The "Rocky" - Last gasp of great journalism?

flyingcheesehead

flyingcheesehead

Touchdown! Greaser!
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iMooniac
For those who may not have heard, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver published their final edition yesterday, just two months shy of their 150th anniversary.

"Why should I care about a newspaper in Denver going under?", you might ask. I just heard about it the other day and realized I had read some good stories on their web site over the years, but in reading some of their "best of" stuff I see why their readers are so upset over the closing.

These two articles are almost on the same subject, but both should be read. They are not short, but they are very much worthwhile:

Final Salute, published Nov. 11, 2005
Wake for an Indian warrior, published Jan. 21, 2006

There's quite a bit of other stuff there too: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
 
Great articles.

I was sorry to see the Rocky go. It was usually the first site I went to in the morning. Even before POA. :redface:
 
Newspaper subscriptions are down across the country. While I preferred the Post's articles, I liked the News' tabloid style publishing. Many users of public transportation preferred it for this reason since it was more compact and much easier to handle.

It's too bad the competition is lost.
 
I was devastated when the Dallas Times Herald shut down... it sucks to have only one newspaper.
 
Wow. That's a surprise. I don't exactly keep track of newspapers (the local Philly papers just filed ch11 IIRC) but it surprises me that a paper with the RMN's pedigree would bite it.
 
flyersfan31 said:
Wow. That's a surprise. I don't exactly keep track of newspapers (the local Philly papers just filed ch11 IIRC) but it surprises me that a paper with the RMN's pedigree would bite it.
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Lots of papers going belly up. Get ready for online content from newspapers to no longer be free. I subscribe to the local paper but I read it almost exclusively online.
 
smigaldi said:
Lots of papers going belly up. Get ready for online content from newspapers to no longer be free. I subscribe to the local paper but I read it almost exclusively online.
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I don't even subscribe. I just read the free online content. I am definitely part of the problem.
 
flyersfan31 said:
I don't even subscribe. I just read the free online content. I am definitely part of the problem.
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Me too. But I quit subscribing years ago because I didn't like the papers piling up in my driveway when no one was home.
 
flyersfan31 said:
Wow. That's a surprise. I don't exactly keep track of newspapers (the local Philly papers just filed ch11 IIRC) but it surprises me that a paper with the RMN's pedigree would bite it.
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I was in the business-side of newspapers for 21 years -- more, if you count working part-time in high school and college. I worked for or with four different papers, including the Chicago Tribune and New York Times. Finally got out in 2002 when we opened the hotel.

Internally, we all started predicting the demise of newspapers in the mid-80s. Most of us used the "Year 2000" as the target date for ultimate shut-down. It appears we were off by a decade or so...

I do long for the days when everyone had a common point of reference in our communities. Now, with the media fragmented like a mirror dropped on the floor, we all talk past each other -- leading to the balkanization of America and the crazy political "mood swings" we're witnessing.

Newspapers were, almost above all else, a uniting factor in America. Those days are gone, I'm afraid...
 
Jay Honeck said:
Newspapers were, almost above all else, a uniting factor in America. Those days are gone, I'm afraid...
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Part of the problem is that the newspapers (and the rest of the mainstream media, too) have gone blatantly in the tank for one end of the political spectrum, and lots of folks are refusing to subsidize that any more. It was never so blindingly obvious as during the last election.
 
jmaynard said:
Part of the problem is that the newspapers (and the rest of the mainstream media, too) have gone blatantly in the tank for one end of the political spectrum, and lots of folks are refusing to subsidize that any more. It was never so blindingly obvious as during the last election.
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:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Also if you are going to complain in one thread about political posts outside of the SZ, you should at least then not keep posting political views. Seems that you want to post your political views and complain when others may do the same. Just my $.02
 
smigaldi said:
Also if you are going to complain in one thread about political posts outside of the SZ, you should at least then not keep posting political views. Seems that you want to post your political views and complain when others may do the same. Just my $.02
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Scott, as much as you get away with it, I should be able to, too.
 
jmaynard said:
Scott, as much as you get away with it, I should be able to, too.
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What do I get away with?

You mean all the times I hit BP because some posted political commentary outside for the SZ? Or the times I get jumped on by people when I mention that politics outside of the SZ is not appropriate. No Jay. You accuse me of being political outside of the SZ all the time. But in reality I am the one who complains about it more than you could ever know. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
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There's so much I could say on the most recent comments but I shall remain quiet other than to say Jay is correct, the papers have become very lopsided and that has hurt subscriptions. If the Atlanta Journal and Constitution had not merged, both would likely be under. Even now, their subscription volume continues to decrease. Newspapers were well on their way down long before the internet was invented by major print media's biggest hero.
 
