Dead is dead, RW or LW. The Rocky Mountain News published its last edition today.

[originalpckelly]

There is something different about a newspaper.

It's so much harder to put out so many thousands, or millions, of copies of a physical object than it is to write words on a computer. This is both a benefit and a downside to the internet. Anyone can write anything on the internet, practically, but people have to support you in some manner in order to publish a physical paper.

It doesn't mean that papers don't have slants, or do not propagandize, it just takes more effort to get it going.

Today a paper I rarely read is going out of business, and I'm the reason it is. I read most of my news on the internet, or get it from a TV. I'm like most Americans today. That's why so many other papers across the country are going out of business.

Rocky just couldn't win this fight.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Well, that sucks. I used to deliver that paper as a kid.

[ogneopasno]

2. Terribly sad. As a former newspaper worker, I mourn.

[arcadian]

3. Sometimes... dead is bettah...

Sorry, don't know this story, just wanted to get in a Fred Gwynne quote.

[Ilsa]

4. Great post. We don't take a paper any more. I'm tired of recycling the paper.

I'm tired of the smudgy ink on my hands. The coupons are almost worthless to me: I buy alot of store brands that are still cheaper. And I don't buy most of the junk the coupons are for anyway.

I wonder how news services are going to keep up their payrolls. I guess ads on their web pages will pay for alot of it. I wouldn't mind paying a small fee for access to my local paper.

[SteppingRazor]

6. Online advertising pays out only a tiny percentage of print advertising.

The simple but terrible answer to how news services are going to keep up their payrolls is, they're not.

[Ilsa]

8. Thanks for the info. It really is a sad change. nt

[SteppingRazor]

5. You're not the reason why.

You said you read your news on the Internet, but that's not quite the whole picture. You read all your news on the Internet ... for free. By giving away free content, newspapers sealed their own fate. The tanking economy and the destruction of classified advertising via Craigslist only closed the deal.

[KharmaTrain]

7. More Are On The Way

Someone posted that the San Fransisco Chronicle was on life support and I've read of others that are bleeding more red ink than printer's ink.

A real tell-tale are all the stenographers jumping ship. In our local papers, many of their best known columnists and reporters have parachuted to other ventures over the past year as they see the end of the dead tree era. Well...except for the coupons!

[SteppingRazor]

12. The Chronicle, and the Seattle P-I is almost dead...

any city that has two papers will probably soon have one, exceptions being Chicago and New York.

[KharmaTrain]

16. The Tribune Has Already Filed

Sam Zell finally bit off more than he can chew. He's choking on both the Tribune and the LA Times. He can't sell the Cubs...the buyer still hasn't cleared financing and Sam could sure use that 250 million cash the Ameritrade family was offering...as well as losing his shirt with a bunch of failing TV stations.

The Sun-Times isn't much better...they still don't have a real owner since Conrad Black was convicted and these days looks more like the local shopper than a major newspaper. A lot of their best columnists and reporters have either been fired or headed elsewhere.

Most of these operations are strangling on the media consolidation that was supposed to make them too big to fail.

Cheers...

[SteppingRazor]

18. Believe me, I doubt there's anyone on DU more deeply aware of the Trib. bankruptcy than me.

But Trib Co filed Chap. 11, so it's not as though the Chicago paper is actually going to go anywhere. As for Zell, he took over Trib in a massively leveraged deal that will leave employees with the bill before it causes Zell any problems.

[pipi_k]

9. I'm wondering how long it will be before some of the local newspapers

near me go under.

I really like reading the newspaper. And printed books (as opposed to books on tape or books for download). It's the feel of them...the smell of the paper...

Plus it makes a dandy mulch/compost, and I wrap up broken glass that can't be recycled, and scrunch it up as packing material for when I send stuff to people.

Anyway, one local paper, the Springfield Republican, never did, and will not now, deliver to my area. They'll leave the paper in a box about two miles out on the main road, but they won't come down my road to deliver, especially in the winter.

Another paper, the Berkshire Eagle, did used to deliver, but even they stopped when the less dependable carriers were wimping out and throwing the papers in the snowbanks at the top of the hill instead of putting it in the mailbox at our house.

So now the only time we get a newspaper is when we're down in the city on business, or on Sundays when we go into town for breakfast.

It's really scary to see so many companies going down the tubes...

[shifting_sands]

10. A proud paper

No one feels good about the closing of the Rocky Mountain News. It had it's day and was still considered a very good paper. They won award after award through the years and it is sad to see them die, like so many papers have died. I am posting this little snippet from another paper as a way of saying how proud Denver has been of the Rocky, she would be 150 years old in a couple of months.


"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."

[SteppingRazor]

13. That quote just makes the situation even more depressing.

It shows that journalists producing great content is not enough.

[hlthe2b]

11. I know... I am paying for a Denver Post subscription I neither want

nor read, since I, too read everything on the internet.

I'm also worried about my independent booksellers, who I've always tried to alternately frequent over B&N or Amazon. But, given my need to save every penny I can, I can no longer justify paying 30% or more to do so...

I do what I can, but I know it is not enough...

[originalpckelly]

24. Papers aren't great in the first place, but damn the Post has the worst format.

I wish they'd adopt the RMN tabloid.

