MSNBC to film in the MonDak region

National news attention will follow a group of explorers down the Missouri River through the MonDak region Sept. 10-11 as a part of a MSNBC’s Great Escapes: Down the Missouri River project.

By Ellen Robinson

Sidney Herald

http://sidneyherald.com/articles/2004/08/30/news/news02.txt

Traveling the length of the Missouri River from its source in Montana to the confluence with the Mississippi River, an interactive team of a writer, photographers and a videographer will travel the river using various forms of transportation for two weeks beginning Saturday.

The length of the journey is 2,315 miles from the river’s source to the Mississippi confluence.

"We are very excited that the crew is spending a week in Montana. They are excited to come here; they love Montana," Donnie Sexton, Travel Montana promotional photographer, Helena, said.

MSNBC will feature the journey as it unfolds on its Web site and television show, "Great Escapes."

The group will explore the scenic landscapes, celebrating the rich cultural heritage and experiencing the wild adventures along the Missouri River drainage during this, the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

"The crew consists of well-seasoned explorers who have traveled around the world. They just got done on the Nile in Egypt. They are producing an IMAX film from the Nile project," Sexton said.

"I really hope they find our area interesting. They will visit places like Snowden Bridge, Fairview Bridge, the forts, and they have planned to spend some time in the North Unit (Theodore

Roosevelt National Grasslands) which is one of the nicest places around," Ray Trumpower, Fairview Chamber of Commerce, said.

In the "Great Escapes" project, a travel story is written each night of the journey, a video is produced, the best photos are selected and audio reports are dispatched to the MSNBC headquarters in Redmond, Wash.

The following mornings, the entire work is published in a multimedia showcase at http://www.greatescapes.msnbc.com ("Great Escapes: Texas" is currently featured).

The journey will be featured on MSNBC, with some 20 million viewers a month, and on MSN with more than 80 million homepage hits per month.

Instead of weeks between dispatches, the crew will publish the musings and insights, images and audio, of correspondents within hours.

"The Internet simultaneous broadcasting on MSNBC through the Web site and TV show is really very interesting. This is really exciting for our area because it is rare to get national news coverage," Trumpower said.

According to MSNBC promotion material, Richard Bangs, co-executive producer and editor of the "Great Escapes" series, said, "When in 1871 James Gordon Bennett, owner of the New York Herald, sent Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to find the missing David Livingstone, a new type of serial travel journalism was born – the journey as journaled. Stanley sent back his dispatches by courier and overland mail from the field, and when they reached New York and were published, there was terrific enthusiasm among readers, who got a then-rare glimpse into an unfolding adventure in a land far away and unfamiliar."

"With the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, we will be seeing several unique things coming through here in the next three years," Trumpower said.

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