Editor’s note: An early draft of this editorial was submitted to the Daily Camera editorial board Friday morning, April 13, 2018, for publication on the Camera’s website Saturday, April 14, and in print Sunday, April 15. This is our usual process. Draft editorials are edited, corrected and revised during the day, but the early draft serves as the basis for approval, or not, and recommended revisions by board members. The editorial board consists of the publisher, executive editor and editorial page editor. In this case, the executive editor and editorial page editor supported publication. The publisher did not. On most matters, the editorial board operates democratically, but in this instance, the subject being the business itself, the publisher exercised his veto and killed the editorial. I elected to publish it on a different platform for the reasons stated in the editorial: This is a story about an important, longstanding Boulder institution. As journalists working in that community, we have an obligation to our readers to tell it.
— Dave Krieger, editorial page editor
The first-ever Colorado Journalism Week (April 16-22) arrives at a moment both inspiring and dispiriting for American journalism, and newspaper journalism in particular.
Inspiring because, at its highest levels, American journalism has rarely been more energetic. Investigating foreign interference in our last national election and the most unusual presidential administration of our lifetimes, The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are breaking important stories on a daily basis.
Dispiriting because, at many smaller papers, including this one, the journalistic lifeblood of communities large and small is being systematically drained by their owners’ private equity business model. One of the more insidious aspects of this process is that these communities are generally left in the dark about what is happening because the newspaper is the community storyteller. When it fails to tell this important story about itself, it breaks trust with its readers. We have remained quiet about this for too long.
The Daily Camera is 128 years old, counting its first year as a weekly. Much of the city’s history is recorded in its archives. If Boulder had another 128-year-old institution in danger of imminent demise, particularly one exercising an essential democratic freedom enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the Camera would be obliged to cover it. But we have a dilemma on this particular story: the desire of your local journalists to see the Camera survive and thrive versus the desire of our private equity owners to continue draining cash from the business without encountering any more adverse publicity than necessary.
The Denver Post took this debate to a new level of prominence last week by publishing a Sunday opinion section condemning the draconian cuts required by its owner, the New York private equity firm Alden Global Capital. Alden owns a controlling interest in Digital First Media, which owns the Post, the Camera, and more than a dozen other Colorado papers. The Post urged Alden to support its journalism or sell the paper to someone who will. This decision came after yet another round of personnel cuts, leaving the Post newsroom, now located in Adams County, a shadow of its former self.
The trajectory of the Camera’s decline has been more gradual, but over time the effect has been the same. Including our most recent round of layoffs in late 2016, our resources have consistently declined despite our continuing profitability. Recently, we lost our business editor. We do not know when or if we will be able to replace her. Imagine a daily paper without a business editor trying to cover a town that considers itself the high-tech and startup capital of Colorado.
Part of this loss of resources can be explained by the well-known impact of the internet on newspapers’ business model. With so many advertising dollars moving to the web through behemoths like Google and Facebook, all newspapers face new business challenges. But this secular problem should not obscure the predatory behavior of private equity investors.
“Between 2012 and 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, all newspapers lost 24 percent of their workforces,” the American Prospect reported recently. “But at a sample of 12 papers owned by DFM, the layoff rate was more than half, according to a tabulation collected by journalists who worked for DFM papers.”
A lab experiment illustrating this point is occurring in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, which once had two robust metropolitan papers in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press. One, the Star Tribune, was bought by a local billionaire, Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor. The other, the Pioneer Press, is owned by Alden. The Star Tribune is thriving, with an estimated 250 journalists in the newsroom, thanks to Taylor’s belief in supporting community journalism. The Pioneer Press has suffered draconian cuts similar to those in Denver and can no longer hold a candle to its former competitor in Minneapolis.
Journalism is not just any business. It is part of our democratic infrastructure. A minority shareholder in Digital First Media recently filed a lawsuit claiming Alden has drained tens of millions of dollars from its newspapers in order to make dubious, unrelated investments. In a court filing in response to the suit, Alden essentially admitted as much. The Nation reported that Alden principal Randall D. Smith bought up 16 mansions in and around Palm Beach, Fla., for $57.2 million. As always, Alden declines comment. It does not appear to harbor any sense of corporate responsibility or accountability.
