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debgeisler for the heads-up: The ongoing crisis in the newspaper industry has claimed another casualty. Denver, CO is losing its "other paper," the Rocky Mountain News, which is being closed by its owner E. W. Scripps Co. Its website reports here that Scripps CEO Rich Boehne today visited the newsroom of the struggling tabloid, which had been seeking a buyer fruitlessly since December, to give its reporters and other staff the bitter news that they would all need to clean out their desks. The final edition hits the street tomorrow.
The Rocky's demise also removes an historic institution in the Mile-High City that had been giving the Denver Post a run for its money for most of the past century and a half. But even after entering a joint operating agreement (JOA) with the Post eight years ago, the tide of red ink could not be stemmed, and Boehne said that if the parent company, which has been around almost as long, was to survive, "hard decisions" had to be made.
Denver thus becomes yet another of the major U.S. cities to turn into a one-paper town. These days, it seems no city in the country smaller than New York, Chicago, Boston or Los Angeles can support more than a single major daily any longer: "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." Meanwhile, NPR reports here that the company that owns both of Philadelphia's two papers has gone Chapter 11 as of the start of this week. And even those four biggest cities are not immune to the spreading blight: The owner of Chicago's Tribune and L.A.'s Times has also declared bankruptcy, and even the New York Post has had to drop legendary gossip maven Liz Smith's column to cut costs (see here).
My dear and wise friendosewalrus informs me that plenty of papers are not financially struggling; and I admit he is in a somewhat better position than I to know. But to hear the wailing of those in the business and see stories like this, you'd never know it.
debgeisler for the heads-up: The ongoing crisis in the newspaper industry has claimed another casualty. Denver, CO is losing its "other paper," the Rocky Mountain News, which is being closed by its owner E. W. Scripps Co. Its website reports here that Scripps CEO Rich Boehne today visited the newsroom of the struggling tabloid, which had been seeking a buyer fruitlessly since December, to give its reporters and other staff the bitter news that they would all need to clean out their desks. The final edition hits the street tomorrow.The Rocky's demise also removes an historic institution in the Mile-High City that had been giving the Denver Post a run for its money for most of the past century and a half. But even after entering a joint operating agreement (JOA) with the Post eight years ago, the tide of red ink could not be stemmed, and Boehne said that if the parent company, which has been around almost as long, was to survive, "hard decisions" had to be made.
Denver thus becomes yet another of the major U.S. cities to turn into a one-paper town. These days, it seems no city in the country smaller than New York, Chicago, Boston or Los Angeles can support more than a single major daily any longer: "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." Meanwhile, NPR reports here that the company that owns both of Philadelphia's two papers has gone Chapter 11 as of the start of this week. And even those four biggest cities are not immune to the spreading blight: The owner of Chicago's Tribune and L.A.'s Times has also declared bankruptcy, and even the New York Post has had to drop legendary gossip maven Liz Smith's column to cut costs (see here).
My dear and wise friend
osewalrus informs me that plenty of papers are not financially struggling; and I admit he is in a somewhat better position than I to know. But to hear the wailing of those in the business and see stories like this, you'd never know it.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:18 am (UTC)Chicago has "The Tribune" and "The Sun-Times"
Seattle has "The Times" and "The Post Intelligencer"
I guess a city has to be in the "top 25" cities (by population) to have multiple newspapers (According to 2007 Census Bureau Estimate, Denver is #26)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 05:17 am (UTC)And this has been going on far longer than the current crisis. Dallas, which when I lived there had two, now has one...and New Orleans and Atlanta both followed suit years ago. And with Wall Street's collapse, and the ripple effect of lost jobs in NYC and environs as a result, one has to wonder how long even Rupert Murdoch's deep pockets can keep the Post alive -- especially since there is already one other tabloid there (and a far better one), the Daily News, not to mention the Gray Lady. NPR reports the Post is hemorrhaging money so bad they've had to drop Liz Smith's gossip column (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101115930) to save costs.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 02:06 pm (UTC)Hell of a note for my last day in the industry.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 12:33 am (UTC)