Denver’s ‘Rocky Mountain News’ publishes final edition today
Just 55 days shy of 150 years in circulation, the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colo. has announced that it will shut down.
The paper’s closure makes Denver a one-newspaper town–The Denver Post remains open–and marks an important milestone in the staggering collapse of the newspaper business nationwide. Scores of reporters and photographers have been laid off, taken pay cuts or gone on unpaid furloughs as the decline in advertising revenue continues to eat in to profits. Mammoth companies like Tribune Co., which publishes The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, have filed for bankruptcy protection.
Publisher E.W. Scripps reportedly deplored announcing the demise of the Rocky Mountain News, and representatives stressed that the company had explored every possible alternative that might have kept the publication profitable.
From the Rocky Mountain News story on the closure: “I’m just sick that we’re here talking to you about this,” said Mark Contreras, the head of the Scripps newspaper division, with emotion in his voice. “I’m just sick.”
The downfall was almost certainly not due to poor content quality; the newspaper was among the top Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers in the United States.
The paper ran a classic front page for its final run and published a story chronicling its battle to stay alive, running the headline “Rocky kept swinging until the very end.” The story finished with the sentence, “Now, the paper passes from chronicler of a city, state and region’s history into history itself.”
Other beleaguered papers in major metropolitan areas could soon follow suit. Hearst Co. has announced that both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer could close soon in the absence of a buyer. If the Chronicle closes, it would make San Francisco the largest city in the United States with no major daily newspaper.
Visit the Rocky Mountain News’ Web page here or click on the image below.
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