by Carey Madsen.
Although not a surprise, this week’s closure of the Rocky Mountain News was heart breaking for many. While we are all surely aware of the changes going on around us – the effect of technology and the Web on the traditional newspaper business plan, and the recession’s impact on, well, nearly everything – seeing this community’s response to the Rocky’s closure reminds me that there are some things that have not changed.
I recently watched Final Edition, the very well-constructed video by Matthew Roberts. Investigative reporter Laura Frank talks about how she was on the western slope earlier this week, covering a story that will never run…It was scheduled for Saturday. She was one of many whose work will be left unprinted. This recount of an exchange in Thursday afternoon’s news room meeting was posted that afternoon:
Q. Reporters said they’ve been working hard all week on Saturday stories: Can we have one more day?
A. No.
The integrity and passion of the people who care about a job well done, and make it their personal mission to deliver the best news they can, has not changed.
So where do we go from here? Right now, many are mourning the loss of a Denver institution, and sympathizing with those whose jobs are gone. Last Friday’s edition remembered and celebrated the outlet’s history and its people, as it should have. Some say that a one paper town means less competition and fewer outlets through which to deliver the news. And while that may feel like it’s true in some respects, competition itself is one of the many reasons the Rocky’s fate came to be. The old model of profitability is broken. But the demand for news, resources and information is not. What will emerge? How will new media formats gobble up this 'space?'
That leads me to the second thing that hasn’t changed. In difficult situations like this, people get better. I don’t just mean they recover – or ‘get over it,’ although they’ll do that too. I mean they will become better for it. The untold stories will not remain so. And the passion won’t go away. It will probably get stronger. And most certainly the talent hasn’t gone away, even though a family was broken apart. The best of that talent will not be silent for long, and I’ll bet some will reappear in ways that many of us wouldn’t expect. Think of the perspective they’ll bring. To television. To the Web, to industry, or community. And we’ll all be better for their contribution. Of course, the laws of economics will continue play their role, and in doing so, will force us all be more responsive than ever to customer needs – no matter who your customer is.
I just read the dialogue between John Temple and Jason Salzman and was refreshed to see the candid exchange, and the definitive direction. Regardless of how you feel about either man’s decisions, if more managers in corporate America gave feedback that was one-third as constructive and direct on any given day, their companies would be in a much better place.
Despite the end of a great 150 year tradition, I’m hopeful that the talent who made the Rocky what it was will help to carry on the tradition of vigilant, insightful coverage of the news in Colorado.
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