It's my job to be a dispassionate analyst of the media industry, but the sudden death of the Rocky Mountain News is hitting me hard. Not unexpected, but it all came down sooner, more abruptly than expected -- with some ominous implications for other ailing metros. Full Story »
Posted by Derek Hawkins
A fitting epitaph for a newspaper, which as a Denver native, I grew up with and was a subscriber for many years (50+years). Implicit is the message that this is the sunset of journalism as we know it. Can network journalism be far behind?
Personal note: for decades, I was in studio in downtown Denver. And since I had a company vehicle garaged at the studio, I used public transportation. To pass the time, I subscribed to the Rocky--a morning newspaper--which as I finished, coincided with my arrival at my destination. Some see it as a portend of journalism's change; I see it as the loss of a lifelong friend.
Insightful observations about why Rocky Mountain News was just closed by parent company Scripps, despite its good journalistic track record. The author points to the paper's $1 million monthly loss, and its unfavorable Joint Operating Agreement with the Denver Post as likely causes. He also provides helpful context about how other publications like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and San Francisco Chronicle may soon face a similar fate.
This is of course, deeply depressing. Without the good journalism now provided by newspapers, democracy will inevitably suffer, as commercial and partisan interests step in to fill the void. We need a new economic model to insure that quality journalism can continue to flourish, as more and more newspapers close down.
This is as much an introspective piece as a news analysis, and Rick Edmonds hits all the majors points, via excellent prose, although he lingers overmuch on joint operating agreements ... and that's not where the problem lies. I'm also not so sure newspapers, especially big city ones, may weather the economic storm, although the Detroit Free Press is making a go at it (I'll provide a link).
It's time we analyze whether the platform of Internet can sustain news that tells people what they need to know, rather than what they want to know. We see the same phenomenon on NewsTrust in review ratings.
Weaker papers in chains will be weeded out to give the rest a fighting chance to get through the recession and recover in better times. Money-losing papers are on a very ... More »
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