Let’s be honest — it’s difficult to be a consumer of news right now. The barrage of actions taken by this administration and by Congress that will do harm to species and ecosystems is relentless. Hard-won legal protections for human, plant and animal communities are being eroded daily, while longstanding programs that employ scientists to analyze data are rapidly dismantled. Many Americans are limiting the amount of news they consume, given how emotionally taxing it has become to pay attention. And yet turning away is not the answer. You can’t protect the people, places and things you love if you don’t know that they are threatened. So thank you for reading High Country News and remaining engaged.
It’s also not an easy time to be a journalist, spending your working days covering these acts of sabotage, reporting on the speed and zeal with which this administration is attacking so much of what you, our readers, value and hold dear. It has exacted a toll. And though keeping our readers informed is of the utmost importance, some of our recent focus as a staff has been on taking care of each other as human beings, because this, too, is important — turning to the person next to you and saying, Are you OK? It’s a lot.
Make no mistake, High Country News is doubling down on covering the areas we know best and continuing our tradition of going where other outlets might not think to go. But we are also doubling down on sharing stories of wonder, resilience, justice and awe. We see a need to highlight how people are coping with all this, and accept that part of our role is to help them cope. We believe that covering the beauty and power of the land is part of caretaking it, and the same is true for vulnerable communities. Therefore, we promise to keep doing accountability journalism and covering the impacts of this administration. At the same time, we will do our best to keep your hearts full, because humans need joy to leaven the anger and the anguish, stories of beauty and resilience to nourish our souls.
This is true not only for you, our readers, but also for the people working to create those stories. It’s a difficult time to be in journalism if you care about the well-being of the land, about justice, and about having a habitable climate. But we are here for it, dear readers. It is HCN’s mission to both inform and inspire, and both have never been more essential.
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.