“There is no long-term strategy other than milking and continuing to cut,” newspaper analyst Ken Doctor told investigative reporter Julie Reynolds. “Their view is that in 2021, they’ll deal with that then. Whatever remnants are there, they’ll try to find a buyer.”
Doctor also helped to answer a question we are hearing from our subscribers: How can we hope to survive by simultaneously shrinking our product and increasing our prices?
“They keep ratcheting up the price for the die-hard subscribers,” Doctor said. “Everybody talks about the demise of the (local) paper. But Alden has been able to track it, and there’s a lag time. It takes people a while to cancel. As people drop the paper, in the meantime they’re maintaining or growing their profits.”
Whether a particular form of capitalism should be permitted to destroy local First Amendment institutions serving millions of Americans is now a national conversation, thanks to the Post. Reaction to its plea was swift. The Nation wrote about it. So did Esquire. The New York Times put it on the front page. The Washington Post published an in-depth piece Friday under the headline, “As a secretive hedge fund guts its newspapers, journalists are fighting back.”
Taking a cue from the Denver Post, even Alden-owned publications are daring to speak up. “In an extraordinary editorial, (the Post) bravely implored their owners — the same investors who own our news organization — to support local journalism or sell the properties to someone who will,” wrote Neil Chase, executive editor of the Mercury News of San Jose. “The union that represents our employees has been saying the same thing for months.”
The Camera takes pride in serving as our community’s public square for discussion and debate of many local issues. To refuse to acknowledge this one would be tantamount to declaring that the Camera’s loyalties lie with its corporate overlords and not the community it serves. If we do not host this conversation, other platforms surely will.
So, as we observe this first Colorado Journalism Week, we believe it is part of our obligation to our readers to let them know as honestly as we can of the existential threat to this 128-year-old Boulder institution. Without a new owner, or intervention of some other kind we haven’t imagined, Boulder, like Denver and many other communities in Colorado and elsewhere, is in imminent danger of losing its daily newspaper once it has been bled dry.
A happier outcome is still possible. Alden has sold certain properties, including the Salt Lake Tribune and Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle, to local investors willing to support these institutions. Groups of potential investors are now discussing possible bids for the Post. We would like to see similar activity in Boulder before it’s too late.
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Free Press 
Wow – this certainly sounds familiar. Sinclair anyone? Like trying to get real news in Moscow (Travda?)
I do have sympathy for you guys despite some of the errors and bias I’ve observed over the years. I canceled a 15 year subscribtion in 2016 because of an underhanded piece run by one of your current writers. Too bad because I do enjoy local news. I think your biggest error was shutting down the online comments. The ownership issue would be much better recognized by the community if there was a place where it could be disclosed and discussed. Online comments would be a great venue for that. It was kind of a wacky town hall that provided an arena for people to discuss and disclose the local political corruption brought about by single party rule. Whether it was the duplicitous goings on with the muni or inside info on local scoundrels like Macon Cowles it really provided a great community service. I guess it’s not too late to fire it back up. It certainly would gain you a lot of goodwill in the community. As the Washiston Post says: democracy dies in darkness. Best wishes in your efforts to secede from Alden’s control. I certainly hope that you succeed.
I agree cutting off the comments was a final blow, but the camera has always been like the paper in the novel Babbitt.
Thank you, Dave Krieger, for calling out Alden Global Capitol. I have subscribed to the Camera since I first moved to Boulder in the late 1980s. I don’t always agree with the Camera’s opinions, but keeping up with local news is vital. A democracy cannot function if citizens do not know what is going on locally, nationally, and internationally. May someone far richer than I am step up and invest in the Camera and the Denver Post.
As one of those diehard subscribers I commend you and the staff on what you’ve been able to do with limited resources. I pray that local investors and philanthropists will wrest control from Alden—and then support your work without interference.
