As hard as it was to finally walk out the door that night, I realized the more awful moment was still to come: Saturday morning, when no Rocky arrived on the driveways and porch steps of its readers.

Here’s what we had ready to go for that day’s paper: Stories about what had happened to Colorado’s energy boom and what it meant to the state, how a government agency had allegedly misused public money, and how children in state custody were being abused.

That’s just what Coloradans will be missing on the first day the Rocky is gone. Who can say what they’ll miss the next week or the next year?

A great watchdog is dead. And more are dying across the nation. More stories will go untold. In a democracy that depends on an informed citizenry, a dead watchdog is a dangerous thing.


Paul Glaviano, copy editor

I really don’t know what many of these talented people here at the Rocky will find out there in, to reference Phil Gramm, McCain’s former economic adviser, WhinyLand. That’s a cruel side of the general collapse of the newspaper industry, of which I’ve been a part since 1966. But something most people have been reluctant to talk about is the danger this all presents for our democracy. If we think that politicians and big business special interests are robbing us blind now, just wait until the final demise of the watchdog press.

There’s been a trend for decades toward “infotainment” in the press, but a goodly semblance of watchdog fervor has remained. The public has taken all this for granted, but it costs money—revenue—to be able to hire talented and dedicated reporters and editors who can match wits with the evildoers of our society. Much of that revenue, particularly from classified ad sections, has flown to the Internet, and I wonder what will happen to vital news organizations in general. Who will watch the chicken coop?


Steve Haigh, business Web editor

It’s a little past 8 p.m. in Denver and the TV reporters and camera people have not quite all returned to their stations. Some of the reporters and editors have gone home, but most will be here late to participate in the last edition of the Rocky Mountain News. Presentation editors are putting loving touches on the commemorative edition. Most folks have been too busy to grieve and shed tears. I love this newspaper and I hate it, too, but I can’t imagine doing anything else that could give me more pleasure and fulfillment. Thanks for the opportunity to tell you how much I will miss the Rocky Mountain News and almost everyone who worked here.


Dave Kopel, media columnist

It’s been a very high-tech day, with the Rocky posting near-instant video coverage of its own death. Yet today evokes for me a picture of Italy around 450 A.D., with declining literacy, and the crumbling of what used to be the great institutions of civic engagement. As a media columnist, I’ve written often about media bias, which is a very serious problem, but which is not the primary cause of the current collapse of the newspaper business. We have a society that reads less and less, and which passively watches more and more video. Over the long term, I expect that quality coverage of national business and national politics will survive, because there will be enough highly-literate readers who will pay the premium prices necessary to support sophisticated reporting. But I am not at all confident that there are enough readers who will pay what is necessary for the existence of good coverage of local news. At a time when governments are growing more and more powerful, we are losing a crucial part of our checks and balances. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” as they used to say. A healthy society needs someone to guard us from the government “guardians.” Newspapers have been far from perfect in performing this vital, protective civic role, but more protection is better than less. With the Rocky’s demise, Colorado is going to have much less.


Dave Krieger, sports columnist

Honestly? The corporate suits come in and cry their crocodile tears, then whiz on home to continue collecting their seven-figure salaries, pleased to have rid their shareholders of the albatross that was a helluva newspaper. Scripps is in the best financial shape of any newspaper company in America, save the Washington Post Co. Dean Singleton, who survives in Denver, is in far worse financial shape, in much deeper debt, but he fought for the market and Scripps didn’t. Scripps turns tail and runs because it is as committed to the public service of journalism as teenagers to this spring’s fashions. It has learned it can make more money in niche cable television channels. It has every right to make that call. It’s a free country. But the question is whether everybody left in the journalism business is simply in it to make a buck. Certainly, for a while there, it was a really good buck.

Gannett taught everyone how to make margins that were out of sight. But now that it’s a struggle, is there anybody left with the heart of a journalist? Or are they all just profiteers, happy to move on to more profitable schemes when the going gets tough? Journalism has a constitutionally protected role in our Republic. We need people in charge of it who are more than profiteers. Yes, I know. Times are tough. The old model doesn’t work. I get all that. Nevertheless. We need publishers with vision and conviction and courage and it’s beginning to look like all we have are profiteers born on third base.


Steve Oelrich, copy editor/editorial writer