Charles Apple

Scripps announced today that Friday’s edition of the Rocky Mountain News will be its last.

Thursday’s penultimate edition of the Rocky Mountain News.
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The Rocky was less than two months away from its 150th birthday, it reports on its web site this afternoon.

The unbylined story reports:

Scripps said it will now offer for sale the masthead, archives and Web site of the Rocky, separate from its interest in the newspaper agency.

In addition to the story, the Rocky posted a running report of the newsroom announcement today.

Mark Contreras [senior vice-president of newspapers for Scripps] says its á la talking to the kids explaining a divorce. The passion and creativity of your work has captured imagination of everyone at Scripps; awards, Pulitzers, the Rocky is always at the top of that list

Unfortunate reality; how metro newspapers make money in 2009 is vastly different than it was just a year ago.

That is not your fault.

Assistant presentation editor Brian Clarke listens to Scripps
executives during the noontime announcement Thursday in
the Rocky newsroom. Photo by Judy DeHass of the Rocky
Mountain News. Find a slide show here.
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…Q: Reporters said they’ve been working hard all week on Saturday stories: Can we have one more day?

A: No.

…Today we will produce an amazing newspaper (for tomorrow), [editor John Temple] says. He hopes by tomorrow “we can tell you about a big party Saturday night.”

Find that rolling log here.

Find the Rocky’s Twitter feed here. A couple of examples:

Temple: “We have one last shot to produce a great newspaper. Let’s show people what we can do.” Like playing music at your own funeral.

[Scripps CEO Rich] Boehne: “We are deeply sorry.” Reporter says in background, “Pay my mortgage.”

Reporter Laura Frank jokes she almost slid off a mountain on Tuesday to get a story for the Rocky’s Saturday edition. “One more day?”

Newsroom atmosphere: Designers are huddled around white boards, looking at story assignments. Editors are huddled with reporters.

Someone there tweeted that you can leave your condolences to the Rocky staff here. [Note: Maybe not. Site appears to be jammed up pretty badly.]

The Post has announced it’ll hire a few Rocky staffers. The only visuals staffer on the list: Pulitzer-winning phtog Judy DeHaas.

Poynter’s Rick Edmonds will host a live chat Friday about the closure of the Rocky. Find that here.

Watch a slideshow history of the Rocky here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Industry woes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.