Bought-out, priced out, burned out: the individuals fighting to keep local journalism alive in Colorado
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EADS, Colo. — My interview with Betsy Barnett, the owner, publisher, editor, ad-sales rep, designer and only full-time reporter of the Kiowa County Independent newspaper was interrupted three times:
Once by a new mother submitting a birth announcement;
Once by an older gentleman exchanging two empty, glass milk bottles for two full ones from the small refrigerator behind Barnett’s desk (the paper helps operate a local community milk exchange);
And once by Bob, a 94 year-old, one-handed rancher from Wiley, Colorado who had driven nearly 30 miles to renew his newspaper subscription. He also took some time to talk about his family, retell an old story about a fire scare he and his neighbors had heroically extinguished a few years back and express his appreciation for the Kiowa County Independent.
Bob is one of thousands of readers across Colorado who rely on local newspapers like Barnett’s Kiowa County Independent to stay up-to-date about goings-on in their areas. In rural and remote areas of eastern Colorado, where the Kiowa County Independent operates, reliable news coverage is becoming increasingly sparse.
In a span of about two weeks at the end of July and in early August, five local newsrooms in Colorado shuttered. All of them were located in the eastern plains: the Plainsman Herald, the Burlington Record, the Lamar Ledger, the Fort Morgan Times and the Brush News-Tribune.
The Herald was independently owned and operated, as it had been since it opened in 1887, nearly 140 years ago.
Despite being based in Kiowa County, the Kiowa County Independent now reports from about five counties: “Kiowa County, Prowers County, Bent County, Cheyenne County and even Baca County now,” said Barnett, counting them out on her fingers.
Barnett is the Kiowa County Independent’s only full-time reporter (she has a part-time assistant and some freelance reporters who contribute articles), on top of being the editor, the publisher and the ad sales lead, among many other hats she wears.
“That’s the problem with newsrooms out here,” said Barnett. “There’s lots to cover, a lot is happening and just not enough people or resources to do it.”
Barnett has been running the Kiowa County Independent since 2016. She intends to retain full ownership and independence to avoid the fate of some neighboring publications that sold, and were subsequently shuttered by larger media conglomerates.
The other four recent closures — the Record, the Ledger, the Times and the News-Tribune — were all owned by Digital First Media (which also operates at MediaNews Group), a newspaper publisher headquartered in Denver that owns everything from the Boston Herald to The Detroit News to The Denver Post.
Digital First Media is owned by Alden Global Capital, a New York City-based hedge fund with tentacles in newsrooms across the country. Many have criticized the fund for its impact on local journalism, labeling Alden Global Capital “vulture capitalists” and accusing them of “gutting newsrooms” for profit.
The Denver Post staff shrank by about 70% in seven years after being acquired in 2011. A number of ex-Denver Post journalists joined to form The Colorado Sun in 2018, which still operates as a non-profit newsroom committed to remaining a “community-supported, journalist owned” publication.
Alden Global Capital did not respond to a request for comment.
Another media company with a collection of local newspapers in Colorado is Gannett Publishing Co. — not a hedge fund, but a mass-media holding company — which owns The Pueblo Chieftain and The Coloradoan in Colorado, along with larger national titles like USA Today.
“They don’t have that community understanding of what a newspaper means in a community,” said Barnett. “To them, it’s just a purchase.”
“And if you don’t have your finger on the pulse of the community, you’re done.”
There are about 200 newspapers in Colorado according to the Colorado News Mapping Project, though more news sources exist in the form of magazines, radio and television broadcasts and digital publications.
According to a 2023 study from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Colorado newspapers had declined by over 20% in the last five years.
Aging newsrooms pose another threat. A 2019 Colorado Media Project report stated that about 44 local newspaper owners reaching retirement age or were considering leaving the industry.
While Colorado has been noticeably affected by local news decline over the past few weeks, newsroom closures are pervasive around the country.
Local papers are closing at a rate of about 2.5 a week, leaving more than half of all counties in the United States with only one or no local outlets. Analysts now believe that there will be about one-third the number of papers in 2024 as there were in 2005.
Approximately 200 counties around the United States are without any local news outlet, creating “news deserts” where it is more challenging to access local reliable local news and information.
Corey Hutchins, a professor at the Colorado College Journalism Institute and author of the Colorado news-focused newsletter Inside the News in Colorado, has already identified one Colorado news desert: Cheyenne County.
“Cheyenne County that now lost the [Cheyenne] Ledger, the only thing you’re going to find on there identified as a place where locals have told us they’re getting their local news and information is a Facebook page,” said Hutchins.
Hutchins leads the Colorado News Mapping Project, a state-wide study identifying and categorizing all forms of local news across Colorado’s 64 counties.
The project, a collaboration between the Colorado College Journalism Institute, the University of Denver, the Colorado Media Project, the Colorado News Collaborative, and others, features an interactive state map showing any sources of news in a given county, including newspapers, radio, local publications and social media groups.
These are determined by Hutchins and fleets of Colorado College journalism students that have been visiting and interviewing locals county by county.
