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Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The Denver Post calls for help

Por Feco

The Denver Post revolted on Sunday against its owners through the opinion section. In the name of local reference journalism, the Colorado newspaper publishes an editorial in which it denounces that the company that owns the newspaper is going to ruin the newspaper based on cuts and asks for help from potential investors who want to save it.

“At The Denver Post on Monday, more than two dozen reporters, editors, photographers, videographers, page designers, digital producers and opinion staff will walk out the door". The orders were clear: to cut a full 30 by the start of July,” read the editorial titled, “As Vultures Circle the Denver Post Must be Saved.” Next on, the editorial asks if these cuts are "the beginning of the end of the Voice of the Rocky Mountains Empire".

The cuts, says the newspaper's statement, do not make sense "from the point of view of those of us who intend to run a serious news business", especially because the company yields benefits. "We call for action," proclaims the newspaper. "Consider this editorial (...) a plea to Alden - owner of Digital First Media, one of the largest newspaper chains in the country - to rethink its business strategy across all its newspaper holdings. Consider this also a signal to our community and civic leaders that they ought to demand better. Denver deserves a newspaper owner who supports its newsroom. If Alden does not want to do good journalism here, he should sell the Post to some owners who want to". Daring! Isn’t it?

The editorial is accompanied by five opinion articles recalling the importance of local journalism for a medium-sized city, justifying the revolt of the newsroom. In addition, it publishes a shocking image. It is a group photo of the editorial in which 142 of its members appear, on May 15, 2013. Next to it, the same photo, with all the dismissed people covered in black. The Post editorial asks that an investor take a step forward to rescue the Post from its current owners, the Alden group.

The Alden Group is an investment fund specialized in assets with problems. In 2010, it acquired Digital First Media, the parent company of the Post and dozens of publications throughout the country. The Denver Post has 125 years of history and is the reference newspaper of Colorado and its capital, a city of 700,000 inhabitants. It has won five Pulitzer Prizes, the last two in 2013 for the shooting coverage at a theater in Aurora, just outside of Denver. In 2011, it had a circulation of 353,000 daily copies and ranked 14th among the printed newspapers of the United States. Last year it reported 170,000 daily copies on average. At the beginning of this decade, it had a staff of around 200 journalists. Now they are "less than 100", according to the editorial published this Sunday.