I have often found your editorials to be grounded and wise—a relief in a town that tends to choke on its own dogma.
When a local owner of any business sells out to some conglomerate from somewhere else the end has come. People have to be more aware of what is happening to their locality and in turn support it rather than Wall Street.
“This is a story about an important, longstanding Boulder institution. As journalists working in that community, we have an obligation to our readers to tell it.”
I wonder if Krieger will feel the same obligation to tell Boulder County readers about the award-winning (30 SPJ – Society of Professional Journalists – awards to the Camera’s 3) Boulder Weekly’s upcoming 25th anniversary. Independent journalism is alive in Boulder County, despite the greed of the Camera’s ownership and the corresponding decline of their product.
Oh Stew, if only your Weekly wasn’t so, well, weakly … Congrats on the honors, now maybe you should invest in your publication rather than sucking out all the money for you in order to make it excellent. And gee, perhaps more than weekly? Gotta admit, the Camera doing a better job and daily news … A thought
I say the Post did it to themselves. They are way to left leaning and they are proud of it. If they listened to the community-based as they claim they do, they wouldn’t have lost so many subscribers. They are looking to blame someone else, try looking in the mirror. Instead of trying to blame someone else, try printing something that people want to read. I feel the Denver area would be better off with the Post gone!
Thank you for an informative piece. Too bad people confuse the right of a free press with “agree with my views.” Too bad it’s also true that “free market” means subscribers walk and investors decide. But it does. Engage those with a broader view as you are doing and get the word out.
Well said, Dave Krieger. I hope your piece doesn’t get you fired. I support your plea to save print journalism, the only thing protecting us from the kind of corporate bullying thriving under the Trump Administration. I just paid for another year’s subscription to the Camera ,albeit the digital version, not to be confused with the “Digital First” version. It is not appreciably cheaper. I thought that meant I was paying to sustain a fully staffed news organization.
I appreciate the Camera and have been a subscriber for over 40 years. I actually prefer the digital edition because it is set up to allow me to see every page in full unlike the digital NYTimes.
Thank you, Dave Kreiger, for telling us what you are dealing with. I sincerely hope you can find a local buyer for the Camera. It is a priceless asset for our community. Boulder would be a poorer place without its hometown paper.
Thank you very much for having the courage to post this piece. I too hope that the Daily Camera is able to extract itself from Alden’s grasp.
As John Nichols at The Nation has urged, local news media must be subsidized or owned by government if it is to survive. Like Nichols, I believe news media is so essential to a healthy democracy that this must happen.
The media and the government should not collaborate on anything. It’s just contrary to the idea of a free press. Unfortunately, we had a bit of that type of collaboration with the media seemingly being in partnership with the last presidential administration. The people don’t seem to have liked that arrangement…
You want to bring partisan politics into it then you have to mention the obvious and complete “collaboration” between our current President and Fox News. Just watch the morning Fox News for word by word “policy” statements from Trump later in the day. Who’s leading whom by the ring in the nose.
Perhaps you’re correct re Fox News and Trump but Fox News is one entity in a vast media environment that is largely intent on resisting and destroying the current president. The problem is that a very large percentage of these entities opted to be less than vigilant in their coverage of the previous administration. Just as a city owned newspaper would treat the Boulder government. The thought of a Boulder owned Daily Camera in the context Boulder’s track record of single party rule and resulting corruption is about as Orwellian as it gets.
It would be indeed sad if the Camera cannot continue.I grew up with the paper,starting when I would go to the Buffalo Smoke Shop with ,was it just a nickel,to buy the daily for my parents,as a 9 year old,in 1957.Later during the heady days of the 60s I learned much about what was going on around the world from reading the Camera,And when I was up to expressing myself as a teenage activist,the Camera was kind enough to give me a platform.☺
When local newspapers die, who is left to cover a scandal in an obscure city department, celebrate local accomplishments, tell us about the vital but boring details of municipalization, and a thousand other things each day? The community becomes vastly poorer. Since moving here 17 years ago, I have seen the Camera shrink in size and format, copy editing become more lax, and the paper even move. Now I know why. I hope you are able to surmount this problem with a community-oriented local buyer!
