Rocky Mountain News to close after 150 years - another bites dust
Newspapers around the country are scrambling to reorganize and many are closing shop - including the venerable Rocky Mountain News, a paper responsible for a for number of good investigative articles i've read over the years. Friday, tomorrow, is the last edition.
News and the news media is changing fast. Soon all we will have is pure corporate propaganda outlets. And blogs. And little operations like Voices.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/26/rocky-mountain-news-closes-friday-final-edition/
Today's announcement comes as metropolitan newspapers and major newspaper companies find themselves reeling, with plummeting advertising revenues and dramatically diminished share prices. Just this week, Hearst, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, announced that unless it was able to make immediate and steep expense cuts it would put the paper up for sale and possibly close it. Two other papers in JOAs, one in Seattle and the other in Tucson, are facing closure in coming weeks.
The Rocky was founded in 1859 by William Byers, one of the most influential figures in Colorado history. Scripps bought the paper in 1926 and immediately began a newspaper war with The Post. That fight ebbed and flowed over the course of the rest of the 20th century, culminating in penny-a-day subscriptions in the late '90s.
Perhaps the most critical step for the Rocky occurred in 1942, when then-Editor Jack Foster saved it by adopting the tabloid style it has been known for ever since. Readers loved the change, and circulation took off.
In the past decade, the Rocky has won four Pulitzer Prizes, more than all but a handful of American papers. Its sports section was named one of the 10 best in the nation this week. Its business section was cited by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers as one of the best in the country last year. And its photo staff is regularly listed among the best in the nation when the top 10 photo newspapers are judged.
Staffers were told to come in Friday to collect personal effects.
- Bill's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Can The Centre Daily Times Be Far Behind?
It's just a matter of days or weeks before the CDT's corporate masters, the McClatchy Company (who are in serious finanical trouble), turn off the life support for the CDT. Quality newspapers around the globe are closing as the model by which people receive news and advertise services change rapidly. To make mattes worse, the arrogant and unresponsive behavior of the CDT's local management (Pratt and Heisse) have managed to allienate both advertisers and subscribers. This will draw them into a tar pit from which return is impossible.
I believe our best hope is that the demise of the CDT will allow another publication to emerge which really represents the interests of the Centre Region and it's residents.