Wyoming

Dustin Bleizeffer

Dustin Bleizeffer covers the energy beat for WyoFile, a nonprofit public-interest news website based in Lander, Wyoming that reports on the state's people, places, and policies. Bleizeffer has worked as a coal miner, an oilfield mechanic, a reporter and editor primarily covering Wyoming's energy industry, and a freelancer writing about the environment and rural life. Most recently he co-authored the “Reckoning in Coal Country” investigative series, published on WyoFile, the Energy News Network site, and as a book. Bleizeffer was communications director of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, and beginning in 2010, he served as WyoFile's editor-in-chief for six years. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and communications from the University of Wyoming, and as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, he examined how emerging technology can help reinvigorate news and democracy in the American West. Bleizeffer lives in Casper, Wyoming.

WyoFile

WyoFile is an independent, member-supported, public-interest news service reporting on the people, places and policy of Wyoming. WyoFile’s mission is to inform and engage Wyoming through in-depth reporting in the public interest. WyoFile aims to reestablish the primacy of facts in Wyoming’s public discourse — to ensure that residents, community leaders, business leaders, politicians, agency personnel and policy makers all have access to, and faith in, the information they need to participate effectively in civic life and self governance.

Jessi Dodge

Jessi Dodge is a photojournalist with the Buffalo Bulletin, located in Buffalo, Wyo. She spent the last two years working as an assistant director of photography for the Columbia Missourian, the community newspaper managed and staffed by the University of Missouri, as well as its sister publication, VOX Magazine. She has worked as a staff photographer and won three awards from the Missouri Press Association as well as freelancing. She received both her B.J. and M.A. degrees in photojournalism from the University of Missouri. Her final master’s project included two parts: the complete editing and designing of a photo book on Boonville, a smallMissouri river town, and research to better understand the purpose of narrative as a tool for visual storytelling.

Buffalo Bulletin

The Buffalo Bulletin is a weekly print and online newspaper that has served Johnson County, Wyoming since 1884. The newspaper of record, we are family-owned and publish local news exclusively. Each week, The Bulletin publishes news that affects its community members, including coverage of local governing boards, school events, prep sports, economics, industry and politics as well as a weekly editorial and other commentary on their opinion page. The Buffalo Bulletin is the definitive source for news and information in Johnson County.

Savannah Maher

Savannah has been a producer for NPR’s midday show “Here & Now,” where her work explored everything from Native peoples’ fraught relationship with the American elections to the erosion of press freedoms for tribal media outlets. A proud citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, Savannah got her start in journalism reporting for her hometown’s local newspaper, The Mashpee Enterprise, and public radio station, WCAI. She has since contributed to New Hampshire Public Radio, High Country News, and NPR’s Code Switch blog. She graduated from Dartmouth College.  

Christopher Aadland

Chris has worked at the Wisconsin State Journal, where he covered public safety, city government, breaking news and others subjects. During college, he was a student reporter at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune covering state government and politics. As a student at the University of Minnesota, he was the Managing Editor of the award-winning, student-run Minnesota Daily. Chris, whose father is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, started learning the Ojibwe language while at the University of Minnesota and developed a desire to contribute to better, more nuanced coverage of Indian Country as a journalist. Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes on the Wind River Reservation Casper is less than three hours east of the Wind River Reservation, where the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes reside. Already historically underserved communities, the tribes have received less coverage from the Star-Tribune over the years as the newsroom has downsized. Chris is based in Riverton, the largest city bordering the reservation, to cover Native American issues. There is no shortage of story ideas to pursue — for instance, the future of health care near the reservation is currently uncertain as the hospitals there undergo changes, and the government shutdown of early 2019 briefly created what one of the tribes deemed a crisis situation. Chris produces regular enterprise pieces while also writing breaking news and daily stories.

Wyoming Public Media

Wyoming Public Media is Wyoming’s statewide public radio/media network covering general Wyoming news, state government, and public/cultural affairs. The news department is a regular award recipient, receiving two national Murrow Awards and two national Public Radio News Directors, Inc. (PRNDI) Awards in 2018 alone. Wyoming Public Media’s mission is to cover Wyoming with vital news to Wyomingites. Position: Wyoming Public Media covers Wyoming’s main issues, but there’s a gap on the Wind River Reservation. One of the largest U.S. reservations, it’s unique in that it has two historically warring tribes mandated to live on this one appropriated area of Wyoming. Over the decades, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe people forged a relationship that is difficult to maintain. This situation compounds problems in education, health services, living conditions, land and wildlife management, revenue generation, among other issues. The RFA reporter is based in or near the Wind River Reservation covering issues that are critical to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe populations. Topics include health delivery, education, homelessness, legislation and Native sovereignty topics, the justice system, the plight of unemployed or underemployed youth, and historical trauma, among others. The reporter works at the direction of our current reservation reporter as well as the Wyoming Public Media news director.

Casper Star-Tribune

The Casper Star-Tribune is the premier local news source for the state of Wyoming, covering both Casper, the state’s second-largest city, as well as issues that reverberate throughout all of Wyoming. With a newsroom staff of 17 reporters, editors and photographers, Casper Star-Tribune is the state’s only seven-day-a-week newspaper.

The Buffalo Bulletin

The Buffalo Bulletin is a weekly print and online newspaper that has served Johnson County, Wyoming since 1884. The newspaper of record, we are family-owned and publish local news exclusively. Each week, The Bulletin publishes news that affects its community members, including coverage of local governing boards, school events, prep sports, economics, industry and politics as well as a weekly editorial and other commentary on their opinion page. The Buffalo Bulletin is the definitive source for news and information in Johnson County.

Mara Abbott

Mara is an Olympic-athlete-turned-journalist. As a freelance journalist in Colorado, she has been published in The Wall Street Journal, espnW, The Colorado Independent, Runner’s World, and Westword. For her hometown paper, Boulder’s Daily Camera, she reported on everything from agricultural policy to the influence of local political advocacy groups. She has won multiple Colorado Associated Press Awards. Before her career in journalism, she was a professional cyclist — the two-time U.S. National Champion, winner of women’s Giro d’Italia and a member of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team where she placed fourth.