Long-form storytelling: “The Land Pays the Price”

THE PROJECT: America’s public lands face new and escalating threats. Earlier this year, thousands of federal employees who steward public lands—people who care for the land, conduct valuable research, fight fires, and more—were indiscriminately terminated from their positions. At the Wyoming Outdoor Council, I helped coordinate a response, collaborating with our staff to gather signatures from nearly 1000 Wyomingites on an open letter to Wyoming’s congressional delegation opposing the firings.

As we mobilized people across the state however, we noticed a lack of emotional, human-centered stories on this issue in the media and other organizations’ coverage. That’s the gap my team and I sought to fill with “The Land Pays the Price,” a long-form reported story about a woman who lost her job as a wilderness ranger—but whose love of the land was so great that when I asked her to show me around the forest she used to work in, she didn’t hesitate to load up the saws for some impromptu trail maintenance.

THE IMPACT: Stories like these often drive home the stakes of an issue better than any fact or figure. Responses from readers included several that the story had nearly brought them to tears—while painting a fuller, more complex picture of what happens to public lands when the federal employees who care for them are fired.

This story was printed in Frontline, WOC’s biannual print publication, as well as on the WOC blog and amplified via social media.

Strategic Comms & Digital Engagement: Wyoming Legislative Session

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Publications: Frontline

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