National Parks Traveler to close amid funding woes |
National Parks Traveler founder Kurt Repanshek kayaking while on assignment in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park.
National Parks Traveler — among the oldest publications dedicated to national parks coverage in the United States — announced on April 6 that without the intervention of a new, long-term donor, the site will soon be closing.
Kurt Repanshek, the publication’s founder and editor-in-chief, told SFGATE that the decision to shut down has been a challenging one, particularly at a moment when public lands and the people working to protect them are facing unprecedented challenges. The work is as important as it has ever been, Repanshek said, but he’s approaching his 70th birthday this year with personal goals yet to achieve.
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“It’s been the honor of a lifetime to do this work, and now we really need the next generation of journalists to step up and bring forward their own ideas about how to cover the parks,” he said. “We also need the public to support this work, which we’ve always known is not just critical but wanted and well-received.”
Repanshek, a veteran journalist of almost five decades, first began blogging about national parks in the early 1990s, shortly after leaving his longtime post as a general assignment reporter at the Associated Press. His wife had gotten a job in Utah, and upon relocating there, Repanshek turned to freelancing. His blog about national parks found a ready audience, such that by the time he officially launched the publication as a full-time endeavor in 2005, he already had hundreds of loyal readers.
Over time, the group’s reporting has grown from daily news to include deeply reported features, special series, an app and a weekly........