Rocky kept swinging until the very end

Paper won four Pulitzers since 2000, but couldn't weather economic storm

By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 27, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

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It came into being on a dark night two years before the Civil War's first gunshots, survived a flood that washed away its press and countless threats to its very existence, then enjoyed, in the twilight of its life, recognition as one of the best newspapers in the country.

But today marks the final milestone in the storied history of the Rocky Mountain News, Colorado's first newspaper and oldest continually operated business.

This is the last edition of the paper of Damon Runyon and Harry Rhoads, of Mrs. Molly Mayfield and Al Nakkula, of Gene Amole and Dusty Saunders and scores of other characters. The paper whose reporters fancied themselves the "Wildcats of Welton Street" in an earlier era. The paper that shed the bawdy image of the tabloid to win four Pulitzer Prizes since 2000.

In the end, it was the economics - not the history nor the people nor the Pulitzers - that mattered.

The Denver metro area simply could not support two major newspapers in the midst of the current economic recession. That came on top of tectonic shifts sweeping the news business, including, most recently, the phenomenon that has seen the Internet siphon off once-lucrative pieces of the business, such as classified advertising.

The end - anticipated since the E.W. Scripps Co. put the paper up for sale on Dec. 4 - officially came a few minutes after noon Thursday when the Rocky's staff was summoned to the news desk.

Rich Boehne, the president and CEO of Scripps, stepped into the newsroom, and everyone knew.

"Tomorrow will be the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News," Boehne began simply. "It's certainly not good news for any of you, and it's certainly not good news for Denver."

In recent days, gallows humor and rumor had gripped the Rocky's newsroom.

With the announcement, the reality of the situation gave way to tears.

"I'm just sick that we're here talking to you about this," said Mark Contreras, the head of the Scripps newspaper division, with emotion in his voice. "I'm just sick."

'We just had a lot of spark'

Even though it was Colorado's first paper, the Rocky's existence, it seemed, had hung in the balance almost since the first edition, printed by William N. Byers just a few steps from Cherry Creek, right near the present-day intersection of Speer Boulevard and Auraria Parkway.

Byers had hauled his printing press to town, set up shop between the competing settlements of Denver City and Auraria, and got the first edition of the Rocky out at 10 p.m. on April 22, 1859, beating the rival Cherry Creek Pioneer by 20 minutes. The Pioneer was the first victim of the city's newspaper wars, folding after that first issue.

Over the years, the Rocky faced an 1864 flash flood that swept its press away and knocked it out of business for five weeks, and blizzards here and there that kept carriers from getting the papers delivered to more than a handful of customers.

And over its lifespan, there was no shortage of challengers as other papers came and went. The Herald. The Daily Commonweath and Republican. The Denver Daily Gazette. The Evening Sentinel. And finally, in the 1890s, The Denver Post, which itself failed once before re-emerging in 1895 to launch one of the greatest newspaper wars in the country.

Through it all, there was something about the Rocky that seemed, somehow, different. For many of its readers, it was like a member of the family. Trusted and enjoyed most of the time, more like the obnoxious uncle at Thanksgiving now and then.

"I remember the Rocky Mountain News just being part of our lives," said Saunders, a Denver kid who grew up to write more words for the paper than anybody ever had, or ever will.

For much of the last century, it was considered by many to be the second paper in town, behind The Post. But that seldom fazed those who worked at the Rocky. To them, there was something thrilling and satisfying about being the scrappy underdog in the fight.

"We just had a lot of spark," said Michael Howard, whose father and grandfather ran the paper before him.

Howard, perhaps the most colorful editor in the paper's history, took over at a time when the Rocky trailed The Post in the circulation war by approximately 90,000 papers a day. When he lost the job in 1980 after well-documented drug-abuse problems, the Rocky was in the lead.

"I think of the impossible being done, in the sense of the history of the Rocky is the history of a paper that had no future," he said.

1940s saw surge in numbers

Howard's family figured prominently in the history of the paper.

