Denver Post
THE Denver Post is in open revolt against its owner. Angry and frustrated journalists at the 125year-old newspaper took the extraordinary step last weekend of publicly blasting its New York-based hedge-fund owners and making the case for its own survival in several articles that went online on Friday and were scheduled to run in the Post’s Sunday opinion section.
“News matters,” the main headline reads. “Colo. should demand the newspaper it deserves.”
The bold tactic was born out of a dissatisfaction not uncommon in newsrooms across the country as newspapers grapple with the loss of revenue that has followed the decline of print.
The move at the Post followed a prolonged, slow-burning rebellion at the Los Angeles Times, where journalists agitated against the paper’s owner, the media company Tronc. Newsroom complaints about Tronc’s leadership helped lead to the sale of the newspaper to a billionaire medical entrepreneur, Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, who had been a major shareholder in Tronc.
For many publications that do not attract a patron-like owner, however, the hard times are likely to continue, and midsize newspapers have been hit especially hard. Hoping to avoid the slow trudge to irrelevance or bankruptcy, the Denver paper took the stuff of newsroom conversation and made it public in dramatic fashion.
The lead editorial pulled no punches, describing executives at Alden Global Capital, the paper’s hedge-fund owner, as “vulture capitalists”.
“We call for action,” the editorial continued. It went on to make the case that “Denver deserves a newspaper owner who supports its newsroom. If Alden isn’t willing to do good DenverPost
journalism here, it should sell the Post to owners who will.”
The Post, which serves a city of some 700,000 residents, has a weekday circulation of an estimated 170,000 and 8.6 million unique monthly visitors to its website. It has won nine Pulitzer Prizes, including in 2013 for its coverage of the mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Alden Global took control of the paper in 2010, after acquiring its bankrupt parent company, MediaNews Group, and runs it through a subsidiary, Digital First Media.
Chuck Plunkett, the Post’s editorial page editor, masterminded the package of articles that, in part, rebuked the owners of the publication where he has worked since 2003. He did not warn executives at Digital First Media before posting it, Plunkett said. The Post’s news and opinion sections are separate fiefs, and he also did not inform the paper’s chief editor, Lee Ann Colacioppo, of his plans.
Shortly after the articles were posted online, Guy Gilmore, the chief operating officer of Digital First Media, called Colacioppo. He said he wanted to discuss the editorial and the “appropriate response” from the company, Colacioppo said. The two decided that the stories would remain online and that the Sunday print section would proceed as planned. In addition, Plunkett would stay on as editorial page editor.
Digital First Media did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Readers inside and outside the newsroom met the articles with an outpouring of support.
“The @denverpost is being murdered by its owners,” one Post reporter, John Wenzel, wrote on Twitter. He continued, “We need a new owner, or we are going to get shut down (and soon).”
“I am so proud to work for this brave newspaper staff,” Elizabeth Hernandez, another Post reporter, said on Twitter. “I’ve been asked if I’m afraid of losing my job for speaking out against our owners. I am afraid of losing my job due to our owners completely killing Colorado’s largest newspaper.”
The package also had a fan in City Hall.
“Denver is so proud of our flagship newspaper for speaking out,” Mayor Michael B Hancock said in a statement. “The Denver Post said it best – they are necessary to this ‘grand democratic experiment’, especially at a time when the press and facts are under constant attack by the White House. For a New York hedge fund to treat our paper like any old business and not a critical member of our community is offensive. We urge the owners to rethink their business strategy or get out of the news business. Denver stands with our paper and stands ready to be part of the solution that supports local journalism and saves the 125year-old Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire.”
Sunday’s print opinion section comes one day before more than two dozen employees at the Post say farewell to the newsroom.
Already devastated by staff reductions made since Alden Global Capital took over in