Death of a Newspaper

The Rocky Mountain News closed its doors last month. This newspaper was Denver's oldest. When the workers heard the news they were devastated. The closing was due to declining subscriptions caused by more and more people getting their news online, a common trend in newspapers everywhere. The trend was made especially hard on The Rocky because Denver was one of the few remaining "two newspaper towns", home to both The Rocky and its rival The Denver Post. Mike Littwin, a well-known columnist, was one of the few on staff who had another job waiting. He was hired by The Denver Post after The Rocky closed. Mike says he still feels guilty that he survived when so many of his former colleagues are without a newspaper job. Kim Humphreys however, was one of the unlucky ones who had no other job waiting.  Kim was a copy editor for The Rocky. The story is not all bad though. Kim and about a dozen other former Rocky staffers joined with three local entrepreneurs to launch InDeverTimes.com, a partially subscription-based site aimed at Denver residents. The site will offer free news, but subscribers will have to pay $4.99 a year to get access to special content such as reporter's columns, live chats, and multimedia options.

This story really touched me. I guess it's because my fiance is a journalist and works for her college's newpaper so I've spent quite a bit of time in the newsroom and I've seen the relationships that form between the staff. I just think its amazing that these people are willing to forgo looking for another job to put their time and money into doing what they love most with the people they love doing it with. They could have easily given up and gone on to other things but instead they are striving to keep the spirit of The Rocky alive in a new online medium.

You can hear the full story as I heard it by clicking Here.