His grandfather, Roy Howard, oversaw the purchase of the Rocky in 1926 by the Scripps-Howard chain of newspapers, then merged The Denver Express, which the company had opened in 1906, into it.

By 1940, however, the handwriting appeared to be on the wall. The Post, with a commanding circulation lead, would prevail, it seemed. Many assumed that when new editor Jack Foster was brought to town it was to shut down the Rocky. Instead, he converted it to a tabloid on April 13, 1942, the same day the Mrs. Molly Mayfield column, penned secretly by his wife, Frances, debuted - one of the first advice columns in the country.

The Rocky doubled circulation in five years.

In March 1980, the Rocky passed The Post in overall circulation, and the two papers would swap the lead back and forth for the next 20 years.

Through all that time, the papers waged a war for readers that seems more like the stuff of screenplay than a history book.

Take February 1927. The Rocky offered two free gallons of gasoline for anybody who bought a classified advertisement in the Sunday paper. Then The Post upped the offer to four gallons, and the Rocky raised the stakes to five. It's not clear whether either paper made any money during that battle, but the customers were lined up around their buildings.

Then there was 1986. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize that year and promptly rented a billboard to tout it. That billboard stood just outside the third-floor window of Rocky editor Ralph Looney's office in the paper's building at 400 W. Colfax Ave.

Paper took home Pulitzers

In 2000, as the media world began to change in ways never before seen, the Rocky and The Post finally declared a truce, of sorts, when they agreed to merge their business functions under an arrangement known as a joint operating agreement.

By then, the Rocky had acquired a reputation for its photography - George Kohaniec Jr.'s picture from the Columbine tragedy ran on front pages all over the country - and for its investigative journalism and its storytelling.

The names of some of those projects have entered the lexicon of the paper. "Osveli's Journey." "Final Salute." "Change in the Air." "The Crossing."

And the business arrangement ushered in a new era of prosperity for the Rocky, and a sheaf of honors followed.

Since 2000, only six papers won more Pulitzers. And just this week, the paper's sports section was named one of the 10 best in the country.

"In my opinion, we produced the highest- quality journalism this paper has ever published under the JOA," said John Temple, the Rocky's editor, president and publisher.

But by 2007, the industry was faltering.

Classified advertising, which just a few years ago provided the two papers with upward of $100 million in revenue, virtually vanished.

There was a time when it was said that owning a printing press was a license to print money.

On Dec. 4, Boehne stood in the Rocky's newsroom and announced that the paper was for sale and that, if no buyer emerged, the company would consider all options. Among them was the unthinkable: shutting down the Rocky.

The announcement came in the midst of a devastating time for America's newspapers.

As Boehne made his announcement, Gannett Co. Inc., the country's largest newspaper publisher, was in the midst of layoffs that slashed more than 2,000 people from its newsrooms. In the ensuing weeks, the bad news accelerated.

The company that owns the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun declared bankruptcy, as did the owners of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. They were followed into bankruptcy court by the company that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. The owners of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Tucson Citizen put them up for sale, and each could close in the coming months if buyers aren't found. And the recently hired publisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution told staff members that the paper was losing $1 million a week.

Just this week, the owners of the San Francisco Chronicle announced that they needed drastic cuts within weeks or they would be forced to sell - or shutter - a paper born in 1865.

Hope, sadness and thanks

But even as the industry crumbled, the Rocky's staff held onto hope that some way, somehow the paper that had been knocked down so many times would find a way to get up again.

In January, Saunders - who still writes occasionally for the Rocky even though he officially retired in 2007 - called CBS newsman Bob Schieffer for a piece on the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

The first words out of Schieffer's mouth struck Saunders.

"God, I'm really sorry to hear what's happening to your newspaper," Schieffer told him.

"He used the word 'your,' " Saunders said. "That's a very proprietary thing I guess. It's almost symbolic. . . . It's more than a phrase. The Rocky Mountain News has been my newspaper. Just the thought of it not being there is really kind of devastating.

