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. A portion of it comes via your subscription dues, but the lion’s share arrives in the form of donations. A few folks are able to write large checks, and we are truly grateful. But each year, roughly 10,000 others make more humble gifts. And those add up and help keep us going.
It’s this remarkable community of supporters that helps HCN weather tough economic times, providing a degree of stability that other publications can only dream of. So we decided to make our donor pages a little more democratic, listing those who can make big gifts alongside those who make small ones, and sorting names by state rather than amount.
Speaking of donations, please watch your inboxes and your mailboxes for HCN’s fall appeal. This is our biggest fundraising drive of the year, and we really need your support. (You can make a contribution anytime at hcn.org/give-fall-24.)
Farewell, and thanks, Melissa!
HCN’s talented and heroic Books and Culture editor, Melissa Chadburn, left us at the end of August to devote more time to her teaching and writing. Melissa joined HCN in May 2022, with a charge to expand our culture coverage beyond reviews and essays. She has brought some wonderful new voices into the HCN fold and built out our coverage of food, art, theater, film and TV. We look forward to her next novel — be sure to check out her award-winning debut, A Tiny Upward Shove — but we are going to miss having her smarts and sensibility on our team.
There’s more (news) where this came from
Another change debuts in this issue — a new space in the front of the magazine where we tease a few of the stories on our website, hcn.org.
High Country News has been online for a long time. The story has it that back in 1993 or ’94, Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy was looking for ways to use this newfangled thing called the Internet. One of his employees — an HCN reader — suggested that an HCN website would be a good way to give policymakers in Washington, D.C., a window on to what was happening in the West.
And so a pack of HCNers, led by then-Associate Publisher Linda Bacigalupi, trekked over McClure Pass from Paonia to Joy’s offices in Aspen, and together, they created one of the earliest news sites on the web.
The latest iteration, launched in February, sees 300,000 visitors in a typical month. It also contains a near-complete archive of the stories that have appeared in these pages since 1970.
And, increasingly, it’s a place where you can find stories that don’t appear in the print magazine. We publish an average of three original stories each week online — as many per month as you’ll find in each print issue. They’re often in response to what’s happening now, providing the extra analysis and context you need to stay informed about how current events are shaping our lives in the West.
Recent examples include a piece about the Supreme Court’s reversal of the Chevron doctrine, and a story about what the conservative Project 2025 could mean for public lands, water and wildlife.
If you aren’t already receiving our weekly email newsletters, sign up at hcn.org/newsletters — you’ll get all our online exclusives along with highlights from the magazine you might’ve missed. We also share some of the best reporting on the West from other news organizations.
And while you’re on the site, take a minute to check out the features of your subscriber account — part of the major overhaul of our systems launched at the beginning of the year — by visiting hcn.org/tutorials. And if you’re not sure how to access your account, don’t worry: There’s a tutorial for that.
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.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
