Montana Free Press editor shares insights on business of journalism

Brad Tyer, editor of the Montana Free Press has seen business news evolve over his three-decade career in nonprofit and commercial journalism.

“Support for news-gathering organizations — the model has changed,” Tyer tells Lowdown podcast host John S. Adams, his new boss. “But ultimately, a news-gathering organization has got to be supported by people who value the news-gathering.”

Previously, Tyer worked for a longtime with Missoula Independent as an editor. There, he hired and mentored many notable Montana reporters of today, including Adams, who joined the Independent staff in 2005.

Additionally, he also served as an editor for the Indy from 2002 to 2007, and again from 2016 through 2018 and then as an editor at the Texas Observer in the interim.

However, 2018 saw Tyer unemployed as the Independent closed down. But, after a brief lapse of editing MTFP stories on contract, he found himself moving to Helena to join the growing MTFP staff full time, assigning and editing stories from staff and freelance reporters and developing editorial strategies for the future.

The Lowdown podcast has Tyer discussing about building mutually supportive relationships between readers and newsrooms and how one can survive in this intense race.