24 June 2018 — 1745 mdt
The last of the Last Best News
Ed Kemmick announced last night that his Billings based online newspaper, The Last Best News, will suspend operations at the end of June. He’ll keep the LBN online in a read-only mode through the end of August.
What led to his decision to step away from an online news publication that, along with the Missoula Current, and the Flathead Beacon (also a print publication), proved that news reporting can survive without splashing law enforcement booking photos over the home page as click bait? A recognition that one should move along while one can still do so on one’s own terms.
I started this online newspaper on Feb. 1, 2014, five weeks after leaving a 24-year stint as an editor and reporter for the [Billings] Gazette. My plan was simple and a little selfish: I wanted to have some fun and call my own shots during what I figured would be the final stage of my career.
On those terms, it was a huge success. Though I had never worked harder in my life, particularly during the first couple of years of Last Best News, the freedom I experienced and the fun I had were indescribable. And in 4½ years, I managed to write myself a paycheck every two weeks, without fail.
But another kind of freedom started beckoning me more than a year ago, about the time I turned 62. It occurred to me that in all my life there had been only a few relatively short periods when I lived as a full-time human being, free and untethered. Once the idea of reclaiming that kind of freedom took hold of me, it was hard to think of anything else.
I hope that someone with Kemmick’s editorial skills, and with the money and business savvy that running a successful news public require, steps in to take the LBN to the next level. If that doesn’t happen, an effort should be made to keep the read-only version the LBN online for at least a decade in addition to making sure it becomes part of the archives at a major library. Perhaps some kind of Kickstarter campaign is in order.
As for Kemmick, he still sees feels the soul of the city, still appreciates the calm of wide open spaces under big blue skies, still hears the restless rush of the Yellowstone, and still finds inspiration in the prairie lights as they twinkle in the twilight. More stories will flow from his pen, enlightening and entertaining us for many more years.
We may have heard the last of the Last Best News, but the best of Ed Kemmick is still to come.