[Joe Fields]

14. Newspapers aren't worth saving, since they all tried to become US.A. Today.

I don't care if they stay or they go. None of them deserve pulitzers.

[Thirtieschild]

15. My heart hurts.

At the death of the Rocky Mountain News, and at the future of all newspapers. Without newspapers who's going to keep an eye on city hall? TV certainly won't, I doubt that the Internet will pay attention to local news. However, after 47 years in the news business, we are part of the problem. Since we retired and moved out of the big city, we no longer subscribe to a newspaper. The local paper is beyond dreadful - lives on handouts - and reading a regional paper would require us to make a 14-mile round-trip drive into town every day. I miss sitting down every morning with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Sitting down with a cup of coffee and the NYT online isn't the same. Sigh.

[T Wolf]

17. Reporting USED to be about finding out what was going on and presenting that INFORMATION to

a public that otherwise would not know what was happening.

It has, for the most part, been turned into a tool of propaganda dissemination and image control by those in power. As such, it has lost the respect and support of many people. And appropriately so.

Things do change over time. Newspapers used to take it as a sacred (sorry for using that word) duty to muckrake (expose the corruption in government and commerce). They no longer do that except in the pursuit of some corporate political goal.

Print gave way to radio which gave way to television. Now the web is the media of choice for many, especially the young. It may be the saving grace (again I apologize for using a spiritual phrase) for democracy because it really cannot be controlled, though they may try to.

As the printing press allowed knowledge and information to be spread beyond the bastions of the elite, the web is serving that function now. It is what we do with it that matters. As media became more concentrated and corporate, its usefulness (for positive, progressive goals) diminished.

The democratization of communications can only be a good thing.

[SteppingRazor]

20. I think that's a little short-sighted.

First, most Web news comes from print. Go to Google News, and 90 percent of the links are to the Web sites of newspapers or wire services.

Second, when it comes to national news, there's a nigh-infinite amount of bloggers willing to disseminate and pontificate over information, but newspapers are one of the very few eyes covering local politics and issues across the country.

Third, I think you've got the wrong idea about the purpose of media. You open by saying that it's become a propaganda tool, but you close by saying "As media became more concentrated and corporate, its usefulness (for positive, progressive goals) diminished." In other words, you don't actually care about spreading information, you just want to make sure that the slant is toward progressivism, not conservatism.

Fourth, journalism is not rocket science, but neither is it a cake walk. That's a fine, high-minded idea about the democratization of communications, but journalism is a profession, best handled by trained professionals. I go to the doctor when I'm sick, I go to a lawyer when I want legal representation, I go to a journalist when I want the news. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to crow about the democratization of medicine, because not everyone can or should be performing surgery. Same goes for communicators. New forms of mass media may be a good thing, certainly, but handing off the responsibilities of the press to everyone and anyone will only make the propagandizing of news worse, not better.

[T Wolf]

21. Good points. My main point is that there are NO "journalists" anymore. Everyone

has a slant, if not the reporter, then the corporate entity that controls what stories are covered.

Couple that prejudice with the gravitas that some still attribute to the M$M and you have, IMO, a situation where true, objective journalism can not and does not occur.

[SteppingRazor]

22. I think that what you're saying is quite true of cable news...

but not necessarily true at all of the newspapers across the country. Good journalism does still get done. Of course, you do have a point about the corporate entities that own newspapers -- one of the papers I often cite as doing some of the best work in the country is the St. Petersburg Times, and it's owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute. I'm sure that's no coincidence.

That said, when a large corporation controls a bunch of papers, it's not as through there are people from corporate weighing in on what stories each paper will cover. They could remove an editor that displeases them, of course, but I've worked for a couple of chains, and I've never once had anyone from corporate telling me what I can and cannot write. There may be an understanding that certain subjects should not be broached, and an editor-in-chief may serve as a proxy for the powers that be, making sure that big advertisers aren't excoriated in the editorial side (that does happen, but it's both wrong and stupid), but it's not as though stories have to be pre-approved by corporate overlords before they run.

As far as reporters having a slant, I'm afraid that's just human nature, and it's also why there's editors. Well, one reason, anyway.

[originalpckelly]

23. Really? And in what partisan direction or for "the man" does someone bias...

a story about fighting fires? Or a kid who got hit by a car? Or the other various stories that cannot be depicted through red or blue colored glasses?

Local news often involves more than traditional partisan shit.

[T Wolf]

25. Maybe, except the local Fux affiliates who take their stories directly from the Rupert's

offices.

Sure, not every story can have a slant. But, for instance, why are stories of cops killing citizens a brief, Page 15 item while every time a cop is injured, the headlines scream it for weeks?

What gets prominence is a political decision - make no mistake about that.

[Romulox]

26. I agree with Teen Wolf.

To expand:

A large percentage of content in my "local" paper is syndicated "lifestyle" crap--I'm not paying for it.

A large percentage of the columnists at my local paper are transplants with no connection to my city--I don't care what they think about my community.

The vast majority of the "reporting" in my local paper involves breathlessly transcribing what various people have said. Few stories independently investigated--TV news does a better job of capturing quotations.

[opihimoimoi]

19. Its all part of the Human Social Evolution....from stone tablets to computers in 3000 years ain't so

bad...with newspapers in between