"It's more than just a newspaper. There's a personality there. It is your newspaper. You feel connected to it."

For more than 30 years, it was Sue Lindsay's paper.

Lindsay, the Rocky's longest-tenured employee, has covered anything and everything for the paper and has spent so much time in courtrooms, on assignment, that some judges have told her - jokingly, she thinks - that she knows more about the law than many attorneys.

For her, Thursday brought swirling emotions. Grief. Fear. Pride.

"This is a very sad day for all of us here and those who no longer will be able to read their Rocky," Lindsay said. "When I came here in 1977 from Chicago, I thought, 'Wow, this is really boring. There's no news.'

"Well, that changed big time. Through it all we had a connection with the community that was personal and deep. With what's going on with journalism today, I feel like I'm losing a career that I am passionate about, but we're also losing our family here and a paper that was so important to the people who live here. I'm sad for myself, my co-workers and for all the stories that won't be told."

Late in the afternoon, Temple gathered the staff for the last time. There were the inevitable questions about health benefits and separation agreements.

And then there was a final moment.

"I want to thank you," he said to the bulk of the paper's 228 employees. "It's been an honor. We had a beautiful thing here."

That first night along Cherry Creek, Byers printed around 500 copies of his newspaper.

An untold number of them have survived the century and a half that have passed - two in the collection of the Colorado History Museum, others rumored to be in private hands.

The "Holy Grail" of that first press run rests on the fifth floor of the Denver Public Library, behind a locked door, inside a leather case in a room where the temperature and humidity are carefully controlled.

"You could say it is priceless," said Jim Kroll, the manager of the Western History and Genealogy Department.

It is in surprisingly good condition, owing in part to the grade of paper used before the Civil War, which had an almost linen-like quality to it. The four pages are white, and most of the printing crisp, and easily readable. In the upper right hand corner, printed in thick, block letters, is a note from founder William Newton Byers:

This is the first sheet ever printed in Pike's Peak Country, at 10 p.m. April 22nd, 1859

Wm. N. Byers

Byers was obviously a man with a sense of history.

His paper was on the streets when what is now Denver was little more than a rough- and-tumble mining settlement. It was already 17 years old when Colorado won statehood, and 40 when the 20th century arrived.

One-hundred forty-nine years, 10 months and four days have passed since that night, and in that time the Rocky has printed more than 54,500 editions.

Now, the paper passes from chronicler of a city, state and region's history into history itself.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News

Comments

February 27, 2009

3:15 a.m.

Suggest removal

mikeyg writes:

Of the two dailies I always preferred the Rocky to the Post. It's sad that this town will only be left with a leftist editorial page.

What I don't understand and would appreciate an explanation of is if both papers split revenues under the JOA how can one succeed and one fail? Were revenues not split evenly, or did the RMN have higher expenses?

If revenues were not split evenly then how did the formula work?

If the RMN had higher expenses then why couldn't they cut them?
February 27, 2009

3:47 a.m.

Suggest removal

conative1963 writes:

I feel like my BFF has died. I have been crying on and off for the last 12 hours.

Although I've been in and out of Colorado for the past 20+ years, finding, picking up and reading the Rocky in its inky goodness has been like seeing an old friend. I remember visiting my Grandparents when I was five, and loving the fact that I could actually hold the tabloid-sized paper in my teeny hands MUCH easier than a broadsheet. Thus began my love of an actual newspaper.

Members of my family have been reading the Rocky Mountain News for at least 120 of the last 149.85 years.

I never, ever thought the end of a business would evoke more emotion than the death of a real person. But it has.

I do realize that the Newspaper business has changed, and will continue to change and evolve. Someday, maybe the Rocky will return as an online entity. Until then, it will be missed. Greatly.

I do not look forward to taking this morning's paper to my Alzheimer's riddled 94 year old Grandmother. She inquires daily about her paper, and when I have to take her the Post, I know she will cry.

Thank you, all, for your wonderful work.

Goodbye.
February 27, 2009

5 a.m.

