John Adams

I saw a continued decline of the print newspapers that were still active in the state.

Well, at the time, you know, by the time I left, it was I know there was, you know, a handful of TV reporters that would kind of cycle through.

Usually they weren't there for more than just a session or two.

And then Montana is a very small media market.

So any of the good TV reporters, media, as soon as their contract was up, went to a bigger market.

So you didn't have a lot of except for our friend Maritza.

Except for our friend Maritza.

Exactly.

She's one of the exceptions for sure.

So, you know, there was two sort of legendary longtime state house reporters, Chuck Johnson and Mike Dennison, who were anchored to the Lee Newspapers Bureau.

And those were the guys who I really kind of looked at as my competition.

Chuck had been doing it for that point, you know, probably close to 40 years.

I had followed in Mike and Chuck's footsteps in both the Great Falls Tribune and then they went on to the Lee Bureau.

And

Um, so we were friendly competitors, um, you know, much as I'm sure you kind of experienced, you know, in DC, you know, you, you want to beat them on a scoop, but you also, you know, have fun conversations in the basement of the team press score against those, those, uh, partisan, you know, guys left and right.

Yeah.

And then a few months after I, uh, after I was let go from the tribune, um, Mike and Chuck were, uh,

basically forced into retirement from Lee.

And so within just a matter of months, three of the most experienced state house reporters in the Capitol were out on the street, so to speak.

And there was just a lot of concern about who was gonna cover what's going on.