Copper Chorus: Dennis Swibold’s look at Montana’s not-so-free press

By Sara Lettus
J-School Web Reporter

Book cover of "Copper Chorus: Mining, Politics, and the Montana Press, 1889-1959" by Dennis Swibold.

Politics meets greed, greed meets corruption and corruption meets journalism in Dennis Swibold’s new book, “Copper Chorus: Mining, Politics, and the Montana Press, 1889-1959.”

Published in late September by the Montana Historical Society Press, the book tells the tale of the kings and wars of the Anaconda Copper Company and how its power led to corruption of the Montana press.

“Which hasn’t always been that free,” said Swibold, professor of reporting and editing at the University of Montana School of Journalism since 1989.

The story begins at Montana statehood and follows the rise of the Copper Kings: William A. Clark, who owned the Butte Miner; F. Augustus Heinze, who owned the Butte Reveille; and Marcus Daly, who started the Anaconda Standard.

Although these newspapers printed only what favored the company, people ate it up because it “promoted metro-style news” in a state with so few people, said Swibold.

With anecdotes and 115 illustrations and cartoons from the copper-mining era, Swibold’s book traces the history of Montana newspapers and how they were affected by the political arguments of the day.

“Before 1930, the papers were attack dogs,” Swibold said.

But after that the mining company gained control over all but one of the state’s major papers. Eventually, Anaconda bought out dailies in Butte, Helena, Billings, Livingston and Missoula.

They printed what best suited the advance of the company and anything bad about their enemies, about people who didn’t support mining.

“Who were these editors?” Swibold asks. “Didn’t this kind of journalism compromise their journalistic beliefs?

“After 1930, they edited by omission,” he said.

Essentially, it was censorship of the news. Nothing controversial was printed. If a miner was killed on the job, no one heard about it. If someone had something critical to say about the mining company in a letter to the editor, it was never printed. The only controversial subjects ever printed had to do with events happening far away.

There was a term used to describe that: “editorial Afghanistanism,” which essentially meant focusing on something that had no effect on people.

Swibold’s story also includes the fight against the Anaconda Company. Though the fight was never won, it was small, non-Anaconda papers that were courageous enough to see the company for what it was: corrupted.

After 70 years, the company sold out to Lee Enterprises, which now owns five of the state’s 10 dailies.

Until 1947, the Anaconda Company never admitted or denied what was going on. Even so, Swibold identified it as the “worst-kept secret in Montana.”

“Anaconda’s number one goal was to promote and protect the company, which had nothing to do with the interests of the people.

“It was bad for democracy, and it was bad for the progress of journalism in Montana,” he said.

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