By Donald R. Winslow and Kevin Coughlin
© 2009 News Photographer magazine
DENVER, CO (March 1, 2009) – When the Friday newspaper rolled off the presses it was the last issue of The Rocky Mountain News, missing by just 55 days the paper's 150th anniversary. Owners E.W. Scripps Co. sent the CEO to the newsroom last Thursday to say that no buyer had materialized, and that they were pulling the plug on a business model that was "locked in the past." Friday's paper would be the end.
At the Rocky, 19 journalists are NPPA members.
In the past ten years the newspaper has won four Pulitzer Prizes, three of them for photography.
In 2006, photographer Todd Heisler won the Pulitzer for Feature Photography for "Final Salute," a year-long essay on America's war dead returning home for burial and honors.
In 2003, the photography staff won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for their coverage of Colorado's raging wildfires.
And in 2000, the photography staff won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for its coverage of the Columbine High School massacre.
The photography staff that won three Pulitzers did so under the direction of Janet Reeves, an NPPA member since 1994. In 2006 the Jim Gordon Editor of the Year award was presented to Reeves by NPPA for her "leadership, which has created an environment which advances the standards of photojournalism, consistently looking out for the best interests of all photojournalists."
Reached by phone, Reeves told News Photographer: "It's been very hard on the newsroom." Despite the crushing news, she said her team of visual journalists showed up Thursday and did their jobs like any other day.
"We had a news plan and a budget set for the day. There was a staff meeting with the Mayor and the Governor. We kept a close watch on all of the other stories going on - not just ours." In addition, senior photo editor/video journalist Sonya Doctorian, and staff photographers Joe Mahoney and Matthew Roberts, were hard at work producing a 30-minute documentary on The Rocky Mountain News' history that was posted to their Web site Thursday night.
Reeves also said Colorado Governor Bill Ritter invited the newspaper's staff the use of the Governor's Mansion for a farewell party to be held Saturday night, February 28th. However, logistically it may be too small and another location, possibly a large nightclub in the Denver Area, is now being discussed. Reeves said the last day of business on Friday will involve getting final affairs in order (such as the returning of company gear).
Rocky Mountain News interactive editor Mike Noe, who has been with the newspaper since 1999, and their Web site RockyMountainNews.com since 2001, told News Photographer, "You're holding out hope beyond hope and then the day comes and it's realized." Noe also said he was offered higher paying jobs before coming to the Rocky, but his heart was in journalism. "Not getting a job in this industry is kind of depressing." He added, "I never worked with such a talented group of people ever. It's not a place where people climbed over each other's back to get a title. There were some really great, serious journalists here."
Denver Post editor Greg Moore sent a memo to the Post's staff on Thursday when the news broke, outlining who they've hired from the Rocky staff (which included only one Rocky photographer, Judy DeHaas).
When asked by News Photographer how she felt about members of her team going to their competition across town, The Denver Post, Reeves laughingly said: "Take the whole damn staff! They're all so great!"
"It is sad indeed that The Rocky Mountain News dies so prematurely, for its level of photojournalism stood at the top of the contemporary newspaper scene," said Denver resident and former NPPA president Rich Clarkson, who once was also the photography director at The Denver Post. Clarkson has worked with his share of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers - including recent World Press Photo winner Anthony Suau, who won a Pulitzer for photography while working for Clarkson at the Post.
"The leadership and brilliance of editor and publisher John Temple, with photo director Janet Reeves and one of the finest newspaper photo staffs in America, authored Pulitzer projects and great day-in-and-day-out coverage that will be long remembered. The Rocky's legacy is a textbook case in doing it just right. Only the textbook is now out of print ..."
In December, Scripps said that if a buyer didn't come forward the paper would close, citing multi-million dollar annual loses. The paper published in a joint operating agreement with The Denver Post since 2001.
"Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges," Boehne said Thursday. "The Rocky is one of America’s very best examples of what local news organizations need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the partnership’s business model is locked in the past."
The business model that Scripps CEO Rich Boehne called "locked in the past" was the joint operating agreement, called the Denver Newspaper Agency, that existed between the Rocky and The Denver Post. The JOA handled the business matters for both papers, including advertising and printing. In December, Scripps said their 50 percent of the JOA and the Rocky were up for sale because they could not sustain the ongoing loss of revenue. In 2008, the Rocky lost $16 million.
"Our jobs and our lives are in the hands of people whose shoes cost more than most of us make in a week," Russ Kendall said when he heard the news. Until 1999 Kendall was a staff photographer at the Rocky; today he's a picture editor at the Bellingham Herald in Washington.
A letter from the Denver Newspaper Agency went out to advertisers on the day before the Rocky shut down informing them that despite the Rocky's closing, advertising rates in The Denver Post "will not change." The Rocky's tabloid format was smaller than the Post's broadsheet page, so full-page rates beginning Monday will be "increased slightly to reflect the increase in the ad size," the letter said.
An early possible buyer fell through, the Rocky reported, and most recently Scripps had been negotiating with Post owner MediaNews Group on a plan that would have allowed MediaNews Group to leave Colorado newspapers. Scripps and MediaNews Group also share a 50-50 ownership of the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, CO.
Boehne said that now that the Rocky is shutting down, the newspaper's masthead, archives, and Web site are for sale separated from the company's interest in the Denver Newspaper Agency.
The Rocky was founded by William Byers in 1859 and bought by Scripps in 1926.
Reporter Kevin Coughlin contributed to this story
