, a month will have passed since the 2024 election. We all watched as the electoral maps slowly filled up with red across the West, while blue flowed down the coast and pooled in Colorado and New Mexico. Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential race; the long-predicted “red wave” had finally arrived. But Westerners understand that the red-and-blue splotches mask a much more nuanced human reality.
Remembering a remarkable environmental journalist
Retired California TV reporter Celeste Durant remembers Bob Jones as the tireless researcher who sat nearby in the LA Times newsroom in the early 1970s, and became a lifelong friend. “This was at the height of (Publisher) Otis Chandler wanting to make the LA Times a world-class newspaper,” Durant said. “He was hiring really talented people and giving them free rein to write in-depth stories.” Jones was one of those talented people.
Honest talk about conservation
On a Saturday evening in September, close to 100 people filed into the Blue Sage Center for the Arts in Paonia, Colorado, HCN’s longtime hometown. Our new director of philanthropy, Eric Lane, compared it to a family reunion.
HCN donors make the ink flow
You may have noticed a few changes in High Country News recently, including in the pages where we thank the folks who donate to support our journalism. For years, we listed those who made the largest donations first, and then worked our way down. This is a fairly common approach for nonprofits, but it never felt quite right to us. The fact is that fully 75% of HCN’s revenue comes directly from our readers.
Memories of summer road trips
It’s summertime, meaning it’s time to hit the road. On a recent jaunt to an outdoor music show, some friends and I recalled childhood family meanderings around the West, often un-seat-belted in the back of a 1970s gas-guzzler. My family rumbled around in a sky-blue International Scout Traveler that my brother and I dubbed “The Beast.” Hours spent staring out the window, sketching clouds, collecting russet and copper-green sand in southern Utah, camping out in our big green canvas tent.
A foodie award for HCN
Mention the James Beard Foundation, and folks think of chic restaurants, white chef’s hats and hand-plated hors d’oeuvres. My favorite James Beard Award-winner is much more down-home. Los Hernández is a humble eatery housed in a whitewashed, cinder-block edifice in tiny Union Gap, in central Washington. Family members dish up handmade tamales packed with dense masa and a spicy core of chicken, pork or (if you drop by at the right time in spring) asparagus.
New life landmarks and fond farewells
On March 31, in Glen Oak, California, Bradon Schwarz, HCN’s charitable gifts advisor, married the love of his life, Andrew Barmann. Bradon popped the question late last summer near his family home on Grand Mesa, not far from HCN’s headquarters in western Colorado. It didn’t take them long to tie the knot, and we can’t say we’re really surprised by the pace: Andrew was a competitive collegiate swimmer at UC Santa Barbara and has coached swim teams since then.
What does HCN mean to you?
I’ve just come back from a gathering of nonprofit news leaders, and I’m blown away by how much the industry has changed. Even 10 years ago, High Country News was a rarity — one of just a handful of nonprofit news organizations in the country. Today there are hundreds, ranging from influential national players like ProPublica to small startups like Nebraska’s Flatwater Free Press and Mission Local in San Francisco.
Changes on HCN’s horizon
At HCN, she found a job – and a community In early March, HCN’s director of philanthropy, Alyssa Pinkerton, told the staff and board that, after 15 years with the organization, she’s moving on. With her youngest kiddo about to graduate from high school, she plans to return to her career in art. Alyssa is a gifted painter and illustrator, as well as a self-described thespian.
How we’re working together
In January, a group of employees at High Country News set out to form a labor union, joining a growing trend at news organizations and nonprofits nationwide. Members of our staff had been collecting signatures on union cards, and on Tuesday, Jan. 9, representatives of the Denver Newspaper Guild, a branch of the Communications Workers of America, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board.
How we’re working together
In January, a group of employees at High Country News set out to form a labor union, joining a growing trend at news organizations and nonprofits nationwide. Members of our staff had been collecting signatures on union cards, and on Tuesday, Jan. 9, representatives of the Denver Newspaper Guild, a branch of the Communications Workers of America, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board.
Home for the holidays
I hope you and yours are having a happy holiday season. I’m relishing being settled with family and friends. The past few months have been a whirlwind, visiting donors, hanging out with readers, spending some quality time with High Country News staffers in Paonia, Colorado, and making a special side trip to Laramie, Wyoming.
HCN in ABQ
Our board meeting and an event about oil-and-gas permitting highlighted a commitment to do the work. From the print edition Like Tweet Print Subscribe Donate Now The High Country News Board of Directors met in May in Albuquerque, where we had a chance to reconnect face-to-face and visit with new and longtime friends of HCN. New Mexico’s celebrity environment reporter Laura Paskus — who is also a PBS producer and a former HCN staffer — moderated a panel about environmental justice in the state.
Future-proofing HCN
Long-term plans for the organization come together alongside staff changes. From the print edition Like Tweet Print Subscribe Donate Now The High Country News Board of Directors met in January with a couple of serious topics up for discussion: our finances and a draft strategic plan. Finances have been a nail-biter. Fall is our best time for fundraising, but we lagged behind into December, although, in the end, our readers came through once again.
HCN is staying put
We may have sold our building, but we’re not moving after all. From the print edition Like Tweet Print Subscribe Donate Now In November,we announced that we’d decided to sell HCN’s longtime office building in Paonia, Colorado. Our staff has dispersed across the region in recent years, and even the dozen employees who still live in the area generally prefer to work from home. Well, the deed is done.
A new chapter for HCN
The organization is putting its building up for sale but will remain in Paonia. From the print edition Like Tweet Print Subscribe Donate Now The High Country News board of directors met in Seattle in September to approve our annual budget and kick off a strategic planning process that will result in a road map for the organization for the next three years. It was only the second time we’ve been able to meet in person since COVID hit, and it was wonderful to see each other face-to-face again.
And we want to hear from you. Join our open reader survey. Greg Hanscom March 1, 2022 From the print edition Like Tweet Email Print Subscribe Donate Now Dear Friends: When I was coming up as a journalist at High Country News in the ’90s and early 2000s, we had a beloved annual rite: the reading of the reader surveys. The surveys went out by mail, festooned with cartoons featuring our mountain goat mascot and various other creatures, drawn by longtime HCN staffer Diane Sylvain.
Update May 17, 2021: Yesterday's stories aggregated
Meet Jennifer Sahn, the new Editor-in-Chief of HCN – the intellectual voice of the American West. Meet High Country News’ new editor-in-chief Our readers have high expectations, and Jennifer Sahn is up for the charge. By Greg Hanscom / High Country News / May 1, 2021 Jennifer spent her formative years at Orion magazine and later helped lead Pacific Standard. In her 20-plus years in the business, she has earned a reputation as a thoughtful and demanding editor.
Big awards and staffing changes
Our investigation from March 2020 gets deserved recognition, and we say a bittersweet farewell to a few employees.
Meet HCN’s new editor-in-chief
Our readers have high expectations, and Jennifer Sahn is up for the charge. Greg Hanscom May 1, 2021 From the print edition Like Tweet Email Print Subscribe Donate Now We usually reserve this spacefor a wide-angle glimpse of what you’ll find inside the magazine, but this month, I want to discuss a different beginning: the newest member of our staff. Carex chihuahuensis (Chihuahuan sedge), from Atascosa Borderlands, a visual storytelling project.
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