Boulder understands the role of local journalism. Of course the Daily Camera has a much smaller audience than the Denver Post. We ought to look at a model to sustain both of them. Maybe something could be on the ballot to buy those papers, put them in a trust, run them in a manner where there is enough public support to sustain them and if there is a small loss, then cover it by public funds.
Local journalism plays a very vital role in our society. Maybe we can come up with a blueprint for other communities facing similar problems and at the same time bring power back to the locals.
Someone needs to back these efforts. If we want the big corporate vultures out then the vacuum needs be filled, either by small investors or by a public commitment.
If a paper is clearly defined as an independent watchdog and 4th pillar of democracy then we might be able to find enough public buy in for a municipal owned paper. That sounds much easier than running our own power company 🙂
Agreed on your sentiments re the power company but this sentence contradicts itself:
“If a paper is clearly defined as an independent watchdog and 4th pillar of democracy then we might be able to find enough public buy in for a municipal owned paper.”
We already have the corruption and fecklessless inherent in single party rule. It would be a fools errand to municipalize our newspaper. I can’t even imagine the byproduct but start with reading the propaganda newsletter that the city puts out go from there. It would not be pretty.
Depends on how you set up its bylaws. If it was required to be non-partisan, with oversight by a board made up of local folks representing the main areas of local life (school, government, business, and neighborhoods) it would work well. Just put a $1 a month tax on hear household and business in town: boom- you’ve fixed your problem (and gotten rid of the obnoxious advertising and tracking of our personal data).
Frankly, a non-profit community owned news entity is, very likely, the future.
Here’s an article about how you might do it: https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/local-news-special-service-community-information-districts.php
I’m not normally a newspaper reader. But I do get much of my news second-hand from people who do. I live in Longmont, and the Times-Call and Camera are the same organization. All of the county news is handled, for all practical purposes, through this media. Another aspect is the announcement and coverage of community events: i.e. the Creek Festival, the International Affairs Conference, among many others.
The electronic media is wrought with misinformation – and misspelling and grammar issues abound. I often loose the heart of the story because I’m busy counting obvious errors. The printed publications have checks and balances that eliminate most of these.
The loss of the newspaper medium would be tragic. Unfortunately, it’s too late for many communities. The loss of history should be intolerable.
We have lived here for nearly 40 yrs & have taken both papers for almost as long. Two years ago, after daily frustrations at the sophomoric, biased reporting, along with countless factual mistakes in both papers, we dropped our subscriptions. We really missed the hometown news aspect though, & last month decided to give it another go. However, it didn’t take longer than a week for us to question that decision, & we are again debating whether or not to cancel. As much as we want to support a local paper, the lack of factually based true journalism in both the Camera & the Post is disappointing . A newspaper should not be a propoganda sheet for the left. “It’s the bias, Stupid!”
I couldn’t agree with you more. Sophomoric is the term that really nails it. We had Alex Burness do a hatchet job on us when he was advocating for co-ops in low density neighborhoods. Reporters are not supposed to be advocates. Extraordinarily unprofessional journalism. I canceled the subscription and never looked back.
Bingo, Dee Dee!
Private equity can be tough, but no one is buying mansions from print circulation increases. When you have a dying industry, there is a massive round of consolidation and expense cutting. The companies aren’t broken… the business is. It’s convenient to blame the private equity owners, but they make investments. Those companies either make them money, or they figure out how to extract value out of them. Google and Facebook are the real enemies here. They’ve robbed you of your advertising revenues and used your content to do it.
Please also see the editorials in the DFM-owned Southern California News Group papers last weekend (SCNG includes the Orange County Register, LA Daily News and Riverside Press Enterprise). There, we ask for community support and float the idea of a nonprofit journalism model. https://www.ocregister.com/2018/04/13/as-journalism-jobs-disappear-democracy-is-increasingly-at-risk/
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Dave: Well said and well done. Can we run this as an editorial in the Longmont Observer?
