Colorado Sun debuts in Mile High City

The Colorado Sun made its official debut on Sept. 10, bringing to fruition plans former Denver Post Editors Larry Ryckman and Dana Coffield first announced in June. Ryckman and Coffield left The Post in March after owner Digital First Media’s hedge fund owner Alden Global Capital ordered the paper’s already decimated newsroom to cut one-third of its staff.

“Today is the day we’ve been working toward, fretting about and imagining,” Ryckman wrote in a welcome letter to readers. He concluded the letter with, “Here comes The Sun.”

The Sun marks the first success story of a news organization meant to fill a void in news coverage that the Mile High City has seen worsen over the past decade. That void began when the Rocky Mountain News published its final edition on February 27, 2009. While there were hopes of a Rocky revival, first in print and then online, neither came to fruition.

Denver eventually embraced being a one-newspaper city, however, The Post’s newsroom has faced substantial cuts year after year. The paper’s newsroom, which once employed close to 300 journalists, is now down to approximately 60, according to Ryckman. When the last cuts were handed down in March, the remaining staff wanted to take action. On April 6, Post Editor Chuck Plunkett published an editorial calling for Alden to sell the paper.

“If Alden isn’t willing to do good journalism here, it should sell The Post to owners who will,” the editorial pleaded.

Alden subsequently issued orders that writers and editors were not to use the hedge fund’s name in copy about the layoffs, and Plunkett resigned in May. Ryckman followed.

Continue reading