Posted 02.27.2009

The Rocky Mountain News got me singin’ the blues

By Mike Cote

Friday morning, I walked out to my driveway and for the last time picked up a blue plastic bag stuffed with news I need to know written and reported by people I trust. Rest in peace Rocky Mountain News, the newspaper that changed my ways of thinking about the tabloid format and the biggest newspaper that ever carried my by-line, however briefly.

My wife, Maria, lay in bed as I wrote this, sleeping off a later night than usual. She and her colleagues at the Rocky would show up in the newsroom later that morning, bleary-eyed and numb, to finish cleaning their desks, swap stories and commiserate about what the hell they’re going to do next. Some of them, a handful of reporters and columnists, appear now in the Denver Post, including Mike Littwin, who told Colorado Public Radio a few weeks back that most of the people leaving the Rocky would never work in journalism again.

Those are just the facts, folks. Nowhere for them to go, and after putting a 150-year-old paper to bed for the last time, many of them don’t have the heart to put themselves through that kind of pain again, since what has sealed the Rocky’s fate—a battered economy and changing media habits that have erased much of the revenue streams newspapers enjoyed for a century or two—is threatening the existence of newspapers nationwide, including the Denver Post.

My wife, like some of her colleagues, is considering a teaching career, both for the stability and the sense of purpose she believes it would bring. She’s spent the last 20 years writing and editing stories about homes and architecture, lifestyles, the arts and gardening. She did some of her best work writing a weekly column for 13 weeks every year during the growing season in the Rocky’s “Dig” section. (Here’s one of my favorites.) She’s also edited just about every column I’ve ever written. Anyone looking for someone with the eyes of an eagle and the heart of a poet?

My stint at the Rocky was brief—several months as a reporting intern and later as a stringer for the real estate section—when I was a student at the University of Colorado about 20 years ago. But that training was my stepping stone to full-time reporting at other newspapers owned by E.W. Scripps, the Rocky‘s parent company. But the Rocky has remained part of my life, both as my daily dose of news and through my wife’s role as an assistant features editor for the past eight years.

Journalism is a small world, and people who practice it tend to stick around for a long time. Real Estate Editor John Rebchook was my editor when I wrote weekly stories for the Saturday homes section. Business Editor Rob Reuteman was the metro editor when I was an intern. Rocky veteran Lynn Bronikowski was on the metro desk, too, and was one of my editors. These days, we’ve reversed roles—she writes the monthly “Executive Edge” feature for ColoradoBiz. And I’ve had a chance to work with Rob again lately to plan to plan the annual conference of the Society of American Business Writers and Editors, which will convene in April in Denver—still fresh from its wounds becoming a one-newspaper town.

Like me, ColoradoBiz Managing Editor Mike Taylor is an ex-newspaper guy. We’re in the monthly magazine—and daily website—business these days. And happy to still be in the game. Journalism is like no other profession. And once you’re in it, you’re stuck no matter what. It’s like Don Henley sings in “Hotel California”—“You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave.”

Goodbye, Rocky.

Postscript: The headline for this entry comes from a button some workers from the Rocky (Denver Mailers Union #8) were handing out at a B.B. King concert at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre about 10 years ago.

Last updated on Mar 01, 2009 at 11:00 PM