Rocky Mountain News Says Goodbye

Denver’s Rocky Mountain News published its farewell issue today, after 150 years.

First published by William Byers in 1859, the News was Colorado’s first newspaper. Throughout the years, the News had survived an 1864 flood that washed away its printing press, savage weather conditions that made it impossible for carriers to deliver it, and numerous competitors for its readership. In the past decade, it won four Pulitzer prizes. The current economic landscape, however, made it untenable for Denver to support two daily newspapers. The writing was on the wall since December, when E.W. Scripps and Company (its current publisher) put it up for sale. More about the News’s history and reminiscences from its readers and staff can be found here.

The News isn’t alone, either. Other major news institutions around the country are struggling to survive. New America Media recently published a commentary by Jim Bettinger, director of the Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, on the dire economic circumstances facing the San Francisco Chronicle. Read more here.