Yes, of course.
Thank you!
Well done, Dave. Kudos to you and Denver Post editorial folks for calling attention to the intentional dismantling of essential community resources
Dear Dave: You are the best editor to grace the pages of the Daily Camera in decades! (I’ve been a reader since 1979). I wish you all the best where ever you go from here; and thanks for your insights and courage to address local issues that most affect citizens of Boulder County. You will be sorely missed!
I’ve terminated my subscription, Dave, because of their actions to “terminate” you. This was the last straw for me. I won’t support Alden any longer.
Oh, the irony… I first moved to Boulder in 1976 and immediately subscribed to the Daily Camera. It was a real newspaper, based on objective journalistic standards, with world class content and columnists. I still LOVE newspapers. But when I moved out of Boulder County in 2015 and cancelled my subscription, the paper had become a shadow of its former self. Here’s why. As an (unapologetic) conservative, I could always depend upon the Camera for a single liberal perspective, on every issue. It was not a ‘community resource’ for people like me. It was an adversary or competitor. A conservative view or endorsement was rare. The Sports page was the last non-political part of the paper. Thank God for the Buffs (can I even say that?). It’s not really the capitalists that sunk the Daily Camera, because Boulder is full of capitalists. The ideologues inside the Camera drove away about half of its subscriber base all by themselves, starting about 25 years ago. The irony (and reality) is that the very community that was ‘courted’ failed to support the newspaper that was beholden to it. The lesson: mistreated people don’t go away mad, they just go away and they don’t come back. It is a sad end for a once great newspaper that stopped listening to a lot of their customers.
Forget subscriptions. Gather the quality people past and present from the Camera and other gutted or dead publications and start a free daily. The paid circulation today is anemic and a free paper could have at least triple or better distribution right out of the gate.
As an aside, why pay for the camera when you can pick up the Colorado daily (née Dirt) and get all the news you need for free? There is a 35 year newspaper war going on today between two free daily papers in Aspen, so the model can work.
With a free paper, all those right-wingers who perpetually have hurt fee-fees because of a perceived liberal slant to the content can’t threaten to drop their subscriptions in protest.
In reality, the Camera is beyond saving. Once it moved from downtown to a faceless industrial park out east, it was flatlining. And when CU killed its journalism school, there was no farm team from which to pull fresh talent. In Boulder, local daily journalism is effectively dead. Sure, the Camera will continue to limp along with wire copy and ever-narrower pages and bigger front page ads and green reporters with zero institutional memory (and the context that goes with it). But save for a sale to someone that cares about journalism (or a startup), the Camera and the daily reportage it once represented is a dead man walking.
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http://www.longmontobserver.org. start a boulderobserver.org. they’re looking for people to do it.
The Camera should not have fired Dave Krieger
(Harry R Moody, 505 Northstar Court, Boulder, CO)
First, the Colorado Daily is a spin-off publication of the Camera, reprinting the same stories, sometimes slanted towards a younger college student demographic. It is not free, but sustained by ads and probably Camera subscriptions. Second, BB and the few malcontents whining about how the paper became so relentlessly liberal – well, I felt things actually improved under Mr. Krieger’s tenure, as he was not afraid to call out the follies of city powers in any number of areas. Nationally, when true classic Conservatives like George Will find Trump perhaps the most vile, disgusting, corrupt and failed human to represent the U.S. in over a hundred years, of either party, well, I hold his intellectual depth and historical grasp in much higher regard than I do yours.
I was about to give up on the Daily Camera when Dave Krieger came on board and reinvigorated the editorial page while writing some of the best editorials the Camera had seen in years. ‘Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable,’ Mr. Krieger often challenged the inbred group-think Boulder (myself included!), and it’s representatives often suffer from. I am at a loss; should I continue to subscribe to a paper I’ve faithfully read since 1969 in the face of such cowardliness by the Publisher and the leeches at Alden Captital or throw in the towel in disgust. I pray that some local investor(s) with a fervent faith in the fourth estate will emerge to provide honorable employment for the likes of Dave Krieger and Mike Littwin who are to be treasured, not scorned.