Suggest removal

fender_man writes:

As a Colorado native over 55 years old I will miss the News.
I delivered the News as a kid and have never had a subscription to any other paper. This is truly a sad day for Colorado.

Good luck everybody and thank you for your years of service.
February 27, 2009

5:39 a.m.

the_ripper writes:

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
February 27, 2009

7:03 a.m.

Suggest removal

davehughes writes:

Yeah, I am 80 years old, a native too, and delivered the RMN in Denver, around Cheesman Park on my my bike in the 1940s. And only read it, and not the Post, the rest of my life even after living elsewhere.
February 27, 2009

7:22 a.m.

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INC writes:

I find it interesting as to how the decision to allow the Rocky to exist in an on line format... is up to the post?

yet it seems every other line from the JOA bosses is "sad" and " not part of Denvers paper war". But that's exactly what it is. The final death knell for the Rocky comes at the hands of its rival... the post.

BLAH!!!
February 27, 2009

7:34 a.m.

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MrJim writes:

Goodbye Old Friend.
February 27, 2009

7:45 a.m.

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280Pagoda writes:

While I have only been alive for a bit more than one third of your existence, I too was a newspaper delivery boy, freelanced for your paper as a writer and photographer when working two blocks away at the Metropolitan State College paper - The Paper - as count many of your employees over the years as dear family friends.

My father talked dearly of how, when the KKK was pushing into town with some of Denver's mayors in the early 20th Century, the Rocky worked openly and quietly behind the scenes to defeat their hateful ways.

It will be a long list if I start listing all those things that are dear memories of RMN. You have been more friend than newspaper. Thank you for all you have done.

The Rocky Mountain News is dead. Long Live The Rocky Mountain News.
February 27, 2009

7:56 a.m.

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nicolec writes:

This is a sad day indeed! Thank you to all the Rocky staff- I've read your paper since I was a child and will miss it!
February 27, 2009

8:22 a.m.

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Chloe68 writes:

What a sad day for Colorado... Goodbye Rocky Mountain News, and good luck to all who worked there... I am truly heartbroken this morning, having read the Rocky my entire life. Sadly, it is the end of an era.
February 27, 2009

8:28 a.m.

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JustSayin writes:

This was the better web site of the two, though I get the Post in paper at home. Too bad that $cripp$ isn't a going to donate the archives, the name and other such leavings to the state. Now some 'yahoo' (of should that be 'some google'?) will eventually buy and "own" Colorado history.
February 27, 2009

8:53 a.m.

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UNV_ME writes:

Now I'll have to learn origami in order to read a paper in Denver.
February 27, 2009

9:16 a.m.

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cdmdenver writes:

GOOD LUCK TO ALL RMN EMPLOYEE'S!

You made this tabloid happen! Thanks for all
the Memories, Good Luck to ALL in the future.
February 27, 2009

9:25 a.m.

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denverhistory writes:

William Byers' house still stands at 1310 Bannock St., and is open for tours.
February 27, 2009

9:36 a.m.

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INC writes:

denverhistory,
What of the Mansion on the s/w corner of 11th and Penn? that place was built by one of the founders of the rocky...

Ghostly lore has it that's the place to see upset spirits this evening.
February 27, 2009

10:01 a.m.

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jokboy4u writes:

I would highly recommend every single RMN subscriber that is now going to get a subscription to the POST IMMEDIATELY call the Post and tell them to stick it .. if the POST thinks they are going to inherit all the advertisers and subscribers, they need to think again. CANCEL TODAY!!!!!!
February 27, 2009

10:53 a.m.

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HisPrinceMichael writes:

I began reading Newspapers, at around ten or eleven-years-old.
I remember Pop (May God rest his soul) telling me,
"Micah, could you PLEASE keep the newspaper in one-piece
until I read it". A little later in Life, an elder told me JFK
(who my Pop, and consquently, his children, respected immensely)
used to read four newspapers, every morning, front to back.
He did this, I was told, to enlarge his perspective on current
events. As I grew older, I too, began to read several newspapers
a day. Where am I going with all this? I merely want
to affirm a statement made in this article:
"...Recogniton as one of the best newspapers in the country..."
UNDOUBTEDLY.
February 27, 2009

11:24 a.m.

