Gwen Florio, City Editor
Keeping a sharp tongue in the face of opposition
By Amanda Price
A large row of windows looking out on the Clark Fork River frames a bright newsroom. Atop one desk, the head of a mannequin donning a hard hat peers across the cluttered chaos as if ready for battle, and a small sticker under the computer monitor exclaims, “read a f**cking book.”
The desk of oddities belongs to Gwen Florio, the city editor of the Missoulian newspaper. After covering big national stories, like the shooting at Columbine High, and international ones, like the war in Afghanistan, she came to the mountain town in search of open spaces and long vistas.
“I wanted to live in Montana, very selfishly, and I looked for jobs up here for years, and finally found one that worked,” Florio said.
Florio spends her mornings ritually checking and re-checking the Associated Press news feed for up-to-date news about Montana, compiling stories into a list called a budget. She chats with reporters and checks messages to keep track of what writers and photographers are working on.
Her day picks up speed around 2 p.m., when articles start pouring in, to be edited and reworked before being OK’d to run in the following print edition.
Covering a tight-knit community like Missoula inevitably invites criticism, especially when reporters tell uncomfortable truths, as Florio did, when she broke the news about the rape scandal at the University of Montana in 2011.
Readers have confronted her in the supermarket or at the county fair about her work.
“You have to be able to defend your stories,” Florio said. “You’ve got to be able to feel very comfortable that that story was as good as it could be.”
Not long after the scandal, Florio left the Missoulian to focus on creative writing. She published four novels, reaped glowing reviews and a few awards, and went on book tours. She also taught part-time at the University of Montana journalism school.
In 2016, Kathy Best, the Missoulian’s new editor, asked her to return to the paper. Florio said her first reaction was, “No, no and hell, no.” She changed her mind, accepted and has never regretted it, she said.
Opposition has kept her writing honest, her tongue sharp and her words witty.
From the desk equipped with a battle-ready comrade, Florio continues to wage the daily battle for the truth, one word at a time.
