Colorado consortium buys small newspapers

Group partners with a national nonprofit to preserve local journalism

DENVER — The Colorado Sun, a Denver-based online news operation created three years ago by journalists who left The Denver Post, has partnered with a national nonprofit to buy 24 community newspapers in a unique venture that seeks to preserve local journalism.

The arrangement adds to a growing number of newspapers receiving boosts from nonprofits that are devoted to protecting journalism in the United States where private equity or hedge funds buy up and consolidate financially struggling legacy newspapers.

The Sun and the National Trust for Local News announced the private purchase Monday of the family-owned Colorado Community Media, which operates the papers — some of which are more than a century old — and the websites and two shoppers. Colorado Community Media, with 330,000 readers, will be supported by the new Colorado News Conservancy, a public benefit corporation created by the Sun and the Trust.

It’s the first acquisition for the Trust, a new nonprofit established to provide funding and technical support to local news outlets in an era when community newspapers are fast disappearing. The Trust was developed under the Public Media Venture Group, a consortium of public media television and radio stations.

The project is an ambitious new chapter for The Sun, which was created in 2018 by journalists who left The Denver Post amid budget and staff cuts made by the newspaper’s New York-based hedge fund owners. The Sun’s newsroom has grown steadily ever since — and Larry Ryckman, its editor-in-chief, wants the nation to take note.