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This message was originally published on May 15, 2020.  Dear readers, We told you last month that big changes are underway as the Indy joins forces with the Colorado Press Association, Colorado Media Project and newsrooms throughout the state. We told you our new alliance, Colorado News Collaborative, or COLab, is a movement to foster journalistic collaboration and excellence at a time when resources in this business are scarce — and growing scarcer. Today, as some of the last pieces of the partnership fall into place, we have details on what ..read more

This message was originally published on April 10, 2020.  Dear reader, It’s time for The Indy to do things differently.  If the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us anything, it is that now is the moment for collaboration. It is the time for everyone, including journalists and news organizations, to boost each other’s strengths and have each other’s backs because doing so is not just good for each other, it is a greater good. And because the alternative leaves us weaker. Even before the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crash it has triggered, Colorado’s newsrooms were in trouble. The ..read more

In the 1997 film Men in Black, there’s a scene where Tommy Lee Jones wants to prevent some local officials from remembering a particularly newsworthy event. He pulls out a small metal device with a red light at the tip. “This is called a Neuralyzer,” he says. “It’s a gift from some friends from out of town.” When the Neuralyzer flashes it wipes their memories clean. This week, we learned buyout offers from some friends from out of town, namely the Virginia-based Gannett newspaper chain, will mean a kind of neuralyzing for two of our state’s larger newspapers that bookend the Front ..read more

On Thursday, Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet sat in on a Zoom call with dozens of Colorado journalists and local media publishers to gather input on a bill he filed to help save the local news. Those on the call represented outlets large and small— nonprofits, for-profits, print, digital, TV, radio, and more. (Endale Getahun, a multi-lingual news producer in Aurora, even talked about how he’s been offering local news via Roku during the pandemic.) The media folks offered remarks about how they’re faring, prodded Bennet about what his bill might accomplish, a ..read more

A new digital site that’s recruiting freelance journalists and looking to become a “national alt-weekly” is co-owned by a former Colorado journalist-turned cannabis PR guy. The News Station, whose managing editor Matt Laslo, a D.C-based journalist who put out a call for new writers this week, is a recently expanded and spun-off national project co-owned by Peter Marcus of Arvada. A former reporter for The Durango Herald and Colorado Politics, Marcus left journalism in 2017 to become director of communications for the privately-owned Terra ..read more

Dear readers, Yesterday, Susan Greene was hard at work — helping a trio of our partner newspaper editors prep for a project with the Colorado News Collaborative. She helped lead a Zoom call with a number of our now nearly 100 news outlet partners, sharing plans for an upcoming statewide reporting project. And she was in COVID-19 quarantine for the third time in six weeks. This time was different, though. The first two times turned out to be just a scare. This time, one of Susan’s teenage sons has tested positive for the virus and is holed up in their basement. And Susan has symptoms: fev ..read more

Throughout the past eight months of the pandemic, newspapers have been gushing red ink. Money woes led to layoffs, reduced circulation and printing days, closures, and journalists having to take unpaid time off in the form of furloughs. This column has chronicled the changing contours of Colorado’s media landscape since the rumbles began in March. The latest development, though, goes in a different direction. This week, Colorado Community Media, which operates nearly two dozen newspapers in the Denver suburbs, announced it bought a collection  ..read more

Dear fellow Coloradan, On this morning of the 2020 election, I’m moved to write you a letter about a conversation I had last night with my teenage son. Yesterday, Susan Greene sent you a note about the feeling of acedia during this season of pandemic, protest and election. The word describes a feeling of melancholy, born in this case of isolation and polarization. That resonated with many of you who immediately wrote back to Susan. At least two of you sent her poetry in response. The level of depth and thoughtfulness among our readers always amazes me. So I know you care deeply about the stat ..read more

Dear reader, Words generally come easily for me. But I have been struggling for seven months to name how it feels to live through this time. The pit in my stomach is probably like yours. It is carved, of course, partly by fear of contracting COVID and of people I love suffering or dying from it alone and out of reach. And it is shaped by anxiety about tomorrow’s election, the potential for a long, disputed outcome and violent unrest one way or another. The smoke from recent wildfires didn’t help. Nor will the end of daylight savings time and the likelihood of being stuck at home through ..read more