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January 07, 2009 07:24 PM UTC

Rocky Uninterested In Alternatives?

  • 8 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Independent reports something rather curious:

Rocky Mountain News contributor Jason Salzman wrote in a column for the newspaper last week that “putting the Rocky on the market for one month over the holidays looks like it’s not a good-faith effort to find a buyer for the newspaper.” But the observation didn’t appear in the Rocky because editor and publisher John Temple rejected the column, Salzman says in a blog post Tuesday. It’s the first time in more than four years the Rocky has refused one of his biweekly “On the Media” columns, Salzman writes.

“My editors at the Rocky have been fair during my years of freelance service. I respect them, and Temple did not fire me,” the media critic writes. Salzman adds that he posted the rejected column because he feels it’s important to raise questions about possible federal intervention to keep Rocky owner E.W. Scripps Co. from shutting down the 149-year-old newspaper…

Salzman turns to University of California at Berkeley law professor Stephen Barnett, an expert on JOAs, including past agreements when the Feds stepped in to encourage a sale when the owners preferred to close a newspaper.

Seems the Rocky not only didn’t want the advice, but they didn’t want you to read it either. That’s kind of odd, don’t you think? The Independent concludes:

As the Scripps deadline creeps closer, efforts to save the Rocky, one of Colorado’s oldest businesses, soldier on. But in the pages of the Rocky itself, “readers deserve to know what can be done if a premature decision to close the paper is made,” Salzman argued in the column the Rocky wouldn’t run.

A poll follows: fait accompli, anyone?

Is a serious effort being made to keep the Rocky Mountain News afloat?

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8 thoughts on “Rocky Uninterested In Alternatives?”

  1. If ColoradoPols is going to be the “blog of record,” and it looks like that is what is happening,, then I am going to have to figure out how to use spellcheck.  

    1. Look at Scipps’ financials. It’s not exactly in a position to carry the Rocky’s losses much longer. It has shut down a number of papers in recent years, including, I think, a JOA paper in Cincinnati.

      I find it difficult to believe a media critic wants the federal government to save a newspaper. This would give politicians excuses to micro manage the news and editorial page operations.

      Also important, is the fact that in this kind of economy, it will be difficult to find a buyer anytime during the next 18 to 36 months. Very few merger and acquisition deals are being done because the financial markets are still pretty frozen. And a lot of potential buyers have their own financial problems and don’t need the Rocky’s.

      As for Singleton, he has tremendous financial problems and is in no position to outbid anyone.

      Finally, I’ve gotten the impression that the paper actually has been on the block for some time, not just the last month. Again, there are no buyers.

      As important as the Rocky is to the community, we will live just fine without it if we have to. While there are differences between the two papers and the Rocky seems superior to the Post to me, the differences are so minimal that it’s not as if The Wall Street Journal is being closed while the New York Post survives.

      1. The federal government already has saved the Rocky once, through the JOA. Are you saying that it has been micromanaging the news and editorial page operations since then?

        All Salzman did was raise the rather legitimate question of what the government might do, or had the authority to do, given what appeared to be a curiously short window for seeking buyers.

        Temple’s own explanation of why he rejected the column http://blogs.rockymountainnews… is pretty flimsy. It doesn’t even address the inherent conflict of interest in having the head of the newspaper’s business operation (Temple is also publisher and president of the Rocky) censor a column that raises questions about that business operation.

        1. Only governments censor.

          Newspaper editors edit, and deciding whether to run a column is an editing function.

          Having said that, Temple probably decided the column didn’t make sense. It doesn’t.

          And newspapers traditionally are very careful about what they publish about their businesses.

          I’ve yet to see a good story about Scripps’ financials and its ability to keep the Rocky in business if it continues to lose $15 million or more a year. Given the current economic outlook, it’s a good candidate to lose double that or more during the next few years.

  2. I agree with Salzman that it seems fishy. Is Scripps really that afraid of the DOJ telling them to stay open, or is there some other reason for not publishing the piece?

    “I think the Justice Department might, especially in a new Administration, require [the Rocky] to remain operating for a few months or something to see if a new buyer could be found,” said Barnett.  

    If a buyer were found, the widely reported JOA provision giving Post owner Dean Singleton both the first right of refusal and the right to reject the buyer may be illegal, says Barnett. In a view that’s not been reported locally, he believes a right of refusal in the JOA can’t trump a “capable buyer.”

    Curioser and curioser.

  3. I am convinced that if Scripps said: “we’ll wait 6 more months”, then the Rocky could be the last one standing as I think that Dinky Singleton will play the bankruptcy card any day now.

    There is not one newspaper that is:

    a. in the USA

    b. carrying a large debt load

    that is more than 3-4 months away from BK.

    For example:

    NY Times

    Lee

    2. you are right that the future looks grim for newspapers. The question is not will any cities have two papers, but will they have one. I’ve yet to see newspapers effectively use the web which is their only hope.

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