Environment and natural resources in the rural Colorado mountains

The Ouray County Plaindealer is a weekly newspaper in operation since 1877, making it one of the oldest newspapers in Colorado. It serves the rural mountains in the southwestern part of the state, in a county that would otherwise be a news desert. The Plaindealer's readership is engaged and supportive – they've donated to keep a Report for America corps member reporting here since 2020. The paper has a reputation for hard-hitting accountability journalism and punching above its weight. The newsroom has been recognized with numerous awards, including multiple honors for public service and investigative reporting, holding power to account and demanding transparency. The Plaindealer’s co-publishers, a couple who bought the newspaper in April 2019, are longtime Colorado journalists who left the largest newspaper in the western half of the state to purchase the weekly and invest in quality journalism. They believe that even small, rural places deserve quality reporting. They've kept reporting even when their work has attracted criticism and resulted in their newspapers being stolen, in response to a story about an alleged sex assault at a former police chief's home.