The Rocky Mountain News (1859-2009)
“It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to you today. Our time chronicling the life of Denver and Colorado, the nation and the world, is over. Thousands of men and women have worked at this newspaper since William Byers produced its first edition on the banks of Cherry Creek on April 23, 1859. We speak, we believe, for all of them, when we say that it has been an honor to serve you. To have reached this day, the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News, just 55 days shy of its 150th birthday is painful. We will scatter. And all that will be left are the stories we have told. . . .”—Final Dispatch, The Rocky Mountain News (See final website, videos, farewells.)
“Denver can’t support two newspapers any longer. It’s certainly not good news for you, and it’s certainly not good news for Denver.”
—Rich Boehne, CEO, E.W. Scripps Co., announcing closing of the 150-year-old Denver daily yesterday.
“People are in grief.” —John Temple, editor, The Rocky Mountain News
"For me, it’s a very, very sad day. As much in public life you may disagree with editors, you may get taken to task by editors, I really do believe that the First Amendment and the free exercise of the press is at the heart of what makes us strong. We lose a Colorado icon, we lose a newspaper that has contributed so much, I think, to the history of this state.”
—Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter
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And with this we see yet another example of how the rapacious corporatism model does not create value, it in fact appropriates value and then squeezes it to death.
ReplyDeleteThe Trib, LA Times, RM News... banking, insurance, local communites, small businesses, our family farming system.... all seized and strangled to death by a sociopathic corporate model.
On Feb 27, 2009, at 7:39 AM, Sally wrote:
ReplyDeleteIt's a sad day for ALL of us! We need as many good voices providing news as we can get.
Someone has suggested that Kindles be made more affordable and people subscribe to newspapers by downloading on them. No costs of paper, ink, machinery, delivery. But oh, I would miss unfolding those pages as I enjoy breakfast. Still...news in an electronic book would still be news!
Sally
Well, that is the fundamental threat--not the death of smudgy paper, but the lessening of news and an informed citizenry. But I don't know if Kindles or any other electronic product will be as effective as the paper on the stoop.
ReplyDeleteWhat newspapers do that the Web does not as well is to aggregate and order news important to a community. Coming off the latest era of corporate-government collusion and malfeasance, leading to the economic debacle (and the Iraq war), what we need is a more vigilant and active pack of watchdogs, not fewer eyes and ears....
The road goes ever on … the SF Chronicle, the Rocky Mountain News, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Christian Science Monitor, the daily in Portland, Maine … the story last night on the NBC Evening News with Brian Williams really struck home when a reporter (they didn’t CG his name, or I missed it) asked, “Who’s going to watch them (THEM) now?” With the decline and, I believe, end of daily newspapers now a foregone conclusion, who is going to call out abuses of power? And who’s going to fund it?
ReplyDeleteI wonder, Ted, is there a place in the national conversation for non-profit reporting? Would Pew or Kaufman or some other public interest foundation fund a “watchdog” blogger or reporter?
What are your journalism students thinking is going to be their “career path?” TV????
Bud
I think the seriousness of the matter is made evident as we consider who might be next... When will Salt Lake no longer be able to support two newspapers?
ReplyDeleteWow. Those were some really moving quotes. I am sad to see it go. Best of luck to all who worked there.
ReplyDeleteI've heard some proposals for government and foundation underwriting of newspapers, Bud. The obvious problem of ownership--as the Chicago Trib/Sam Zell debacles demonstrates--is the threat to good, free, aggressive and complete reporting. The Deseret News in Salt Lake, which is owned by the Mormon Church and has long been suspect for that reason, acknowledged last week that it is changing its business model to become a "Mormon niche publication." Well, I have no problem with niche publications--I have a bass fishing catalog in my bathroom!--but a metro newspaper can't be a niche publication that caters only to one segment of the population on direction of a powerful entity. Even the faithful are dismissing this as the coming of the "Mormon Times." It's good news, in other words, for the competing SLTribune.
ReplyDeleteThe foundation or government underwriting model does exist, and successfully--the BBC, CBC, PBS, etc. But it changes the nature of the news product, doesn't it? At least in terms of public perception.
Ted,
ReplyDeleteI hate to suggest this, but I wonder if you should start keeping items such as today’s in a category that you will show each time a newspaper dies. Someone needs to have a visual repository and your site would be a good one. In effect, I regret to say, you would show the field of tombstones as each newspaper dies.
Betty
That's doable, Betty--Everything's in the WORD archives. I'll get to it.
ReplyDeletebut HEY! This could be a fulltime job (for a while...).
Wow, this is a really depressing thing to see happen! Especially since they were so close to hitting there 150 mark. Hopefully we don't have to see much more of this.
ReplyDeleteSadly, there's enough blame to go around, throughout the industry: greedy management, Luddite unions, short-sighted advertisers and a public that often just wants to be entertained with lowest common denominator stuff more than informed.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most glaring examples was in Greater New York in the 60s. There were seven metropolitan dailies in Manhattan, two in Queens, one in Brooklyn, one on Staten Island, two in Newark and one in Jersey City.
By the mid-70s, thanks to a pair of ruinous strikes, the numbers were three in Manhattan and one in Newark (I'm not sure about Staten Island).
Most of those that failed were not very good newspapers, anyway -- the Long Island Press, the NY Mirror, for instance -- but even they had a few good newsmen left who helped keep the competition honest. Some of others, notably the Herald Trib, were good papers and were sorely missed.
However, there was no chance of their surviving after unions refused to allow technology upgrades. The unions allowed us of AP's computerized stock tables, baseball boxes, etc., only after the papers agreed that the same material would still be set in hot type, which was melted down again without ever being used. The unions also vetoed improvements in preparing press plates, use of high-speed, color presses, etc.
AP had similar make-work rules; I used to hear our teletype operators in NY confer in the lunch room on who would call in sick the next day so that others would get overtime. With the exception of a few idealists, Guild activists were drunks and incompetents who held onto their jobs because it would cost too much to fire them. Seeing that and other abuses caused me to quit the union.
Some owners weren't any better. Dallas Times Herald brass used it as a cash cow until it was so far behind the Morning News that not even the millions pumped in after the L.A. Times bought it could save the paper. Fortunately, I got an offer from the AP that enabled me to leave the Times Herald in time.
Irresponsible advertisers killed the Houston Post, even though a lot of us considered it the better paper. National advertisers, especially, started buying space only in papers with the largest circulation in each city. In Houston, that was the Chronicle. It bled the Post to death.
Enough!
Joseph