A Rocky ending
The other day I joked that we reporters read Jim Romenesko's blog - a clearinghouse of news-industry stories - the same way elderly people read the obituaries: To see if people they know are gone.
The joke was gallows humor, a whistling-past-the-graveyard comment about the perilous state of the news industry, where layoffs and buyouts have given way to wholesale shutdowns of newspapers.
The problems of the news industry hit home Thursday afternoon, when the E.W. Scripps chain announced that Denver's Rocky Mountain News - a paper that has been reporting Colorado's news for almost 150 years - was ceasing publication with Friday's edition. (Reading the live-blog of the newsroom announcement is a heartbreaking exercise.)
The closure makes Denver a one-newspaper town: The Denver Post (owned by MediaNews Group, which also owns The Salt Lake Tribune) carries on.
"Contrary to a lot of what has been written, the Rocky is not struggling financially any more than The Post," the Rocky's editor, John Temple, wrote in today's edition. "But its owner, the E.W. Scripps Co., sees losses in Denver worsening and little prospect that the business can be turned around, even in a one-newspaper town. That's why they decided to leave Denver, after running newspapers here for more than 100 years."
MediaNews Group's CEO, William Dean Singleton, called the Rocky's closure "a sad day" - but acknowledged that the move "it will help [the Post] substantially from a financial standpoint."
And what's happening in Denver could happen elsewhere soon. The company that operates Philadelphia's two daily newspapers recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Hearst chain has announced that both The San Francisco Chronicle and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer could close if buyers don't come forward soon. And Gannett announced that the Tucson Citizen may cease publication in March, after 138 years, if no buyer steps up.
The joke was gallows humor, a whistling-past-the-graveyard comment about the perilous state of the news industry, where layoffs and buyouts have given way to wholesale shutdowns of newspapers.
The problems of the news industry hit home Thursday afternoon, when the E.W. Scripps chain announced that Denver's Rocky Mountain News - a paper that has been reporting Colorado's news for almost 150 years - was ceasing publication with Friday's edition. (Reading the live-blog of the newsroom announcement is a heartbreaking exercise.)The closure makes Denver a one-newspaper town: The Denver Post (owned by MediaNews Group, which also owns The Salt Lake Tribune) carries on.
"Contrary to a lot of what has been written, the Rocky is not struggling financially any more than The Post," the Rocky's editor, John Temple, wrote in today's edition. "But its owner, the E.W. Scripps Co., sees losses in Denver worsening and little prospect that the business can be turned around, even in a one-newspaper town. That's why they decided to leave Denver, after running newspapers here for more than 100 years."
MediaNews Group's CEO, William Dean Singleton, called the Rocky's closure "a sad day" - but acknowledged that the move "it will help [the Post] substantially from a financial standpoint."
And what's happening in Denver could happen elsewhere soon. The company that operates Philadelphia's two daily newspapers recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Hearst chain has announced that both The San Francisco Chronicle and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer could close if buyers don't come forward soon. And Gannett announced that the Tucson Citizen may cease publication in March, after 138 years, if no buyer steps up.
Labels: journalism
posted by Sean P. Means @ 10:37 AM |
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