Sunday APRIL 8, 2018 B DENVERPOST.

COM B THE DENVER POST 6 SECTION D

Letters » 2D

PERSPECTIVE KEEP THE EV TAX CREDIT

Electric vehicles need state subsidy

INSIDE: Teacher strikes may be more powerful now than ever before. » Jon Shelton column, 5D

News matters
Colo. should demand the newspaper it deserves
By The Denver Post Editorial Board The cuts, backed by our owner, the New York newspaper holdings. Consider this also a signal
City hedge fund Alden Global Capital, also are a to our community and civic leaders that they

A
t The Denver Post on Monday, more
than two dozen reporters, editors, pho­
tographers, videographers, page de­
signers, digital producers and opinion
staff will walk out the door. Our marching orders
are to cut a full 30 by the start of July.
These heartbreaking instructions raise the
question: Does this cut, which follows so many in
recent years that our ranks have shriveled from
more than 250 to fewer than 100 today, represent
the beginning of the end for the Voice of the
Rocky Mountain Empire?
mystery, if you look at them from the point of
view of those of us intent on running a serious
news operation befitting the city that bears our
name. Media experts locally and nationally ques­
tion why our future looks so bleak, as many
newspapers still enjoy double­digit profits and
our management reported solid profits as recent­
ly as last year.
We call for action. Consider our pages today a
plea to Alden — owner of Digital First Media, one
of the largest newspaper chains in the country —
to rethink its business strategy across all its
ought to demand better. Denver deserves a news­
paper owner who supports its newsroom. If Al­
den isn’t willing to do good journalism here, it
should sell The Post to owners who will.
A flagship local newspaper like The Post plays
a critically important role in its city and state: It
provides a public record of the good and the bad,
serves as a watchdog against public and private
corruption, offers a free marketplace of ideas and
stands as a lighthouse reflective and protective of
— and accountable to — a community’s values
POST » 3D

On May 15, 2013, The Denver Post’s newsroom staff gathered for a photograph after winning a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Aurora theater
shooting. This photo illustration shows the toll that layoffs and constant turnover have taken on the paper’s staff since then. On Monday, at least
two dozen more journalists will be leaving The Post because of layoffs. RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

Who will step up and Journalists don’t protest.

save The Denver Post? But this time is different.
By Gregory L. Moore rich variety of news, opinion and By Ricardo Baca The Post competes to attend.
information every day. I will miss If this sounds like a scene out of

P P
eople constantly ask me how
I feel about the deep cuts and
layoffs that have been chip­
ping away at The Denver Post.
Well, I’m sad but I’m also angry.
I left in March 2016 after 14
years as editor because I was done
laying off journalists. At the time,
I referenced a staff photograph
hanging in our vestibule (the same
photo that is on this page) and
said far too many folks in it were
gone. Enough was enough.
Naively, I hoped my departure
might stanch the bleeding. I’m sad
because it has continued, and I’m
angry because I now realize The
Post might not endure.
We were a pretty good newspa­
per for a real long time (winning
nine Pulitzer Prizes over our 125­
year history). We have provided a
it if it is gone. We all will.
The journalists who remain will
try their best, as they always have.
But there is just so much they can
do with the dwindling resources
they have. If the paper’s demise
comes to pass, there will never be
another Denver Post.
The question is whether we
who care about quality journalism
will let it happen.
The Post has been an integral
part of progress in Colorado. It
supported building Denver Inter­
MOORE » 6D
Gregory L. Moore is
editor in chief at
Deke Digital, an
expert media com­
pany based in
Wheat Ridge
rofessional newspaper jour­
nalists aren’t known for pub­
licly expressing their opin­
ions, so imagine my surprise back
in June 2016 when my Denver Post
colleagues asked me if I would
join them in a protest.
My colleagues were planning to
demonstrate against a New York
hedge fund that was choking out a
respected Colorado institution, a
Denver business that had served
the public for more than a centu­
ry.
Fellow editors, reporters, page
designers and artists — normally
known outside the newsroom for
their unbiased public presence
and stringent ethical standards —
made T­shirts and picket signs,
organized a slate of speakers and
invited media outlets with which
a dystopian novel, you’re not that
far off. Employees of The Denver
Post were, in fact, protesting their
own.
We were protesting Alden Glob­
al Capital, the Manhattan hedge
fund that owns The Post and
many other papers — including
Boulder’s Daily Camera, the Long­
mont Times­Call and esteemed
American dailies from San Jose,
Calif., to Trenton, N.J.
The protest drew a lot of atten­
tion, especially because this most
unlikely of picketing demograph­
BACA » 6D
Ricardo Baca runs
full­service commu­
nications agency
Grasslands

In the fight for limited government, even a liberal newspaper helps

By Jon Caldara both the editorial and news pag­ loving way only she could, “Oh, serves? For many of us tired of in celebration of The Post’s chal­
es. you poor boy, don’t you know mainstream papers pushing an lenges. We could get what we

I
have been an activist fighting
for limited government in
Colorado for over a quarter
century now. And in these many
battles it seems I can count on
one hand how many times The
Denver Post took the side of tax­
payers. It’s hard to think of a
major tax hike The Post didn’t
love, endorse and work for on
I remember making a presen­
tation to The Post’s editorial
board and I joked to the late,
great editorial page editor Sue
O’Brien, “Ya know, Sue, just be­
cause I’m taking a position on
this issue, it doesn’t mean The
Denver Post has to take the op­
posite position.” Without miss­
ing a beat, Sue returned, in the
our policy?” agenda, it’s hard not to enjoy the wish for.
So now that The Denver Post Schadenfreude. Yes, journalists largely live in a
is being squeezed like a ketchup But we might want to think a bubble, which is one of the many
packet by its out­of­state hedge little before we spike the football CALDARA » 3D
fund overlords, slashing its news
staff from a high of around 250 to
just more than 60 as of Monday,
Jon Caldara, a Denver Post columnist,
should we fiscal conservatives
is president of the Independence Insti­
celebrate it as the comeuppance
tute, a libertarian­conservative think
the liberal media so greatly de­
tank in Denver