KennyFlys said:
There's so much I could say on the most recent comments but I shall remain quiet other than to say Jay is correct, the papers have become very lopsided and that has hurt subscriptions. If the Atlanta Journal and Constitution had not merged, both would likely be under. Even now, their subscription volume continues to decrease. Newspapers were well on their way down long before the internet was invented by major print media's biggest hero.
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Considering where the papers where just a few years ago, see the commentary on Iraq and how Knight-Ridder was the only paper to investigate and report on the claims of the Bush administration as being false, something we now know to be aaccurate reporting. I would say that the newspapers seem to sway with the wind. That is mostly the result of the effect of large corporate ownership of the media than any left or right wing conspiracy.
 
jmaynard said:
Pot. Kettle. Black.
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Hardly political but it is factual and in response to your comment about the political leanings of the all the media. It was a direct rebuttal of your ascertain. I used it to show how the media tends to find a middle ground eventually. Also how they tend to be lazy and believe anything they are told without actually doing journalism, just reporting. When someone posts something that is factually untrue it should be pointed out. If it is not then people may actually start to believe that tripe.

The closet I have been political outside of the SZ in a great while was in response to Dale's posts where he stated basically, that freedom is where we should only be allowed to say what does not offend him. I tried to point out the irony of his statement to him.
 
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smigaldi said:
Hardly political but it is factual
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The claim that your statement is factual is itself a political statement, since that's still very much in dispute. With that said, I'm going to drop it here, since we're not likely to get much of anywhere; I would, however, suggest that you reevaluate what your definition of a political statement is.
 
I think the fact that newspapers have been poorly performing financially is directly related to the fact that most are tending to lean left. (Edit: Correlation, not cause/effect.) Having spent some time in the media myself, I have seen newsroom budgets peak in the 1980s and then slide. At the same time, I have personally been forced for 15 years to hold the line or even cut staff salaries when I fill reporter openings. The result is that often I could only afford to hire kids right out of school, who tend to have more liberal viewpoints. And the sad truth is that although the media speaks volumes about objective reporting, human nature says your observations are colored by your experiences and viewpoint. So objectivity is an illusion; the best we can hope for is fair. That's not succeeding either, because experienced editors are let go and reporters are being promoted into editing spots at ever-younger ages -- because they cost less.

So what we have here is classic chicken-and-egg. To the detriment of our society, I believe.
 
Video Killed the Radio Star!

Internet killed the ink star!

I think its a combination of things, including the net, the leanings of papers, I'd say TV news plays a role but the drivel that I get from local news hardly can be considered news, declining advertising, but really most of all I think its the net.
 
It was Denver's oldest newspaper, but when the ultra liberal Denver Post bought it, the paper declined. Then they changed the format to be similar to the Post.

I also used to go to there website to get my Denver news.

"Nearly everybody reads The Bulletin"
 
Go to post number #1 or this thread and read the articles that Kent posted and tell me if those are "right" or "left".
 
Everskyward said:
Go to post number #1 or this thread and read the articles that Kent posted and tell me if those are "right" or "left".
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Both are politically neutral as they should be given the subject. The articles are about loss and sacrifice.

But, that's not the general pattern in most print media.
 
KennyFlys said:
I don't think anyone was saying the papers are incapable of objective reporting. However, the pattern in print media tends to lean to the left. That's indisputable.
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They used up a whole lot of ink, especially in the first story, on a subject that could have been easily pulled to one side or the other by politics, but they didn't.
 
Everskyward said:
They used up a whole lot of ink, especially in the first story, on a subject that could have been easily pulled to one side or the other by politics, but they didn't.
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And that is what makes the closing that much more of a shame. :(
 
AdamZ said:
...the drivel that I get from local news hardly can be considered news...
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You've touched on the real tragedy here. When a newspaper closes, it is this loss of real local news -- the "drivel" -- that is felt the most.

National news can still be obtained from a myriad of outlets (internet, TV, radio), but the loss of accurate local information -- the kind of stuff that only a local reporter could provide -- has gone a long ways toward balkanizing our country. The real strength of a local newspaper was always its ability to unite our communities with "mashed potato" news -- the local cop who won an award, or the local kid who went to Spain for a year. It was this very "drivel" that gave us all a common point of reference that made us feel a part of a community.

With a common point of reference came a willingness to converse and politely debate the issues of the day. Without a common point of reference, "political debate" has become more akin to hunkering down in a bunker whilst rolling hand-grenades down the hall once in a while. It's devolved into name-calling, which is much easier when the participants aren't known to each other or feel connected in any way.

Nowadays it's possible to tell the newspaper subscribers on your block simply by looking down the street on a "garbage day" that falls after a holiday. The people who fruitlessly hauled their garbarge out to the curb simply didn't -- couldn't -- get the "no garbage pick-up today" message, because they no longer subscribe to their community's common point of reference.

