Innovations in media: 'Power Soak'

One of my favorite music books of 2026 is Brendan Borrell’s “Power Soak: Invention, Obsession, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Sound.” 

It’s the story of Tom Scholz, the founder of the band Boston, and the legal shenanigans surrounding the band’s long-delayed third album. Scholz, ever the perfectionist, resisted intense record company pressure to release “Third Stage,” in order to capitalize on the mammoth sales of Boston’s first two albums.  

As Borrell writes, “When Scholz refused to hand over his own record, ‘Third Stage,’ until it met his exacting standards, CBS Records chief Walter Yetnikoff declared war. Royalties were cut off. Lawsuits piled up. The band splintered. And Scholz sank further into isolation.

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Innovations in media: 'Yampa Yearnings'

Longtime Steamboat Springs journalist Eugene Buchanan is a hustler, and that’s allowed him to freely follow his passions for decades.

Buchanan, a fellow employee at Steamboat Pilot & Today with me, is an experienced explorer, magazine editor and writer, and writer of a half-dozen books. 

His latest, “Yampa Yearnings: An Ode to One of the Last Wild Rivers in the West,” is a 412-page, self-published love letter to the Yampa River, which runs through Steamboat Springs on its way to Dinosaur National Monument near the Colorado-Utah border. 

The book, Buchanan writes, “heralds northwest Colorado’s Yampa River, the last remaining free-flowing tributary to the Colorado River Basin. From its headwaters a fly cast from the birthplace of the country’s wilderness movement to its confluence with the Green 250 miles later in Dinosaur National Monument, the Yampa River supports agriculture, municipalities, a word-class ski resort, industry, endangered fish, unique riparian zones, water rights, recreation and more. “

In addition to being a fun and informative read, the book highlights Buchanan’s entrepreneurial spirit.

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Innovations in media: Kerr County Lead

Relentlessly creative is how I describe Louis Amestoy, my former compadre at The Bakersfield Californian. Louis is passionate about local media and is constantly unearthing new ways to serve readers and advertisers in new ways. 

Over the past two decades, he’s been a leader in leveraging live video of all kinds into other content streams. A recent example of this comes via the Kerr County Lead, the 5-year-old digital-first media company he founded and operates in Kerrville, Texas. 

Amestoy is a multimedia master who hosts an hour-long livestreamed video show on Facebook every weekday morning in addition to producing a wide variety of stories, photos and video for his robust community-news site. 

Of particular note for me was Amestoy’s production of a glossy 160-page, perfect-bound “2025 in Review” magazine featuring a variety of original content, but with a primary focus on the tragic flooding in Kerr County that killed 119 people on July 4. The issue — with the overarching cover headline “Our duty is simple: Remember” — is dominated by a hard-hitting analysis of the flood and its aftermath, and a celebration of those who lost their lives. But other content spotlights the many positive things that occurred in the market during 2025. Amid the tragedy,

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