Hutchins spoke to the two locals who started the Cheyenne County facebook group that has grown into an alternative news source.
“One works in county government, the other has something to do with the local historical society,” said Hutchins.
“They wanted to create a page about the history of the area, but it kind of turned into a de facto hub for news and information sharing among people in the community.”
The group, called, “Cheyenne Wells, Kit Carson, and Arapahoe Memories, NEWS, ADVERTISMENTS!” now has around 1,400 members (there are about 1,700 people living in Cheyenne County), and includes information from restaurant openings to school bus safety announcements.
“As these traditional local news sources go away, we’re going to see more things like that pop up,” said Hutchins.
In his work, he has seen newsletters (“one-person newsrooms”) and alternative publications emerge as well.
Barnett noticed that areas without news sometimes became “rumor wells,” where competing voices began spreading mis- or disinformation.
She underlined that local news maintains community cohesiveness by offering reliable information as well as a reliable physical presence in town.
“I could do the paper at home with my computer. Easy,” said Barnett. “But in the old days when I was a kid, I knew where the press office was on Main Street.”
“I want a paper where people can come in and talk to me about things… sometimes I’ll hear the same stories over and over again, but it’s important that they feel like they have a place to come and talk if they want to.”
Hutchins noted that prime realty is often a draw for hedge funds and media conglomerates looking to gain footholds in a community.
“Think about where newspaper offices are across the country. They’re in pretty prime locations in downtown cities and towns… and these hedge funds don’t necessarily have an obligation to the public as a public service,” said Hutchins.
“They have an obligation to shareholders who invest in them.”
Hutchins highlighted a few corporate maneuvers, including reducing staff sizes, moving journalists out of offices and refocusing publications from print to digital.
Rising printing costs, worsened by printing press closures across the state, are inflating newsroom expense reports at an alarming rate.
Catherine Thurston, the editor of the Limon Leader and the Eastern Colorado Plainsman, said that after The Pueblo Chieftain’s printing press (owned by Gannett) closed in 2018, they were forced to seek printing in Hutchinson, Kansas, a seven-hour drive away. Printing for Thurston is now four times more expensive.
The Kiowa County Independent is now one of several Colorado newspapers who print in Liberal, Kansas due to the lack of presses in state.
Colorado is pressed for printing presses. Only seven existed in-state after the Pueblo press closure – which impacted more than 80 publications – according to a 2023 Colorado Media Project report.
The National Trust for Community Media, which owns Colorado Community Media, recently purchased a plant in Northeast Denver with the goal of answering the high demand.
Lyn Ettinger-Harwell, the editor of the Pikes Peak Bulletin, said he could tell the Pueblo plant was nearing closure. He left and was able to land a spot with The Denver Post’s printing press.
Kevin Mahmalji of the Florence Reporter uses an online printing service that ships from Illinois, while Barbara Crimond of the Prowers Journal relies on her husband’s local print shop (which also makes signs and banners).
Thurston, Ettinger-Harwell, Mahmalji and Crimond all deliver the majority of their papers in their own vehicles, driving around town and distributing to their subscribers personally.
Hutchins noted a few alternative business strategies newsrooms might take to stay alive, including exploring non-profit and public benefit corporation status and chasing alternative sources of funding.
He also stressed the importance of reader support.
“People should care about what’s happening to their own local source of news and information,” said Hutchins. “How are you supporting news where you live?”
He noted that some newsrooms are also, perhaps surprising to some, focusing less on digital and more on print.
All of these local newsrooms, along with the Wet Mountain Tribune, the Pikes Peak Courier and the El Paso County Tribune operate primarily in print.
“The majority of our business is print. We forget digital sometimes,” said Jordan Hedberg, the owner and editor of the Wet Mountain Tribune. “Digital and social media can be drowned out by national news, so newspapers are the best way.”
Ettinger-Harwell’s (Pikes Peak Bulletin) printing costs doubled even after avoiding the Pueblo press shutdown, yet he plans on keeping the Pikes Peak Bulletin on paper.
“There’s a demand for print,” said Ettinger-Harwell. “People want the printed word in their hands.”
For more rural publications, such as the Limon Leader, The Prowers Journal and The Kiowa County Independent print is a necessity in order to reach a less tech-savvy readership.
“The internet isn’t as strong in many places out here,” said Thurston (Limon Leader), “if we were just digital, it wouldn’t be as accessible to everybody, especially some of our farming families.”
“Many older people… they’re not online, and they don’t get that news,” said Barnett. “But they really care about the community, and they get a subscription because they want to know what’s happening. So we have to print for them.”
Bob from Wiley, Colorado did not have an email address, so he left his phone number in case Barnett needed to get in touch with him.
“I really enjoy your little paper because it has the names of people in here I know. And I like the cowboy poems in there… some of them are hilarious,” said Bob.
He was disappointed to hear about all the recent newspaper closures, but relieved to hear the Kiowa County Independent was holding strong.
“Time changes everything,” he said.