This week on Front Row Center, Lauren Korn speaks with Erika Fredrickson and Matthew Frank, former Missoula Independent reporters and the founders of The Pulp, a new independent, non-profit news organization covering politics, arts, and culture in Missoula, Montana.
The Missoula Independent, lovingly referred to as the “Indy,” was an alternative weekly newspaper published (in print!) from 1991-2018 in Missoula. The paper was shuttered in 2018, shortly after the staff unionized under the new ownership of Lee Enterprises, which owns seventy-seven newspapers in the U.S., including the Missoulian, the Billings Gazette, the Independent Record (Helena), the Montana Standard (Butte), and other publications in Montana.
Fredrickson, the defunct paper’s Arts & Culture Editor (2008-2018), has been organizing former Indy staffers and other Missoula residents since its shuttering. The Pulp launched its website mid-September, 2023; it will begin as an online-only news source, though Frank says the organization is also interested in eventually including a print component. The Pulp held a community fundraiser for two weeks in late September.
