Case Study View from Denver Alan Prendergast S DENVER’S MUNICIPAL elections ap- from so much growth—controversies Aproach, Kevin Flynn, a candidate for over neighborhood-altering new devel- city council, checks his email updates with opments, spiking home prices, gentri- a growing sense of unease. With less than fication, a multibillion-dollar marijuana a week to go, only 16 percent of the mail-in industry,456 new tech ventures, surging ballots have been received, and some traffic, environmental degradation, com- analysts are forecasting a low turnout munities displaced or left behind by the for a mayoral race that could have a pro- boom—and so few outlets with the re- 450 ALAN found impact on the city’s future. “I’ve sources to tell those stories. found that a lot of people are unaware Media abhors a vacuum, and one re- PRENDERGAST has that there’s an election next week,” Flynn sponse has been the launch of several written for Rolling says.“That’s a problem.”451 new digital outlets and collaborative ven- Stone, the Los A council member since 2015, Flynn is tures aiming to fill the gaps in local and Angeles Times, running for reelection unopposed. He’s a regional coverage. Most of the start-ups Outside, West- popular figure in his district, with an un- boast business models that don’t depend word, and other usual backstory, having spent 27 years as on advertising revenue, relying instead publications and a reporter at the Rocky Mountain News, on a combination of philanthropic grants, teaches journal- covering city politics and other beats, un- private sponsors, and reader donations. ism at Colorado til the daily ceased operations in 2009. But these efforts come with questions College. “Now I’m one of the bastards I used to about their long-term sustainability, the write about,” he jokes.452 degree to which they’re reaching their But Flynn doesn’t see anything funny intended audience, and whether that about disaffected and ill-informed voters, audience is large enough and willing to or the decline in local news coverage his pay enough to keep the coverage coming. city has endured in recent years. In par- Despite the unknowns, it’s clear that a ticular, he finds the paucity of old-fash- major shift in local news is underway. It ioned watchdog journalism—the routine can’t come soon enough for those observ- scrutiny of government operations and ers who believe that a robust local press is public officials—to be downright unnerv- key to an informed citizenry. “I think it’s a ing. “It feels like we could all be getting crisis worse than the deficit,” says Dennis away with murder right now,” he says. “I Gallagher, a former Denver councilman, don’t like it at all.”453 city auditor, and state lawmaker who re- Flynn’s discomfort reflects a wider con- mains active in city politics, advising one cern about the paradox that Denver has of the challengers in this year’s mayor’s become, a burgeoning city with a muted race. “Jefferson said that no nation can media presence. With one of the most be ignorant and free, and it’s true. The superheated economies in the nation,454 press—even though they gouge people the population (now 716,492 and climb- on their death notices—I can forgive that ing) has grown by 100,000 over the past if they inform people about what’s going seven years, while the surrounding metro on in government. That’s what keeps our area has swelled from 2.5 million to 3.2 country together.”457 million since 2010.455 At the same time, local print journalism has been gutted, OR MUCH OF , DenverITS was a HISTORY from the shuttering of the Rocky to the Fvibrant two-daily town. In the 1960s and relentless layoffs and greatly diminished ’70s, the Rocky was the scrappy morning output of the town’s remaining daily, The tabloid, the Post the establishment after- Denver Post. noon broadsheet. At their peak in the 1990s, The dilemma: So many stories emerging the two papers competed strenuously for LOSING THE NEWS 49 readers and scoops, loudly promoted their it has ever been—but those profits have prize-winning muckraking series, and sent come from drastically slashing staff, sell- fleets of reporters to cover every Denver ing off assets, hiking subscription and ad Broncos Super Bowl appearance. The news rates, and moving most of the paper’s op- war had many benefits for readers, includ- erations from downtown to the suburbs. ing incredibly cheap subscription offers. Alden’s strategy, which has generated The competition was good for democracy, protests at MediaNews papers across the too. As the circulation lead shifted back and country, is known as “harvesting cash”—a forth several times in the 1980s and ’90s, vampiric process of sucking all the value both sides ramped up their