The Rapid, Devastating Decline of the Denver Post

[brooklynite]

City Lab

The iconic Denver Post building has a slight curve to it. Like a camera lens, the bright white structure widens into the shape of a parentheses on its front side, an architectural flourish that allows those inside to capture sweeping views of the city sprawled before it. From this perch, journalists covering the city could spot the institutions they were responsible for covering: the majestic Colorado State Capitol, the Civic Center’s open walkways, the stately city council building.

In recent months, however, the city’s watchdogs have instead been monitoring Denver from a distance. The Post relocated from downtown Denver to the paper’s printing plant outside of the city earlier this year. This was the beginning of a string of devastating cuts that now leave the Post at risk of closing its doors permanently.

This isn’t your average “local journalism is a failing business” story. The threat in this case is far less abstract. Alden Global Capital, a New York City-based hedge fund that owns the Denver Post’s parent company Digital First Media, has been slashing its newsrooms across the country while maximizing profits. Digital First Media, the country’s second-largest newspaper chain, has eliminated two out of every three staff positions at its media outlets since 2011, according to reporting by The Nation.

Over the last few months, these tactics have spelled danger for the Denver Post. Around 30 percent of the paper’s newsroom was laid off this April. Soon after, Editorial Page Editor Chuck Plunkett spearheaded a series of opinion pieces in the paper demanding Alden Global Capital sell the paper or invest in its newsroom. Two weeks ago, Plunkett resigned when he was told he could not run another editorial standing up to the hedge fund. And then two other senior editors resigned, too, leaving the Post severely understaffed and without a clear path forward.

[Laffy Kat]

1. We lost the Rocky Mountain News years ago.

The Denver Post is our only city-wide paper and it's a shell of it's former self. Denver will be left with nothing, which is only slightly worse than what we have now.

[randr]

2. The Denver Post was delivered free to every one

on any day that the sun did not shine when I first moved to Denver. A real class act in every way.
I would be curious about these hedge fund connections to outfits such as the Sinclair group.

[beveeheart]

3. We subscribe to the Post's Wed/Sunday editions.

It takes me less and less time to read them each week. Mostly ads and many articles from other papers that I've probably seen here before they appear in the Post. Sad.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The Denver Post used the copyright troll Righthaven, that DU won against

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110615/03055214706/denver-post-sued-over-righthaven-connection.shtml