As a former employee of the Silver and Gold Record (a 45+ year CU campus newspaper that was the paper of record for staff and faculty on all the campuses), and graduate of the former CU School of Journalism master’s program, I can tell you that having the “government” or similar power-wielding entity be responsible for funding the newspaper is not much different from the current state of affairs with Digital First Media. Oddly enough, the funding for S&GR was through the office of the CU president. As you can imagine, that was a difficult state of affairs, especially when reporting on controversial issues that negatively reflected on the administration. In 2009, after the economic “crash” of 2008, a cowed faculty and staff didn’t have the stomach to object to the gutting of the S&GR. They were afraid for their jobs in a lousy economy, and the president’s office used that political reality to dismantle the newspaper for “budget reasons.” There is no longer any coverage of what goes on in staff and faculty meetings, regents meetings, nor of any controversy such as the attempt to drastically cut the budget for CU’s Student Government. There is no historical context provided by journalists, who can refer to the S&GR archives or institutional memory … Everything that happens at CU is now announced by the official channels, aka public relations branch that reports directly to the CU president. Sound familiar? The only remedy to this type of manipulation of media is establish independent reportage by a non-profit newspaper.
The last several days have left me with an unusual shock and a. degree of helplessness that I have seldom experienced. The demise of Dave Krieger was something that he and I have discussed in the past. I was curious if he might be removed someday because of his rather strident style of expressing opinions about local appointed and elected officials.Or other targets of social injustices.
Aside from the executive decision to terminate Dave for reasons that seem unclear to me,I am troubled by what seems to be a blackout of news surrounding his firing.Is this event not a local news story where readers could be informed of what and why this has happened?
As an optimist I hold out hope that Al Manzi and Kevin Kaufman will convene a public community meeting to explain to the Boulder community what the history of why this has happened, and more importantly what can be done to restore the health and quality not only of the total Camera but also the editorial pages.
Also I would hope that the EAB would be invited to offer their opinion on this event and what remedies are available. And in the name of journalistic transparency,could David Krieger be given an opportunity…..almost like one of his iconic multi-page Q and A pieces where a Camera reporter cross exams Krieger like he has done to others in the past?
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Dave, I heard you lost your job over publishing this piece here on your blog. I’m sorry but not surprised. Thanks for your continuing efforts to stand up for what’s right in journalism. I look forward to reading more of your editorial pieces, wherever they may run.
Dave Krieger was a resource I will truly miss. I do hope the Camera will survive, but deplore what is happening to our print media today with vulture capitalists sucking them dry. My grandfather was a linotype operator for the Camera in the 50’s and beyond so I have a soft spot for my local paper which has been blemished by Dave’s firing.
I’m guessing the Daily Camera is not going to be running this political cartoon.
That Alden Financial and Digital First Media can gut the Daily Camera, repress editorial comment on themselves, and fire Dave Krieger for shining a spotlight on them is outrageous. That too many of the responders here decry the one-sided liberalism of the Camera over the years and cannot see the irony – nay, the hypocrisy – of conservative corporatists buying up, wringing the profits from, and throwing away the husks of our rights to know what is really going on in the local arena is despicable.
And how much longer do we have to hear this “poor put-upon conservatives” complaint? The right wing in this nation is coddled every step of the way, controls every branch of government, and now is taking over the free press. At least spare us the whining, and enjoy your Americanized versions of Pravda and Izvestia: Sinclair Broadcasting and Digital First Media.
The Boulder Weekly weighs in (referencing the above blog postings).
A free press and public education are parts of the bedrock of this Nation. A characteristic shared by both is transparency.
I wish this blog and some other platforms shared this trait.
jim logerquist
Today, the Denver post editorial page editor resigned, citing censhorship.
So today I cancelled our Daily Camera subscription, after nearly a quarter century. The woman on the other end asked why. I told her that Krieger’s firing and today’s resignation of the Denver Post’s editorial editor was something we could not financially support, despite the hardship of not receiving the paper daily.
