Welcome to Impact.

Welcome to Impact.

Montana PBS’s news and public affairs series examining issues important to you.

Impact is the news and public affairs program from Montana PBS.

We're making short news documentaries.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that homelessness in Montana grew by 45% last year.

As scientists learn more about the dangers of forever chemicals known as PFAS, we’re investigating their presence here in Montana.

We get to spend a little more time with stories than on the nightly news, which really gives us the time to find the quieter voices that aren't drawing attention to themselves.

I think Bozeman is actually really trying.

It's just this town is expensive.

Most people think that to a rancher it’s all about the money and that’s not it.

When I walk out the door every day, I know that the animals that are out there depend on me completely.

We always try and decide what is the local news or the local newspaper not covering?

How can we be, additive?

We’re very, very close to having our language extinguished forever.

If we start to limit the ways people can get into the mountains My worry is that who then cares about the mountains?

Editorial independence is paramount for the work that we do.

Someone can't call us and say, “Because I donated a certain amount of money, you're gonna do this story on this topic.” It lets me do my job in a way that serves viewers the best.

So we don’t know if it was the organic or the non-organic.

We don’t know what brand.

But, if you check and see what happened on the next page.

Oh, wow.

We're in such a period of transition now.

Local newsrooms everywhere are shrinking.

There's some intense polarization that we're going through in our country right now, and it's making some conversations difficult.

This is a very polarized issue and people are very passionate on all ends.

I think there are some hard discussions to be had.

Maybe we could start some of those now?

We need good information.

We need information that is backed up by research.

We're giving you the facts, and then you have your own opinion.

These are all the races that voters in Yellowstone County are gonna get a chance to weigh in on.

Are there any races on there that you’ve never heard of?

When we don't have journalism, I think we lose a sense of community.

We lose civil dialog.

We lose shared reality.

We want people who live in these far reaching communities to know that their stories are being told, too.

Montana gets a little smaller when people can see different parts of the state reflected in our coverage.

Local journalism is a really great opportunity to include a lot more voices and have a lot more people feel like they understand their neighbors.

People from Montana are proud to be here, and they should be, because we live in a beautiful, wonderful state.

I think it's a real privilege that we get to cover Montana as Montana's local news outlet.