"The Rocky" shutting down

My friend Judy Longshaw, who works in the University Relations office at Winthrop, has called my attention to another sad day for print journalism in Colorado and the rest of the U.S.

One of Colorado's best daily newspapers (winner of four Pulitzer Prizes) is the Rocky Mountain News--affectionately known as "The Rocky."

"The Rocky" ceased to operate this week, with corporate heavyweights citing a failing economy and sharply declining ad revenues, among other things, as the culprits.

Denver, Colorado, still will have the broadsheet "Denver Post," but lots of people in Colorado loved the taboid "Rocky."

The pictures that accompanying this blog post help tell the story of the drama in the Rocky's newsroom earlier this week.

One curious note, brought to my attention by Paul Osmundson, editor of The (Rock Hill, S.C.) Herald: See that guy with the gray hair typing diligently as the newsroom folks are told by the newspaper's owners that they will no longer have a place to work?

And see him again, in that other photo--still at work at his desk?

Wonder if he's writing the paper's obituary?

By golly, the story has to get written, regardless of whether there's a paper to print it in!

One other note--not entirely unrelated: I ran into Terry Plumb last night. Plumb is the long-time editor (now retired) of The Herald in Rock Hill.

He informed me that Sunday (March 1) will be the last edition of The Herald printed on the press in Rock Hill. This is after about 150 years of printing our community's daily newspaper here. This was our press (I call it "our press" because it's been in Rock Hill so very long and has amazed so many people here--so many school groups, business owners, ordinary citizens and others who have toured The Herald over the years.) But alas (another sign of corporate or chain owned newspapers) our press will be disassembled, packed up and moved out of town. Meanwhile, The Herald will be printed on the big press in Charlotte--at the Charlotte Observer (sister paper, as of a few years ago, of The Herald).

A sad day for Rock Hill.

A sad day for Denver, Colorado.

A sad day for print journalism.