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Veteran Scribe Details Montana’s Political Landscape in New Book

Longtime reporter Mike Dennison will swap political tales at Kalispell book-signing event Oct. 19

By Tristan Scott
The Montana State Capitol building in Helena. Beacon file photo

Anyone looking for a detailed map of Montana’s political landscape covering the past 30 years would be hard pressed to find a better cartographer than Mike Dennison.

A veteran political reporter whose 38-year career has spanned numerous news organizations, Dennison has enjoyed a front-row seat to the Treasure State’s shifting political sands, which he’s detailed in his new book, “Inside Montana Politics: A Reporter’s View from the Trenches.”

Currently the chief political reporter at MTN News, Dennison, a 1981 graduate of the University of Montana School of Journalism, cut his teeth as a reporter for the Great Falls Tribune, as well as at wire services in Helena, Colorado and Seattle before beginning his immersion in the state’s political waters in 1992, when he became the Tribune’s political bureau chief. It was a one-man bureau, which gave Dennison latitude in how he crafted his coverage.

“It was really a cool job because you could write your own ticket. I liked it because I wanted to do a different type of coverage than just going to meetings and covering events. I wanted to be more active and initiatory in determining what are the issues, what’s important and what’s not being told here,” Dennison told the Beacon. “A lot of the coverage in the state was what I would call reactionary coverage, and I wanted to take some real initiative.”

The cover of Montana journalist Mike Dennison’s new book, “Inside Montana Politics: A Reporter’s View from the Trenches.” Courtesy image.

That initiative led Dennison to break some of the major stories of the time, a streak he’s continued throughout his career, covering Govs. Marc Racicot, Judy Martz and Brian Schweitzer, as well as U.S. Sens. Conrad Burns, Max Baucus and Jon Tester.

In addition to the political figures that figured prominently in his daily coverage, he also broke stories about influential events, most notably the demise of the electric utility Montana Power Company, the 1991 Montana State Prison riots and the exoneration of Cody Marble, a man wrongfully convicted of rape as a teenager.

While Dennison continues to cover political goings-on in the state with gusto, he says he focused on those seminal moments in history because they helped define a course of Montana history while charting his own career, which led him to report alongside Chuck Johnson at Lee Enterprises’ political bureau before taking his current assignment in television.

When he began working on the book about nine years ago, Dennison’s “aim was to choose the top political figures and events in my career,” he said. “ I chose people who were influential, some of them prominent and some not, as well as events like Montana Power and Cody Marble.”

One current that runs throughout the book and Dennison’s career is his dedication to fairness, both in his coverage and his news-gathering process, which has helped him earn and maintain a high degree of credibility few other Montana bylines command.

“One of the main things that I feel has helped is that when I’m dealing with sources and the people I cover, I am totally honest about what I am doing, where the story is going, who I’m talking to, what they’re saying, and that kind of disarms people,” Dennison said. “I’ve found that’s a great tactic, because even when you break a controversial story, people trust you.”

Dennison will appear Oct. 19 at 4 p.m. at Kalispell Brewing Co. to discuss his book, answer questions, and sell and sign copies.