The same can be said for folks not voting in local elections -- the ONLY elections where your vote truly counts for something. How often have you heard your co-workers say "I didn't vote for <school board> <city council> <fill-in-the-blank> because I didn't know the issues."? I hear it all the time, and it happens simply because these citizens no longer subscribe to their community's common point of reference -- the local newspaper.

This is why many newspaper readers are so passionate about "their" newspapers -- and why so many of us are in mourning over their demise. It's not the loss of the product or for their publishers that I mourn -- it is for America. It is for us.
 
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Jay Honeck said:
You've touched on the real tragedy here. When a newspaper closes, it is this loss of real local news -- the "drivel" -- that is felt the most.
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I agree Jay.; More than just newspapers too. The whole media ownership rules have really killed local programing on TV and radio.
 
The sports and business sections (my primary fare) haven't changed much over the years, so I haven't been as acutely aware of the demise in quality of our local Dallas paper until recently. The missus has been bitching about it for years, saying they have fired all the good writers, watered down the content, combined sections and generally screwed things up. She maintains that they have turned the front page into nothing but big pictures and zero substance.

Now that I'm paying more attention, it is apparent that the clock is ticking, and they will all be gone (or converted to WWW format only) in 3 years or so. Interestingly, the strategy of the print media seems to be aimed at attracting readership from those who have already chosen the internet or other sources to obtain their news. ****ing off your readership in an attempt to attract those who have already decided to leave seems like a foolish strategy, but maybe they think that's their only option.

What really chaps my ass is that the classifieds are down to almost nothing. What is a guy supposed to read every morning while taking care of other matters?
 
nddons said:
Kent, than you so very much for posting those two articles.
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You're welcome. Very worthwhile reading, and I now have even more respect for the Marines. Native Americans, too - I had no idea that there are more Native Americans per capita volunteering for the military than any other group. After what we did to them, that's pretty impressive.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I had no idea that there are more Native Americans per capita volunteering for the military than any other group. After what we did to them, that's pretty impressive.
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I did not know that either.
 
wabower said:
What really chaps my ass is that the classifieds are down to almost nothing. What is a guy supposed to read every morning while taking care of other matters?
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Newspapers have followed an incredibly stupid business model, IMHO. Back in the 1980s, when we were making 20 - 25% profits, our publishers were cutting-cutting-cutting, in a desperate attempt to make that margin grow to 30%. It was insane, and made the long spiral downward inevitable, IMHO.

The very first casualty, long before any discernible impact on content, was service. In real terms paper carriers today make 50% less than they did in 1985 -- and back then newspapers were delivered primarily by children. You can well imagine the caliber of adults newspapers are able to recruit with ever-declining pay. (My last business, prior to buying the hotel, was newspaper distribution. I had 100 of these drivers on the road every morning, delivering a variety of products all over SE Iowa.)

I sold the business in 2002, so my knowledge base is 7-years out of date. My contacts in the biz, however, tell met that it has gotten to the point where the ONLY way for a driver to make money delivering papers is to never stop their car. This is why the papers are now thrown in your driveway, when (in past years) they were once delivered to your door. Needless to say, this reduction in service has done more to drive away subscribers than any other single action -- and the publishers have done NOTHING to address it.

Now, of course, it's too late. But it's not like those of us in the business side of newspapers didn't *know* this was happening, and try to address it. The publishers just couldn't bear to reduce their profits to, say, 15%, and are now reaping the whirlwind...

I hope the publishers can find a way to make the internet versions of their product profitable, before it's too late. "News" needs to be reported and edited, or it's just "noise", IMHO...
 
Anthony said:
"We"?
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KennyFlys said:
College professors
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Guys - I really hoped that this thread was gonna stay out of Spin Zone territory. It should be about the sad state of our media and how that affects us (thanks for your comments Jay), about the sacrifices of the Marines and the rest of the military.

Anthony and Kenny, did you actually take the time to read the articles? They were really good. No political slant in either direction, only respect for the amazing job done by the Marines, respect for their traditions, respect for their sacrifice. That is what this thread is about.

I plead with you both to recognize that and delete your comments, and everyone else who replied to them please do the same. (This message started out as my reply, but I deleted my comments before posting.)
 
Kent,

I deleted my post and sent you a PM. However, you did open that door when you made the comment I referenced in the PM.

Hope you are well buddy. :smile:
 
Anthony said:
Kent,

I deleted my post and sent you a PM. However, you did open that door when you made the comment I referenced in the PM.

Hope you are well buddy. :smile:
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PM replied to - I think you were reading something into my post that simply isn't there, as I explained. No guilt here. :no:
 
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