Suggest removal

JustSayin writes:

jokboy4u's gonna rely on his Rush newsletter and FoxNews for all the facts he needs to know, I betcha!
February 27, 2009

11:57 a.m.

Suggest removal

Bhist writes:

I think many of today’s readers of the RMN would be pleasantly surprised to learn that the paper’s founder, William Byer, sometimes had an interesting visitor drop by for coffee.

In Margaret Coel’s biography of the Arapahoe leader, Left Hand, she documented how Left Hand would often visit Byer in his office where they enjoyed a cup of coffee and discussed the issues of the day. Most of those conversations revolved around the conflicts between the settlers and Indians of Colorado.

Left Hand suffered a mortal wound during the Sand Creek Massacre and died a few days afterwards. Sometimes I wonder if Byer missed his coffee breaks with the young Arapahoe leader. We’ll probably never know.

How much will the RMN’s be missed?

Regards,
Bob Reece
February 27, 2009

12:06 p.m.

Suggest removal

HisPrinceMichael writes:

Great story, Mr. Reece.

So being genuinely LEFT-HANDED, I'm compelled to say:
THE Battle, has just BEGUN:
http://www.all4webs.com/q/f/love4yahweh
February 27, 2009

12:59 p.m.

Suggest removal

thedude writes:

Didn't the Rocky Montain news sponsor and hype the Sand Creek massacre??? Auspicious beginnings.

It is indeed sad to see to see newspapers dispearing - but anyone who thinks the very corporate denver post is liberal or left wing has not been reading the Post recently - the fact is the Post editorial pages display a wide range of viewpoints from the right wing ravings of John Andrews ot Amy Goodman.
Fact is the Post's editor is very pro corporate.
February 27, 2009

1:03 p.m.

Suggest removal

ColoBull writes:

I always had the Rocky deleivered and the post just won't work for me. I guess there won't be a paper coming to my house any more. I won't get the post. Thanks you Rocky staff for all of the memories.
February 27, 2009

3:04 p.m.

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bobdylanindenver writes:

The Rocky just couldn't survive a liberal management team.

Liberals ruin everything.
February 27, 2009

3:47 p.m.

Suggest removal

HighCountryGolfer writes:

I always considered the News more conservative and truthful than the Post. And definitely more pro-Colorado. It's a sad day for Colorado.
February 27, 2009

6:19 p.m.

Suggest removal

gregu710 writes:

"bobdylanindenver writes:

The Rocky just couldn't survive a liberal management team.

Liberals ruin everything."

Sad to see some morons can't avoid turning EVERYTHING into a chance for a political jab or discussion. I started with the Post but moved to the Rocky and now wish it were the Post who was no longer around, as I'm sure my grandfather wishes as well. Too bad....
February 27, 2009

7:36 p.m.

Suggest removal

smith writes:

The Rocky survived a Civil War, two World Wars, a Great Depression, and still couldn't make it past the first 60 days of an Obama administration.

Buckle up folks, should be a great next four years. Too bad the Rocky wont be here to document it
February 27, 2009

7:43 p.m.

Suggest removal

The_Punnisher writes:

" We live in interesting times "
February 28, 2009

9:20 a.m.

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DenGirl writes:

Thank you Rocky Mountain News! It's a sad day in Colorado's journalistic history.
February 28, 2009

9:29 a.m.

Suggest removal

Hicky2 writes:

I see Griego is in the Post today. I tolerated her racist dribble because there was much I found good about the Rocky. Not so the Post. As far as I am concerned both Denver dailies died yesterday.

Home › News › Local News

Rocky kept swinging until the very end

Paper won four Pulitzers since 2000, but couldn't weather economic storm

By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 27, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

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