The Anaconda Leader, a twice-weekly newspaper that had served its community in southwest Montana for more than half a century, announced Monday that it had closed. Its demise follows a nationwide trend of local outlets struggling to stay in business.
The newspaper published its last print edition Friday, according to editor James Rosien. In a story posted Monday on its website, owner Van Neitz cited inflation and rising operational costs as the reasons for the closure. Montana Free Press could not reach Neitz for comment.
Founded in 1970, The Leader, which included a commercial printing business in addition to the newspaper, employed about half a dozen people, two of whom were journalists, according to Rosien. Most employees were part-time.
Rosien said the news of the closure came as a surprise.
“I was actually looking forward to writing up a piece on Sunday night’s A’s [American Legion baseball] game, when they had a big win over East Helena,” Rosien said. It was those stories, “the little ones,” that Rosien said provided the backbone of the paper’s coverage.
“It’s local sports. It’s students’ achievements,” Rosien said. “Gosh, I was just photographing the graduation on Friday. We were going to have a lot of coverage from that.”
But the Leader covered big stories, too.
When Michael Paul Brown allegedly shot and killed four people in Anaconda last summer, Rosien’s team was one of the first outlets to report on what he called “one of the worst occurrences in the city’s history.”
Rosien said he has written and edited thousands of stories since he moved to Anaconda in 2011.
“Anaconda welcomed me, and they appreciated me. And I felt the same way and more,” Rosien said. “It was where I was able to hang my hat. It became my home.”
Rosien said he hopes “to continue covering Anaconda and southwest Montana in one way, shape, or form or another.” But he doesn’t currently have any concrete plans.
Local outlets across Montana and the country are struggling to stay afloat.
In Montana, the Valley Journal, a newspaper south of Flathead Lake in the 2,000-person town of Ronan, shut down in May. Mullen Newspaper Company, which owns a handful of publications across Montana, has been consolidating its assets along the Hi-Line. In April, The Havre Weekly Chronicle shut down. Most counties in the state have either one local news outlet or none whatsoever, according to a 2025 map developed by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
According to John Cribb, managing director at the publication broker Cribb & Associates, a decrease in local publications is “an unsettling nationwide trend.”
“A lot of the closures Cribb & Associates tracks result from the combination of changing economics and a lack of local ownership interest,” Cribb said in a written statement to MTFP.
Rosien acknowledged the challenges of any future venture that might bring local journalism back to Anaconda, but said that, for the time being, he is grateful for the Leader’s staff, readership and “everybody that welcomed us into their lives.”
“We’re very proud of what we did,” Rosien said.
Editor’s note: Zeke Lloyd spent a week at the Anaconda Leader in the summer of 2025 as part of Montana Free Press’ Reporter Residency program, which was funded entirely by MTFP.
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