Rocky Ending: Closure hits j-alums & friends

Final Rocky Mountain News

The incredible disappearing act of print newspapers hit close to home this year with the closure of the Pulitzer-prize-winning Rocky Mountain News.

The E.W. Scripps Co closed the Rocky on Feb. 26, just 55 days shy of its 150th birthday. The closure sent a shock wave through the newsroom and the Denver region as the once two-newspaper town suddenly became one.

Bill Scanlon (MA ’80), a Rocky employee for 18 years, Twittered and blogged the Rocky closure as the announcement came on that fateful Thursday.

“I just tried to capture the atmosphere of the newsroom – people standing around stunned,” Scanlon said of the bewildered journalists and other employees.

Scanlon said he now stays busy with two nonpaying writing jobs after being turned down for about a half-dozen journalism jobs he applied for.

“It’s discouraging to see what’s actually available,” he said, “applying for jobs you seem way overqualified for and not even getting a call back.”

“Facing the loss of our entire family income was frightening,” said Precision Journalism adjunct professor Laura Frank.

“But the greater worry for us actually is the potential collapse of the entire news industry.”

Frank, an investigative reporter, and her husband, sports reporter Jeff Legwold, both worked at the Rocky.

“When the Rocky Mountain News closed, both our jobs went with it,” she said.

Rocky Mountain News investigative reporter Laura Frank gets a kiss from her husband, Rocky sports writer Jeff Legwold, on the last day at the Rocky.

“Jeff spent the past months as he usually does, analyzing the backgrounds and abilities of a few hundred athletes to predict who will be chosen in the NFL draft. But instead of writing the results for the Rocky, he wrote them for FoxSports.com, which fed them to MSN.com. From there, they were tweeted on Twitter, fanned on Facebook, posted, blogged about, and otherwise went viral in a way that we think is key to the future of journalism,” she said.

“Jeff and I believe all Coloradans suffered a loss when the Rocky closed. But like many of our colleagues, we’re working toward what’s next.” Still, while the closure of one of Denver’s two largest newspapers adds to the uncertain climate of print news, many CU J-School alumni and adjunct instructors said they remain dedicated to the field of journalism.

Television columnist Dusty Saunders (’53) and investigative reporter Burt Hubbard, SJMC Precision Journalism adjunct instructor since 1997, both joined their former competitor, The Denver Post.

In 2000, the Post, owned by MediaNews Group Inc., and the Rocky formed the Denver News Agency, or DNA, which ran the two newspapers’ business operations in a joint operation agreement.

“There was a huge demand for jobs when the Rocky closed,” said Hubbard, who now is a Post database-reporting specialist.

Former Rocky investigative reporter Burt Hubbard presents an outreach program for the SJMC in Pueblo in February. James Amos (‘01) is at right..

“But not everyone went back to the daily newspaper.”

The Post hired only 11 Rocky employees.

Other former Rocky reporters jumped to the digital newsroom, seeking the same advantages of Web-based content that many believe contributed to the closure of their employer.

Scanlon, George Tanner (’87), Mark Wolf (’70) and SJMC News Editing adjunct instructor Kim Humphreys joined some 30 former Rocky journalists in a bid to transform years of dedication to newspapers to the digital world through InDenverTimes.com, which is struggling to produce subscriber-based coverage of the Denver area.

They remain loyal to the journalism craft, still wanting to conduct investigative work and contribute quality news to Denver, said Tanner, who worked as a full-time volunteer with InDenverTimes.com.

“A lot of doors open when your employer shuts down,” he said. “But journalism is our career; it is what we chose to do.”

Tanner, an avid soccer fan, said he has also started a soccer Web site (coloradosoccernow.com) that produces in-depth coverage of professional and collegiate soccer teams in Colorado.

However, on Wednesday April 22 – one day before the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Rocky Mountain News – InDenvertimes investors announced they were unwilling to allocate money for an unproven product, Scanlon said. “We didn’t get the green light.”

The Web site has since informed its 3,000-plus subscribers that it was going into a holding pattern while new funding was sought and that they wouldn’t be charged for their subscriptions. The site had sought 50,000 subscribers.

Other ex-Rocky staffers went in a different direction. Michael Noe (’93) headed south in hopes for a better journalism climate.

Noe, who now works as a temporary consultant for a Scripps publication in Naples, Fla., said that although he hopes to continue in journalism after his interim, three-month employment ends in June, his future is unclear.

“With the print industry shrinking and the economy the way it is, I really don’t know what I’ll do after this,” Noe said.

Still, despite the shock of the doors slamming shut on Denver’s oldest newspaper, many agree that journalism remains a passion for its former reporters, and that producing investigative in-depth news coverage continues to be a top priority.

Rob Reuteman (MA ’78)

“After six weeks, it still is my preference to work in journalism; it is the best job,” said Rob Reuteman (MA ’78), Rocky employee for 26 years and business editor for 12. Reuteman said he is working as a volunteer organizer for the Society of American Business Editors’ April convention and is involved in writing endeavors.

“It was a sad day. The newspaper business is accustomed to bad news, but it came as a real shock,” said Bruce Leaf (MA ’85), who worked as a copy editor at the Rocky for nearly a decade.

Yet many journalism professionals, now fragmented across the state and possibly facing unemployment, including CU alumni and adjuncts, remain faithful to the news business.

“It has been an amazing progression,” Tanner said.

“It’s not journalism that is dying; newspapers are just going through a rough time right now. We don’t know what news will look like in the next couple of years.”

Perhaps former Rocky reporter and SJMC adjunct instructor Julie Poppen summed it up best:

“I don’t know what keeps me doing it, but I’m not giving up.”