The Rocky Mountain News announced today that it would cease publication on Friday. This is, no doubt, sad news not just for the Rocky but for the industry as a whole. So many news organizations are struggling to survive that when one paper dies, it makes the demise of other papers seem that much more imminent.
All day I felt as though I’d lost a family friend. I didn’t grow up reading the Rocky Mountain News, nor do I know anyone who works there. What I do know, though, is that a quality newspaper with gifted journalists has folded too soon. I’d hate to think that this is the first of many deaths in journalism, though the realist in me says it may very well be.
The Poynter Institute, where I work, is going to try to offer resources to the Rocky journalists so that they’ll know they have someplace to turn and that we care about their well-being. (More on this to come.)
My colleagues and I published a series of stories on Poynter Online about the Rocky‘s closing and plan to continue our coverage on Friday. Here is what we’ve published so far:
You can follow the Rocky‘s Tweets at RMN_Newsroom.
How did you react to the news?
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