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New Web-Based Mountain Journal To Focus On Yellowstone Region

NPS/Jim Peaco

Bison, grizzlies, and Old Faithful are among the features that draw people to visit and live in the region around Yellowstone National Park. A new journalism site has launched to help people better understand this place where many live and play

Veteran environmental journalist Todd Wilkinson of Bozeman is the spearhead behind Mountain Journal, a web-based site focusing on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Credit mountainjournal.org
Todd Wilkinson, Managing Editor of Mountain Journal

“We live in a region in which there is antagonism toward the media, where we had a congressional candidate that body slammed a journalist for asking a tough question,” said Wilkinson. “We have people carrying forward an anti-science agenda and advancing and carrying forward alternative facts. “

He said not long ago he had breakfast with Theodore Roosevelt IV,  investment banker in New York and the great grandson of Teddy Roosevelt — a conservative.

“And even Ted Roosevelt said we don’t have anybody out there aggressively fact checking the alternative facts and holding people to account," Wilkinson said. “There is no peer review process for refuting disinformation out there and so right now in Greater Yellowstone there are a lot of issues out there that are rooted in deep mythology out there in which alternative facts just don’t hold up to scrutiny and so with Mountain Journal we’re going to subject some of these myths to rigorous scrutiny.”  

Wilkson added that Mountain Journal would provide some lighter fare, celebrating the arts and culture of our region. 

Kay Erickson has been working in broadcasting in Billings for more than 20 years. She spent well over a decade as news assignment editor at KTVQ-TV before joining the staff at YPR. She is a graduate of Northern Illinois University, with a degree in broadcast journalism. Shortly after graduation she worked in Great Falls where she was one of the first female sports anchor and reporter in Montana.