Keith Graham | Missoula, MT | (406) 243-2238 | E-mail | Twitter | Website
The Rural News Network was set up by the University of Montana School of Journalism to recruit and train residents of rural Montana towns to report on news and information for rural websites. It resulted in the creation of two websites. The Dutton County Courier, which was later taken over by the local newspaper, the Choteau Acantha, and CrowNewsNet.org, created to cover the Crowe tribe of 8,000 people living in southern Montana. That site is now inactive.
Project Updates
- Small Towns, Big Impact (October, 2008) - In its second year, following on the heels of its success with the Dutton Country Courier, the Rural News Network launched another website in November 2007: CrowNews.net, serving the Crow tribe. The Crow Reservation covers two million acres of land in southern Montana and is home to 8,000 people. University of Montana journalism professor Keith Graham […]
- Rural Journalism 101: Covering the Basics (November, 2007) - On Saturday, May 5, 2007, 30 citizens from Dutton showed up at the Dutton-Brady School for a party to launch the new website, the Dutton Country Courier. Over hot dogs and hamburgers, a little catch and touch football, residents of rural Dutton, Montana celebrated a new beginning. Six months later, the Rural News Network’s second […]
- Rural News Network Teams Citizen Reporters with Student Journalists (April, 2007) - The Rural News Network launched the first of its town sites in March 2007 in Dutton, Montana, an agricultural community of about 375. Some of the first content on the Dutton Country Courier (duttoncc.org) was co-authored by pairing a University of Montana journalism student with a citizen journalist. A natural for the launch’s lead story […]
- Rural News Network Site to Launch in March (November, 2006) - Rural News Network has launched a beta version of the Dutton Country Courier, its website covering Dutton, Montana: www.duttoncc.org. Citizen interest in the University of Montana’s Rural News Network is high. Keith Graham, the project director, proudly reports that about 80 people in the town of Dutton attended a meeting about the RNN in the […]
- Rural News Network Recruits Town Mayor, Librarian as News Correspondents (August, 2006) - As Montana’s Rural News Network plans to launch, the project directors have been reaching out to rural communities to learn more about them and recruit citizen journalists. And students at the University of Montana School of Journalism in Missoula have been taking an active role in developing and designing the RNN website. This summer, Associate […]
