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A newspaper tax - how to save our struggling newspapers
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Within two weeks, we are faced with losing a critical and vibrant part of our community's legacy. The Rocky Mountain News will most likely cease to exist. While the Rocky may be the most visible poster child of the economic struggles of the newspaper industry, is not the only newspaper that is facing hard times.
The Denver Post and its parent company are struggling in debt and could very soon be in the same situation as the Rocky Mountain News.
There are community newspapers throughout our state that are facing hard times and on the verge of going out of business.
What are the community values of a newspaper in which we all collectively benefit?
A newspaper is a critical part of our state's economic engine. The loss of the Rocky Mountain News as a source of information could be quantified as an economic loss to this community in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Not only does the newspaper help to promote our state to the world, its reach and power provides readers and businesses with critical information that drives transactional and investment decisions.
A newspaper creates an important level of transparency that helps to keep government and elected leaders accountable and honest. However, without any type of objective scrutiny of government spending, abuse of power, elected officials' positions on issues, and investigations into overall government conduct, it puts the average citizen and a community at large at a serious disadvantage. Citizens rely on this level of scrutiny. For example, in this morning's (Jan. 5) Rocky, there was an article by Kevin Flynn that exposed that the City of Denver for failing to determine if the red-light camera enforcement was actually reducing red-light running by motorists. While red-light cameras are quite a lucrative exercise for the City, we have no idea if it is actually solving a public safety problem as promised.
Will critical articles such as this be read by a community on a blog? Will bloggers attend boring zoning committee meetings or City Council meetings? Will they attend press conferences?
A newspaper helps to support and promote local nonprofits and charitable organizations. For example, a profile on an important community nonprofit that recently appeared in the Rocky Mountain News helped to generate $50,000 in donations in one week. Other nonprofits such as arts and cultural organizations rely on newspapers to help drive audiences and to promote campaigns for corporate support of these important institutions.
A newspaper allows healthy debate. Certainly through the opinions of its editors, but also through lively printed discussions amongst its readers and the ability of elected officials and community and business leaders to state their opinions and drive debate on the issues of the day.
I'm disappointed that our community and business leaders and elected officials have failed to rally to save the Rocky Mountain News. There's a valid argument that the other pressing needs of our community and our state make it impossible to try and bail out the Rocky, but we also pride ourselves as Western pioneers who, when faced with a problem, don't simply walk away without trying to identify solutions. Read more here.
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