GREAT FALLS — February 3rd-7th, 2025 is the sixth annual News Literacy Week. Scripps News is partnering with the News Literacy Project for the event. It's a chance to help people determine the credibility of news and other information and to recognize the standards of fact-based journalism to know what to trust, share and act on.
In Montana, delivering news can be challenging for media outlets, especially in rural areas.
MTN met up with the people in charge at a pair of weekly newspapers who are managing to navigate the obstacles.
Jeb Boettger, 24 years old, has worked for the Cascade Courier for five years. He recently purchased the weekly paper from family friends and longtime owners Toni and Ray Castellanos.
The Cascade Courier has been in business since 1910.
“I wanted to be a graphic designer, I liked computers,” said Boettger. “I used to draw a lot of my own comics. When Ray and Tony bought the paper, they knew that about me.”
Like many small business owners, Boettger wears many hats, from managing the layout and distribution to reporting and photography. Leading a publication with a circulation of 800 comes with challenges.
“Since we are a weekly publication, there are some struggles with keeping our local news, timely,” said Boettger. “There's probably been one time that we've beaten people to a scoop before it wound up on Facebook.”
A Facebook page of their own and an online edition can help combat that.
Weekly content includes contributions from area residents and the paper prides itself in amplifying that community voice.
“When everybody's voice is on Facebook, it's hard to be heard over everyone else,” said Boettger. “When they send an article to the newspaper. People are going to see that and they're going to say this is somebody that I know, and this is something they must feel very strongly about, or it wouldn't be published in print.”
In a time where social media rumors can run rampant and any person can make a slick webpage or YouTube channel, Boettger believes the Cascade Courier is as important as ever.
“We are established as our paper of record in the county,” said Boettger. “Obviously that comes with a big responsibility, because if we get something wrong, we are either obligated to publish a retraction, there is no other option. We publish a retraction, or we just don't get it wrong.”
Boettger says the community has come to depend on the Courier and because of that, they don’t get called “fake news.” He says fact checking is important and running a small-town newspaper makes it easy since the town hall is right down the street.
“A lot of the time, the place we go to check the facts is within walking distance,” said Boettger. “There have been so many times where I've gotten news about what's going on in their town, and I don't know. Town hall is right here. I can go to the town clerk and ask her.”
In Valley County for the last three years, Michelle Bigelbach has been the editor and publisher of the Glasgow Courier. A Minnesota native, she started at the paper in 2017 and quickly worked her way up when the former publisher saw she had a knack for writing.
“I was a little nervous because I hadn't been in Glasgow for that long and didn't think I could tell the stories that needed to be told,” said Bigelbach.
The Glasgow Courier has a circulation of about 1,800. Since 1913, people have depended on it to learn about what’s happening in their community. From who’s died, to the latest in the schools and city hall.
“Whether it's keeping the city council, the school board, the commissioners accountable with what's going on, the people here in Glasgow and Valley County want to know what's going on in what I call their little Valley County island,” said Bigelbach. “They get a lot of the news from the Billings Gazette and from Great Falls Tribune and from KRTV, but that's at a state level. Even though people are interested in that as well, they want to know what's going on with the people within their communities.
Bigelbach says the communities they serve are interested in all kinds of news.
“Obviously they want to hear the good news because they get the bad news from, you throughout the state, in the country,” said Bigelbach. “So, the Glasgow Courier is a source of what's going on locally as well as providing them a little bit of goodness. There is good still going on in the world and in the community that they live in.”
With a staff of three full-time employees, Michelle also covers multiple roles including answering the phone and making the weekly trek to Malta to pick up the week’s papers from a Bozeman courier, where the paper is published.
And from volunteer boards to being actively involved in kids education, their involvement adds to their credibility.
“Just being involved in the community really places that trust in us from the community, because they know that we're out and about,” said Bigelbach.