reporting not out of a company while investing as little only in the traditionally covered urban core, as possible to keep it alive.461 but also in suburban communities, where In the spring of 2018, as the Post st a ff “There is a sense many newly arrived readers lived. Neither was bracing for another round of layoffs, that journalists paper could afford to ignore issues of wide editorial page editor Chuck Plunkett led are not minding public concern, from toxic mine waste kill- a remarkable mutiny, publishing a pack- ing Colorado rivers to nepotism in the city age of articles calling for Alden to sell the the store in administration. The quest for the greatest Post before it died of neglect.462 The move Colorado like possible readership also encouraged lively drew national headlines but didn’t stop we used to,” says and diverse opinion pages, reflecting the re- the layoffs; the newspaper now has fewer editor Chuck gion’s changing demographics and evolving than 70 journalists on staff463—less than Plunkett. political perspectives.458 one-third of what it had 10 years ago464—to But the growing expense of the news cover a city that’s 20 percent larger.465 war caught up with both papers. In 2000, Plunkett resigned a few weeks later after years of losses, the Rocky’s owner, and now heads a capstone program for E.W. Scripps Company, agreed to com- journalism students at the University of bine business operations with the Post. Colorado. “To me, it looks like they’re The two dailies continued to operate this doing their best to hold on,” he says of way for another nine years, maintaining a the Post.466 “I don’t see any innovation. I collective newsroom of 500 journalists. know they’re working as hard as they can, But in 2009, after failing to find a buyer but if you only have 70 folks, you can’t for the Rocky, Scripps shut it down.459 do what you used to do. There is a sense Denver joined the growing ranks of ma- that journalists are not minding the store jor American cities with only one daily in Colorado like we used to.”467 newspaper. The current print edition of the Post Supposedly poised to dominate the is a lean, sometimes emaciated product. market, the Post struggled, too. The in- Breaking news is still paramount, but dustry was trending downward; revenues stories about education (particularly were plummeting, thanks to the defection higher ed), labor, transportation, subur- of classified advertisers to Craigslist and ban government, and rural communities the decimation of local retailers by the are sparse. Gone are the beat reporters Great Recession and online competitors. who made the rounds of county meet- Modest gains in digital revenue couldn’t ings and sniffed out development con- begin to make up the print losses. In ad- troversies and sweetheart deals as they dition, the Post’s parent company, Me- were unfolding—or put the fear of God diaNews Group, had taken on nearly a in officials so they wouldn’t dare attempt billion dollars in debt in an effort to build malfeasance. Gone are the cityside col- one of the largest newspaper chains in umnists who once offered historically the country.460 informed commentary and insights on Less than a year after theRocky folded, public policy controversies and helped MediaNews faced a reckoning with its readers navigate local elections. The lenders in bankruptcy court. A privately sports section, a significant source of on- held hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, line traffic, remains a priority, while arts emerged with a commanding share of the and culture coverage is mostly freelance. company. Under its new owners, the Post The once-celebrated “Voice of the Rocky is reportedly more profitable now than Mountain Empire” has become a whisper. 50 PEN AMERICA online news ventures that are trying to woo an increasingly fragmented au- dience. Others include The Colorado Independent, a nonprofit run by former Post and Rocky columnists that serves up a progressive-tinged mix of public policy reporting and opinion; Denver- ite, a hyper-local news-you-can-use site focused on city and state government, development, and related issues that has had three owners in the past two years; and a host of smaller niche operations that cover politics, education, health, the energy industry, transit, or other topics. All of these outlets have small staffs of around 3 to 12 people and extremely lim- ited visibility in Denver’s muddled media A Denver Post employee holds up a sign landscape. Only a small percentage of during a rally urging the paper’s hedge residents often get their local news from fund owner, Alden Global Capital, to ei- digital-first outlets.472 None have anything ther invest in its news outlets or sell them.