What others have to say about Writers on the Range
Our subscribers are newpapers across the West. We send out opinion to newspapers large and small. Not just in the West, although that is who we seek to serve.
Las Vegas Sun
Writers on the Range has been a godsend for the Las Vegas Sun, filling a critical need for columns on regional issues of importance to our community, to Southern Nevada and our entire state.
Although the Sun is well-served through contracts with the New York Times News Service and Tribune News Service, the columns we receive from those syndicates tend to focus mostly on national issues. That’s where Writers on the Range has been invaluable to us. The group’s focus on Western issues – water conservation, the drought and climate change, environmental protection for fragile desert areas and more – allow the Sun to provide its audience with content that illuminates and adds to the public dialogue
on policy.
The Sun strongly supports the group, and hope it continues to operate for years to come.
Ric Anderson, Editorial Page Editor
Las Vegas Sun, Las Vegas, NV
Daily Sentinal
The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colorado places a premium on content that examines management of public lands and natural resources. We’re big fans of Writers on the Range. The contributors come from all walks of life, but their column always hit home with our readers, for whom access to public lands is an important part of the lifestyle in western Colorado. Cutbacks to the newsroom have seriously hampered our coverage of the environment. Most often these stories are best told by people who have first-hand experience dealing with a particular challenges — from loving favorite trails to death to rebuilding coal communities or threats to the sagebrush sea. Writers on the Range consistently identifies problems and solutions in a thorough and engaging way. We need more of this kind of advocacy journalism on our opinion pages because it fosters understanding and dialogue about the unique living conditions in the American West.
Andy Smith, Opinion Page Editor
Grand Junction Sentinel, Grand Junction, CO
The Park Record
The Park Record has published Writers on the Range for years because of the value it provides for our readers. In a community like Park City, tucked away in Utah’s Wasatch Range, connection to the broader region is critical, and our readers enjoy learning about important topics happening elsewhere in the West — as well as having their perceptions challenged through thought-provoking analysis and opinion pieces. And while we strive to provide that type of content through a number of means, we have found few better resources than the always-compelling offerings of Writers on the Range.
Bubba Brown, Editor
The Park Record, Park City, UT
White Mountain Independent
I am so glad to hear that Writers on the Range is returning! I gladly used their content at a paper in Wyoming, and I would gratefully subscribe to it, especially as a free service. I love how it brings thoughtful commentary on topics of particular interest to our readers.
Trudy Balcom, Editor
White Mountain Independent, WMICentral.com
Paul Larmer
Larmer was the first editor of Writers on the Range after it landed at HCN in 1998, he went on to become publisher/editor of High Country News (HCN) 2003-2020, and is currently senior development director HCN. Larmer is also on the advisory board of Writers on the Range.
Writers on the Range grew out of the West’s public lands, growth, and culture wars of the 1990s. At the time, environmentalists were at loggerheads with the timber, mining, oil and gas and ranching industries that had dominated and shaped land-use and rural communities for decades.
Meanwhile, a flood of newcomers poured into the region’s urban areas and smaller towns, stressing their social and economic fabrics beyond recognition. How could the West sort through these contentious issues in a civil manner?
The answer was to give voice to a wide range of people from the region itself. Writers with different backgrounds, espousing new ideas, were put front and center on the region’s opinion pages.
After a brief run as a think tank, Writers on the Range landed on the front porch of High Country News in 1997. High Country News is the well-known, highly awarded publication that covers the west’s diverse natural and human communities. It was a perfect match.
Soon dozens of news outlets subscribed. Over the next 20 years, Writers on the Range published fresh columns from writers and thinkers across the ideological spectrum, provoking thought, generating debate, and defining the possibilities of a better west.
It was truly a grassroots opinion service and, now as an independent non-profit organization, is still so today.
