WyoFile board and staff from top left: Gene Ruckman, Charlotte Belton, Matthew Copeland, Andrew Graham, Loring Woodman, Nadia White, Guy Padgett, Karen Hertel, Elyse Guarino and Angus M. Thuermer Jr.
WyoFile’s Mission is to inform and engage Wyoming through in-depth reporting in the public interest
WyoFile began in early 2008 as the brainchild of founder Christopher Findlater, who got together with a small group of veteran Wyoming journalists to plan how to give Wyoming better in-depth news coverage through an on-line platform. Findlater was Wyofile’s primary financial backer for its first two years. WyoFile became a 501(c)3 non-profit in 2009. Rone Tempest was WyoFile’s first long-time editor. He had retired to Wyoming, where he had spent part of his childhood, after serving as the Los Angeles Times bureau chief in New Delhi, Beijing, and Paris. In 2011, WyoFile was able to hire Dustin Bleizeffer, long-time energy reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune, as editor-in-chief. Rone Tempest has continued as a free-lancer for WyoFile. WyoFile’s financial base has expanded over the years to include support in grants and donations from the John S. and James Knight Foundation, The George B. Storer Foundation, and Christopher Findlater, among others.
WyoFile has partnered with the Wyoming Community Foundation in conjunction with a 2012 Knight Foundation Community Information Challenge grant. WyoFile also received grants from the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation yearly since 2011. These recent partnerships resulted in a project to expand WyoFile’s reporting capabilities, for increased coverage of government & policy, and of the Wind River Indian Reservation and Native American issues. For the Knight Foundation Community Information Challenge grant awarded in 2010, WyoFile was sponsored by the Lander Community Foundation.
WyoFile is also a member of the Investigative News Network, an associate member of the Wyoming Press Association, and works in collaboration with Wyoming’s legacy media, and other news organizations. WyoFile is also supported by reader donations, and we need more of your help. If you support our in-depth reporting on Wyoming’s people, places and policy, please donate what you can. If you can’t make a financial donation, please campaign to get your friends and co-workers to sign up for WyoFile’s free email subscription. The larger our subscription list, the easier it is for us to raise money.
Our Name
Our name is a play on words that reflects our journalistic purpose and our love for our uniquely beautiful mountain state.