Her response was, “Why don’t you write a letter to the editor.” I explained that it appeared the paper(s) were censoring such letters (so far). Perhaps that will change; I don’t know.
She said she would relay the message. I said great, it’s a message that is intended to be sent.
I hope others will unsubscribe also (power in numbers and all that). The situation is simply intolerable.
Onward, into the fog …
Thank you Dave for all your great editorials and your bravery in posting this. I don’t know whether to cancel my Camera decision or not. or if there is any effective way to make a statement to Alden Global. If anyone has a suggestion about the latter, please chime in.
So sad about Mr. Krieger. He was a breath of fresh air and hope.
I sent a letter to the editors that day he was “terminated” but it has never run.
What they didn’t (yet? two weeks later) publish:
I continue to be appalled at and saddened by the Boulder City Council’s
relentless attack on the Bill of Rights.
Notably they targeted the First Amendment when they shut down the city
parks at night to effectively evict the Occupy Wall Street folks a few
years ago. This despite peaceful protest in public parks being
specifically called out by the Supreme Court as the MOST protected
speech that exists. Condo views restored.
Shortly thereafter they turned their sights onto the Sixth Amendment,
the right to a jury trial. As the Occupy members were getting off not
guilty and the courts were clogged with cases, our Council decided maybe
jury trials weren’t all that important anyway. Courts must run on time
like the trains. Oh, wait, sorry no trains.
And now we see the Second Amendment, square in their cross hairs.
Banning the purchase of certain guns based on how they look and
function. Folks, the Second Amendment is NOT about hunting rifles.
It’s about explicating the right of the People to protect themselves,
including from their own government should that be necessary again.
Wonder why it came right after free speech and religion?
I used to joke with folks who teased me about living in the Peoples’
Republic bubble. I’d say, yes, it’s the real birthplace of Liberal
Fascism. Boulder is of course open-minded to ANY ways of thinking.
That is as long as they are in complete lockstep with the cognoscenti.
I guess we can take some comfort in the “shotgun” approach of the
Council, however. They shred the Bill of Rights with real equanimity,
making self-assuring, smug and myopic points to Occupy Wall Street and
gun owners alike. Sad we all had to lose our numerous rights to show
how even-handed they are. I remember when elected officials were
“public servants” not our so-called “leaders.”
Taking away rights never leads to a good result. History anyone?
Did the parks reopen at night? Have the jury trials been restored?
Could someone from another town commit a shooting in Boulder? Feel safer?
I don’t.
Joseph Boardman
Several letters about the Krieger firing appeared in the Sunday, May 6th edition. All were highly critical of the publisher and owner.
And Joseph Boardman asks “What they didn’t (yet? two weeks later) publish” his letter posted above. The most likely explanation is that your submitted letter violated the Camera’s letter-to-the-editor word-count limit of 300 words (by my count, your missive is about 340 words). The rule used to not be strictly enforced back in the day, but has been so enforced at least since Dave Krieger was hired.
Of course, an online edition of any paper has little need for word-count limits, though obviously some limit is still a good idea.
Well, had they gone after fewer BoR amendments I could have kept it under 300. 🙂
Or had they notified me I’d have trimmed it. I should have word-counted it myself as you say.
Actually I’m at a point with DC and CC that I pretty much give up. But thanks for the heads-up.
Thanks for reading my letter.
Seems they now DID run it as a Guest Opinion. Go figure. Miss you, Mr. Krieger.
We live in sad times.
I’m torn between not giving “The Company” hundreds of my hard-earned dollars every year and feeling I have an obligation to support the remaining journalists in Colorado.
Perhaps if the Camera and Post go down faster, a replacement will rise up sooner.
Or maybe I’m just living through the death of informed democracy.
this explains what’s really going on:
politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/13/denver-post-profits-newspaper-industry-218360
great post
Great read, and very much on point. Since private equity firms are in the constant deal mode, they don’t have time to worry about software inefficiencies, and they should. This is something to check out for those who would like to learn more about private equity matters https://dealroom.net/private-equity
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