Billings Gazette

Recent Posts

Big plans for Last Best News 2.0—and we need your help

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A few months before I launched Last Best News, I talked to David Crisp about a possible partnership. I was mostly joking, but only because I had no idea whether the online newspaper I was hoping to start could support one person, let alone two. I thought the possibility was worth mentioning, though, because I knew that if I ever reached the point of being able to expand, there was no one I’d rather work with. I had known David as an editor and reporter at the Billings Gazette in the mid-1990s, and he was so good at both jobs that it was a little daunting. (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: News, Billings Gazette, Billings Outpost, David Crisp, Ed Kemmick, Freemen, Last Best News

Tip of the day: Lee stocks rated a ‘strong sell’

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is yet more bad news for Lee Enterprises, the newspaper chain that owns the Billings Gazette and papers in Missoula, Butte, Helena and Hamilton. InvestorPlace.com has a story today headlined “9 Media Stocks to Sell Now.” Each of the nine rates a “D” (“sell”) or “F” (“strong sell”). Seven of the stocks were downgraded to “D” this week from “C” last week. Lee Enterprises is one of the two downgraded from a D to an F. Here’s the paragraph on Lee: “Lee Enterprises, Incorporated’s (LEE) rating weakens this week, dropping to a F versus last week’s D. Lee Enterprises, Incorporated owns various daily newspapers and a joint interest in several others. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Billings Gazette, InvestorPlace, Lee Enterprises

Contest: Unravel the meaning of new Gazette ad

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Ad

It’s contest time! Here’s how it works: We will publish, verbatim, portions of a Billings Gazette employment ad and you, our readers, will attempt to figure out what the hell it means. There will be no prizes because there is no way of determining what the “correct” answer is. We just want you to put on your thinking cap, let your imagination run wild and try to explain to the rest of us what the Gazette could possibly be looking for. The ad, which I could not find online, is on Page D1 of the print edition of the Gazette, in the upper-left corner. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Billings Gazette, Lee Enterprises

Well, that car is definitely stopped

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Wreck

I’m afraid I don’t have any actual news on this, but I thought the photo was interesting enough on its own. I mean, whatever else the driver may have done wrong, he or she did stop, right? This was at Seventh Street West and Cook Avenue about 4:30 p.m. Monday. The strange thing is, I had been driving past the area around Eighth and Cook half an hour earlier and saw a firetruck and police car with lights flashing. There appeared to have been two cars involved in an accident there, and a woman was being taken away on a gurney. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Billings Gazette, Billings Police Department, Car wrecks

Remembering a time when passing remarks were free

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The recent death of Billings Outpost columnist Roger Clawson created pause for reflection—not just about Roger—but life, death, obituaries and newspapering in general. The Outpost had a tribute to Roger as well as a formal just-the-facts-ma’am obituary. Outpost editor David Crisp’s account, and the obituary, appeared online via Last Best News even before the Outpost went to press. Later, Ed Kemmick of Last Best News published his own reflections on Roger. Neither charged a cent for the coverage. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Culture, Billings Gazette, Billings Outpost, David Crisp, Great Falls Tribune, Roger Clawson

Prairie Lights: Clawson’s big heart, brilliant pen live on

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Clawson

When the Billings Gazette hired me as a night editor in 1989, I was thrilled at the prospect of working alongside Roger Clawson. I had known of him since the mid-1970s, when I first started visiting Billings in the company of the Missoula Flying Mules, a gang of bar hounds masquerading as a hockey team. (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: Prairie Lights, Billings Gazette, Billings Outpost, David Crisp, Mark Twain, Mike Royko, Missoula Flying Mules, Roger Clawson

At Your Service: Reflections, regrets at the end of a series

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Holy card

It was with a pang of regret that I published the 24th and last chapter in my At Your Service series last Monday. I began thinking of such a series something like 20 years ago, figuring it would be fascinating to visit some of the many churches in Billings and hoping that my “reviews” of the services might be of interest to others. At the time, though, and for many years after, I couldn’t imagine where I might publish such a series. (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: At Your Service, Billings Gazette, Facebook, Iris Dement, Montana Folk Festival, nondiscrimination ordinance

David Crisp: The Internet and the death of simple pleasures

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Crisp

I was thinking the other day about how much I hate computers. It’s not just that they have turned every American worker into a computer maintenance technician, or that ads pop up in the middle of the screen while I am trying to read something. It isn’t even that the only language computers seem to understand is profanity, nor that the screen may suddenly go blank at some crucial point. (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: From the Outpost, Billings Gazette, Jeff Welsch, Joshua Benton, Ken Doctor, Nieman Reports