COLORADO’S OLDEST newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, is shutting down today, and industry analysts say it won’t be the last to be pulled under by a rising tide of financial woes.
EW Scripps announced on Thursday that it is closing the 150-year-old paper, which has won four Pulitzer Prizes in the last decade, leaving Denver, like most US cities, a one-newspaper town.
These are dark days for the struggling news business. Hearst threatened this week to close the San Francisco Chronicleunless major budget cuts are imposed or a buyer is found, and is also prepared to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer if it cannot be sold. The Philadelphia Inquirerand Daily Newsfiled for bankruptcy protection this week, joining Chicago's Tribune Companyand the Minneapolis Star-Tribunein Chapter 11 status.
Industry analyst John Morton called the Rocky's failure to find a buyer unsurprising. "The market is awash in newspapers for sale, and nobody is buying them," he said. "This recession has so impacted advertising revenue, particularly classifieds, that it's driven into unprofitability those who are in a precarious position."
The Rockyhas shared business and production costs with the rival Denver Post. Each has a daily circulation of 210,000.
At a staff meeting on Thursday Rocky editor John Temple introduced two Scripps executives, who said Denver could no longer support two newspapers. They said there was only one potential buyer, who backed out. “This is a really sad end to a beautiful thing,” Temple told his staff, adding that the final edition was like “being given the chance to play the music at your own funeral”.
In an online blog, the paper reported: "The mood in the room is getting nastier and bitter, reporters wondering if the execs tried hard enough to save the paper or put pressure on the Rocky Mountain News."
The Denver Post, which reached an agreement with local unions this week to cut costs by 11.7 per cent, said it would pick up a number of Rockyreporters, columnists and editors, but this amounts to less than 5 per cent of the paper's 200-person newsroom.
The dire situation for many newspapers is exacerbated by their free availability on the internet, where readers baulk at paying for news content. The New York Times, which has borrowed $250 million (€197 million) from a Mexican mogul, has suspended dividends to shareholders. The Washington Post company's revenue dropped by 77 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, in part because of early-retirement packages. – ( LA Times/Washington Post)