The Colorado Index

The Rocky Mountain News (Sort Of) Lives

While Jared Polis and the nutroots took credit for killing the paper edition of the Rocky Mountain News, these individuals failed in their nefarious plot.  Many of the former Rocky Mountain News staff members migrated to the internet to continue their work.

Since the Denver Post and the Joint Operating Agreement with the late Rocky  does not allow the actual "Rocky Mountain News" moniker, former Rocky reporters and commentators post at the former advocacy site I Want My Rocky.

I Want My Rocky is updated throughout the day and contains a mix of original reporting and commentary (mostly separate from each other). For example,  transportation reporter Kevin Flynn posted two articles yesterday on the state of RTD and its FasTracks program.  In addition, it has arts and entertainment reporting, and even sports reporting and commentary from Sam Adams and Bernie Lincicome.

Sports cartoonist Drew Litton posts his latest works at both the I Want My Rocky site as well as his own website.

For those who are baseball fans, former Rockies reporters Tracy Ringolsby and Jack Etkin, along with editor Steve Foster, report at Inside The Rockies.  Updated throughout the day, Inside The Rockies contains game recaps and interesting tidbits from training camp.  I expect that Inside The Rockies will become the go-to place for Rockies news once the regular season starts.

It is good to see that the former Rocky employees continue to produce a first-rate product on the internet.  These sites are now at the top of my list for morning reading, and I wish them luck with these online endeavors.

by Civil Sense

Did Jared Polis Kill The Rocky Mountain News?

That is what Jared Polis claims per this story from Denver's surviving daily newspaper:

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who made his fortune selling greeting cards and flowers online, gave a shout out to the blogosphere Saturday, giving it — and himself — credit for the "demise" of traditional journalism.

"We killed the Rocky Mountain News. Long live new media," said Polis at the Netroots Nation speaker series in Westminster, according to the Denver Young Democrats Examiner website.

Jared Polis shows his typical hubris in making a nonsensical claim.  Bloggers and new media did not kill the Rocky, its outdated revenue model based upon advertisement collapsed due to internet companies.  Scripps (the Rocky's owner) decided to divest itself of the Rocky. 

In addition, the Joint Operating Agreement gave the Denver Post a right of first refusal in any sale.  The following exchange via Twitter from the Rocky site details why the Rocky could not change into a "new media," web-only publication.

Question: Why not start an online-only edition. Contreras: If we thought we could do that, we would not be here today.

Contreras says for Rocky to continue as online-only product , the partner in the JOA - Dean Singleton's Denver Post - would have to agree.

In other words, the Denver Post was much more culpable in the Rocky's demise than Jared Polis and his ego.

For those readers who are not Jared Polis, the Columbia Journalism Review has a tribute site where the former Rocky Mountain News staffers posted their remembrances of the late, great Rocky.

by Civil Sense

Rebuilding the Party Begins With Us

 NOTE: I fixed the bad link to www.rebuildtheparty.com below.

After last week's shellacking at the polls, it became obvious that the Republican party needs structural change.  Colorado's results on the tax-increase initiatives shows that small-government, fiscal conservatism is alive and well. However, due to a lack of a cohesive message and the decidedly non

 Former Colorado House District 6 Candidate and blogger Joshua Sharf wrote a very well-reasoned essay about the elections that contains a strategy for the future.

As part of its rebuilding, retrenching, and strategy to win back one branch of the legislature and/or the governorship in 2010, the Republicans will be tempted to redirect resources from Denver to other areas. This would be a mistake. (snip)

Abandoning Denver is the first step to abandoning Westminster, Arvada, and Arapahoe (which isn't safe now, either). It's thinking tactically rather than strategically, and that all the good tactics in the world won't help a rebuild tarnished brand. We want to change the map, not just build walls here and there, and I think to do that, we need to think big. If we abandon Denver, we leave the other party free to do the same thing.

Look at District 6. We managed to get almost 33% - up significantly - and turn out nearly 12,000 votes for our side in a year when the tide was running the wrong way. We did this with a party where barely 1/4 of the precincts had active precinct committeepeople, where we had to spend time reconnecting with Republicans who hadn't been visited, mailed, or otherwise contacted by a local candidate in almost a decade. (emphasis mine)

Joshua Sharf's essay touches on a large problem: both the state and national parties are in total disarray.  How can Republicans not run candidates in every district within the state?  Perhaps because the local parties are in disarray as well, but that is the topic of a different essay.

Rebuilding the party begins with us.  What we need is a grassroots effort; an "Army of Davids" if you will.  A coalition of national bloggers and activists came up with a plan for this rebuilding (h/t Jennifer Rubin from Pajamas Media).

Read the plan at http://www.rebuildtheparty.com.  I will discuss some of the ideas further, including how to apply some of these ideas specifically to Colorado, in future essays.

by Civil Sense