Friday is the bid deadline for Rocky Mountain News (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Denver Post ^ | January 15, 2009 | Steve Raabe

[Zman516]

I’ve been a subscriber to the Rocky for many years, and have been disappointed for the last few years in their gradual swing leftward. I’ve considered for the past year cancelling my subscription anyway.

There is no way in hell I would ever consider the Post.

[colorado tanker]

Both the Rocky and the Post do the same trick of occasionally endorsing candidates contrary to their editorial philosophy so they appear to be more even handed.

[colorado tanker]

I lost any respect for Johnson when he was an embed in Iraq. An IED went off near him. Despite all his crap about bonding with the troops he high tailed back home and started writing antiwar stories about how the war was making the troops mentally ill. What a POS.

Griego is very liberal, but it was interesting that she wrote a column endorsing Tom Boasberg to take over DPS. He's a reformer, by Dem standards. A group of self-appointed Hispanic leaders oppose him, though.

[GeronL]

nobody will bid. it will fold. same with the Seattle Piss Intourbutt... and then the Red Star Tribune can join them as far as any of us are concerned. Turn them all into bloggers with minimum wage jobs on the side

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I wonder how many hack “objective journalists” would work for a government-subsidized propaganda sheet.

What's the difference between National Public Radio journalism and "government-subsidized propaganda sheet" journalism?

[angkor]

>>>>>What’s the difference between National Public Radio journalism and “government-subsidized propaganda sheet” journalism?<<<<<<<

We’ve had public radio for a long time, and public TV almost since TV existed.

But America has never had a public newspaper.

[Gondring]

You’ve got it right tanker, this is a drag. I wish that stinking Post was the one going under. The Rocky is miles better even though it has slipped and does have some real woohoos on staff, like Johnson and Griego.

Ostrich Brigade notwithstanding, it's pretty typical these days for the more conservative papers to be falling faster than the more liberal ones. Look at how The Washington Times is losing circulation facster than The Washington Post. And newspapers are finding that their success lies with stories that are written more simply and can be mostly told in three paragraphs or less. America is becoming illiterate.

[colorado tanker]

IMHO the Rocky's problem has nothing to do with politics or editorial content. The Rocky actually beats the Post in Metro circulation. The problem is with their reduced size tab format they aren't selling as many inches of ads.

[Gondring]

The problem is with their reduced size tab format they aren't selling as many inches of ads.

You've got the chicken and egg mixup...they aren't selling as many ads, so they switched to the reduced size tab format. That might be leading to fewer ads itself, or might not, but the cycle starts with the ad drop that everyone is facing. Many papers reduced format, dropping from broadsheet to tab, cutting widths and/or sections, etc.

[Dumb_Ox]

The editorial page might be conservative/libertarian, but the rest of the paper generally follows the orthodoxy of left-wing journalism.

I know several people who dropped their subscription after the Rocky did a cover-story puff piece on the Gay Pride parade.

I will be worried to lose Vincent Carroll's voice, but that might be it.

Does anybody here participate on YourHub.com or other local community journalism sites? Seems like a good place to engage with locals on important issues. I might try the Denver Post's Neighborhood site as well, just to counter the worst of the reporting and commmentary.