From Staff Reports
CODY, WYO. — Yellowstone Gate and its editor have been recognized for outstanding work in covering Yellowstone National Park. The accolades follow a site redesign and renewed focus on covering Yellowstone and Grand Teton as a newsroom beat, and the addition of new trip planning resources.
Yellowstone Gate editor Ruffin Prevost was named by the Society of Professional Journalists as the region’s best small newsroom beat reporter. The first-place finish in the 2024 Top of the Rockies Awards was among entrants from Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming in recognition of Prevost’s coverage of Yellowstone National Park.
His award-winning work included a collection of Yellowstone articles published in news outlets throughout the region, including several written for Yellowstone Gate.
More than 100 total news outlets and freelance writers submitted more than 1,900 entries in the annual competition, which was judged by the Los Angeles Press Club.
“The competition grows each year, and with that, we honor outstanding journalism throughout the four-state region,” said contest coordinator Deb Hurley Brobst. “It’s an honor to recognize the hard work of these journalists.”
Prevost also won second place in a 2024 travel writing competition among members of the Western Conference of the Society of American Travel Writers. His winning piece was a two-part series on logistical and sustainability issues behind how Xanterra Travel Collection, the park’s primary concessioner, serves over 2 million meals to park visitors every year.
SATW is a professional organization comprised of more than 1,000 of the travel industry’s top journalists and others in related fields.
“I normally don’t enter pieces in awards competitions because I don’t like to pay the entry fees, and the self-promotion that comes with winning these kinds of awards seems awkward and sometimes even a little tacky,” Prevost said.
“But an editor entered my work and covered the fees, and I’m glad she did. Because it can get lonely working as a one-person newsroom in a remote area,” he said. “So you can bet I’m going to mention it when I win.”
Prevost said he has spent much of the summer redesigning Yellowstone Gate, building on the widely acclaimed Newspack template for WordPress employed by small, independent newsrooms worldwide. He also plans to continue covering Yellowstone and Grand Teton as a unified beat, and will begin building out a trip planning area on the site.
“These two parks are among the most dazzling crown jewels in our national park system. But their remote location makes it costly and time consuming for newsrooms to cover them,” Prevost said. “I hope to continue writing about the parks for readers worldwide. And in an effort to make Yellowstone Gate more economically sustainable, I will be building out trip planning resources that help readers—especially first-time visitors—get the most out of their time in the parks.”
Prevost said he plans to attend the annual Independent News Sustainability Summit scheduled for early September in Chicago. Hosted by LION Publishers, a nonprofit organization of local, independent, online news organizations, the conference helps support the nearly 500 member organizations, including Yellowstone Gate, in addressing the changing landscape of the news industry.
“I want to thank Yellowstone Gate readers for visiting the site, sending in news tips and sharing content with others,” Prevost said. “With their support, I plan to continue building on these successes.”
Contact Yellowstone Gate at 307-213-9818 or [email protected].