On the new episode of the "What Works" podcast, Ellen Clegg and I speak with Linda Shapley, the publisher of Colorado Community Media, who describes herself as a longtime denizen of the state’s media ecosystem. Indeed, she was at Colorado Politics and worked for 21 years for The Denver Post. “I’ve been a lieutenant for a…
Of all the alarms that have been sounded over the decline of local news, perhaps none was louder than the one in Denver, Colorado, five years ago this month. In what became known as the Denver Rebellion, editorial page editor Chuck Plunkett wrote a front-page editorial calling for the Post's hedge-fund owner, Alden Global Capital,…
The Desperate Last Days of Local News
From billionaire dilettantes to pension funds, profit-seeking just isn’t compatible with the media’s core democratic functions.
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In 2018, in an act of defiance that would become known as the Denver Rebellion, a group of current and former
Denver Post staffers wrote and designed a six-page Sunday spread of op-ed pieces aimed at the paper’s owners, the New York–based hedge fund Alden Global Capital. The project, which led with the title, “As vultures circle,
The Denver Post must be saved,” detailed how Alden’s ownership decimated the outlet.