Longtime Missoulians remember the Missoula Independent, our town’s free alternative weekly newspaper between 1991 and 2018. But in the five years since it was shuttered, the stream of people moving into Missoula has created large pockets of coffeeshop and brewery-goers (not to mention roof-top cocktail sippers) with no memory of those red newspaper boxes on Missoula’s sidewalks brimming with local stories and events.
And it’s not just newcomers.
It’s young people coming of age in Missoula, who don’t know what Street Talk or Happiest Hour were, who aren’t familiar with the revolving voice of the calendar, the knowing arts coverage, the irreverent briefs, the longform features, who don’t know what it’s like to have a free collection of weekly local stories and opinions that become part of the community conversation and reflect the town’s culture. (See: Do we or do we not stop for pedestrians crossing the street? Answer: Yes, we do. But it’s complicated.)
So let me provide a little nostalgic context—but only for a moment. “The Indy,” as it was fondly called, began as a scrappy, sassy, DIY newspaper that covered music, art, and politics. It helped form Missoula’s local music scene, giving it a relevance that felt as relatively vibrant as Seattle’s or anyone else’s at the time, and further establishing Missoula as the cultural heart of Montana. Over the years, the Indy grew into its role as a trusted voice with some serious journalism chops. (Though, as would be expected, it had its critics and haters.)
I started freelancing for the Indy as a music writer and came on board as the arts editor in 2008. Our understanding of how the Indy served the community was this: We provided in-depth, investigative stories, longform profiles, music reviews, dispatches on the best burgers and other explorations of the nooks and crannies of this town. And we needed the Missoulian’s daily reporting so we could be a complementary alternative to it.
Those who were here during the Indy’s final years will recall that Lee Enterprises, the corporation based in Davenport, Iowa, that owns the Missoulian, bought the Indy in 2017. There’s a longer story to tell here, but here is the gist: Many of our readers worried that we could not truly maintain editorial independence under Lee. When I asked upper management how we would gain our reader’s trust back, I was told, “You’ll figure it out.” I thought about that answer a lot.
Eventually, the staff unionized. A few months later, Lee Enterprises shut the Indy down. That was Sept. 11, 2018. That morning we got emails letting us know the Indy was closed, effective immediately. Staff were locked out of the building. The Indy’s entire archives were taken down (they still aren’t available to link to, but you can find print copies at Missoula’s libraries and the articles that had been available for free are now behind a paywall on newspapers.com, though any online-only content is gone for good). The staff gathered at Le Petit, where people kindly bought us coffee and pastries all day as we sat with our laptops answering questions from the media, trying to figure out what we do next. A crowd of Indy supporters gathered outside of the Missoulian to protest Lee Enterprises.
But what I really want to talk about is what happened next, after the Indy was killed. That day, and for many weeks after, people in Missoula were furious and sad. And over the course of the past five years, I’ve continued to hear almost every day from people bemoaning its loss. “I took the Indy for granted,” has been a refrain on repeat. For many of us at the Indy, though, it took just a few days to feel something different. Yes, sad, but also hopeful. Here we were, a group of reporters and editors who were no longer owned by an out-of-state corporation. The other thing? We had understood for a long time that the Indy had become a precarious business. The print advertising revenue model failed in the face of platforms like Facebook. So, we had no paper, but we had an opportunity. We could start over and build an independent news source that was truly, once again, independent and based on a more sustainable revenue model. We were going to figure it out.
Thing is, there weren’t many successful local journalism models to look to, just dire predictions that it was doomed. The former Indy staff had to take new jobs. People moved away. Starting a new publication became a series of fits and starts. And then we found ourselves in a pandemic. Which is why it has taken us five years to get here. But we never stopped working on it. We spent countless hours talking with the smartest people we know in Missoula over coffee and beers, and researching and weighing different approaches. And only just a few years ago, we started seeing the emergence of funding and infrastructure—on a national scale—to support a new wave of sustainable independent journalism.
Now we are here, as The Pulp. Not a replacement for the Indy, but a publication with some of its DNA. Our rollout of content will be slow, but calculated. We will begin as a digital publication, because for all the innovation happening in the industry right now, the most viable models are digital. But our plan is to figure out if there is a sustainable way to do print. Just know we hear you: That desire for that tactile paper in your hands over a cup of coffee or pint of beer—we get it.
In the meantime, expect local stories that move you, make you laugh or cry, maybe make you mad, and, we’re hoping, make you want to have a conversation with the rest of the community. As we work to shape The Pulp, we will be sharing with you the many, many people who have supported us along the way, including founding businesses and individuals, essential early donors, grant founders, and people who have donated their time, goods, advice and/or all of the above. It’s a long-ass list, which is why it is no stretch to call The Pulp a news source made by Missoula.
This past Monday was the anniversary of the Indy closing five years ago. It also marked a new beginning. At around 9 a.m. The Pulp convened its first editorial meeting, where about 12 freelance writers, photographers, editors, and illustrators sat together to begin the real work. It was a monumental moment, exciting because there are so many stories to do—on housing, the environment, local politics, the arts—and, of course, on the best burgers. We love Missoula, and we also know it requires independent, accessible, local news that can hold up that mirror so we know who we are, so we can hold power to account, invite positive change, critique where we know we can do better, and celebrate what’s worth celebrating. It’s been five years of building, discussing, and imagining. And we are finally ready to launch. I hope you’ll support this work!
