Swift Communications, the parent company of the Steamboat Pilot & Today, is launching a regional reporting team to cover the most pressing issues on Colorado’s Western Slope. 

The strategic move aims to deliver more in-depth analysis and reporting on the intersecting issues facing the mountain communities where Swift operates nine publications and employs more than 40 journalists. 

Swift Communications is a subsidiary of West Virginia-based Ogden Newspapers, which publishes over 50 daily newspapers in 18 states stretching from New York to Hawaii.

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Meet the team

The team will consist of four reporters based in Colorado and will be led by Andrew Maciejewski, the editor of the Summit Daily News in Summit County. 

Maciejewski, a graduate of Indiana University’s Media School in Bloomington, came to the Summit Daily News in March 2022 after serving as the executive editor of the Central Indiana News Group, leading a team of 18 reporters and editors across a five-county region. His passion for journalism lies in government accountability, municipal finance and taxpayer-funded project oversight.

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“While all of our communities are unique in their own ways, rural resort towns face many of the same issues but approach them in different ways,” Maciejewski said. “With our reporters living across the mountains, Front Range and Western Slope, my goal for this team is to write stories that allow our communities to collaborate on finding solutions to our challenges.” 

A complex array of issues intersect on Colorado’s Western Slope — a region known for ski boots and cowboy boots. The new reporting team’s mandate is to cover how those issues impact the daily lives of residents and the millions of visitors who come to Colorado’s High Country each year to recreate.

Key areas of focus for the new reporting team will include housing and real estate, outdoors and recreation, wildlife, the environment, water, the ski industry, transportation, health, education, business, public safety, equity and immigration, the state legislature, regional politics, and arts and entertainment. 

Elliott Wenzler, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, and a graduate of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, has been covering Western Slope politics from her home base in Denver since joining Swift in October 2023.

Wenzler has lived in Colorado since 2019 and previously worked for The Colorado Sun and Colorado Community Media. Her beat includes the state Capitol and Colorado’s congressional delegation representing the Western Slope as well as politics in the region. 

Ali Longwell grew up in Colorado and began her career in journalism after graduating from the University of Denver in 2016. She has worked and written for several magazines on the Front Range including 5280 Magazine, Colorado Biz Magazine, Denver Life Magazine and spent two years covering enterprise technology for SDxCentral.

Longwell joined the Vail Daily in March 2021 where she was the lead reporter covering the town of Vail and covered education in Eagle County and the health care industry. Her reporting for the regional team will focus on the environment and water, wildlife, health, and arts and entertainment.

Andrea Terés-Martínez joined the Glenwood Springs Post Independent as its assistant editor in September 2023. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and raised in Boise, Idaho, she attended Boise State University, where she was editor-in-chief of the university newspaper, The Arbiter.

Terés-Martínez also interned as a reporter for the Idaho Statesman and, more recently, was a publishing editor intern for The Wall Street Journal in New York. At the Post Independent, Terés-Martínez has covered business and development, Latino affairs, housing issues, and civic government in Garfield County. Her reporting for the regional team will focus on education, business, public safety and equity and immigration.

Robert Tann has been covering county government, education and housing for the Summit Daily News since December of 2022. Before that, he worked at Colorado Community Media where he covered local government and housing in the Denver Metro area. Tann was born in London, England and raised in Aurora, Colorado.

He attended the University of Colorado at Boulder where he served as editor-in-chief of the online student news website. He has interned and freelanced for several Colorado media outlets including The Colorado Sun, Colorado Politics and the Daily Camera in Boulder. His reporting for the regional team will focus on housing and real estate, transportation, the outdoors, and Colorado’s recreation and ski industries. 

Swift Communications’ investment in the regional reporting team reflects its ongoing commitment to strengthening local journalism and serving its communities.