Media appearances

John Clayton's interviews, op-eds, and media appearances.

Montana’s politicians have lost their ties to land

Choosing by ideology rather than roots marks a change in self-identity.

Writers on the Range (Aug. 2024)

You’re not the boss in wilderness

On the 60th anniversary of the 1964 Wilderness Act

Writers on the Range (Feb. 2024)

In small towns, bookstores are thriving

Independent bookstores are growing, even in the rural West

Writers on the Range (June 2024)

John Muir and small town service clubs

How a visit to the Rotary luncheon got me thinking about the benefits of abandoning political ideologies

Denver Post (April 2023)

John's interview with Meghna Chakrabarti

The battling philosophies around conservation that gave us the public lands we have today ⁠— and what we can learn from the debate.

NPR's OnPoint (August 2019)

Lessons from a previous environmental catastrophe

In June of 1894, the superintendent of Sequoia National Park faced a natural-resource nightmare. His response offers us lessons today.

National Parks Traveler (July 2019)

Was John Muir racist?

The answer depends, not on Muir’s actions, but on recent, productive redefinitions of the word 'racist'

WyoHistory.org (August 2020)

Previously

At NPR's OnPoint, Meghna's follow-up interview with John (and others), "What Climate Change Means For America's National Parks" (June 2021)

At salon.com, "Trump and Ryan Zinke may want to shrink national monument boundaries — but history points the other way" (August 2017)

At WyoHistory.org, "Racism and Race Horse" on the implications of the Supreme Court's 2019 Herrera decision, which largely validated Indian tribes’ treaty-reserved off-reservation hunting rights (October 2020)

For A Podcast Runs Through It, an interview about Natural Rivals (April 2020)

At Newsweek, the misleadingly-titled "Is Trump about to sell off our national parks?" (October 2017)

At salon.com, "America's most egregious 'federal land grab' was in 1891" (May 2017)

At John's previous blog, "When rivals collaborate" (June 2019)

For KTVQ news, an interview "Yellowstone author John Clayton on Montana This Morning" (October 2017)

At High Country News, "I’m thinking of naming my dog 'Obamacare'" (June 2016)