Innovations in media: 'The Cloud Report'

I learned about Christine Tyler Hill from a front-page Wall Street Journal article about the school crossing guard’s passion project that is now earning $14,000 a month in subscriptions. 

Hill publishes The Cloud Report, a monthly 8-page zine that’s “about nothing and everything.” The 2-color risograph print is on 4.25-inch by 5.5-inch stock she binds, stamps and hand labels for mailing. 

Hill is a designer and illustrator who uses her daily 50-minute crossing guard shift to uncover interesting moments at a Burlington, Vt., intersection. 

Of The Cloud Report, Hill says, “Active subscribers receive a newsletter filled with drawn and written observations from the intersection, the woods, the studio, the garden, and other

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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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