Media in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley: Alive and well? - Aspen Daily News

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Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part series. The second installment will run next week. The writer of this story is the Arts & Culture Editor at the Aspen Daily News and editor-in-chief of Local magazine.

While it seems no industry has been left unscathed by the novel coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic recession, print media is grappling with a particularly unique situation: an enormous surge in demand for news coupled with record-low revenue.

With two daily newspapers in Aspen and several area weekly publications, radio stations and seasonal magazines, the Roaring Fork Valley is saturated with media outlets — not one of which has been immune to changes amid COVID-19. In an effort to understand an evolving — and, yes, shrinking — media landscape in the valley, the Aspen Daily News interviewed founders, publishers, CEOs, executive directors, board members and editors of more than a dozen local outlets.

While no medium is flourishing financially, the more diversified revenue streams held by nonprofit news organizations have fared better by and large than the 90% ad-revenue model maintained by the for-profit print and digital publications. Since the pandemic rocked news outlets’ finances this spring, the changes that have occurred in the landscape cover a wide spectrum, from newspapers scaling back and magazines laying off staff or going on hiatus to radio stations hiring new voices.

Below, the Aspen Daily News recaps conversations with the leaders at the helms of the valley’s core media institutions. Note that this is not intended to serve as a compilation of local media outlets, but rather to provide an honest look into the current state of affairs, recent changes and what may be on the horizon.

The Aspen Times, Aspen Times Weekly, Snowmass Sun

On Friday, March 13, The Aspen Times publisher Samantha Johnston was reviewing the year, expecting the paper to pace toward its best year since the Great Recession in 2008.

By that Monday, Johnston said she was trying to figure out how to keep the doors open another day.

“It was literally overnight,” said Johnston, who also serves as general manager of Colorado Mountain News Media. CMNM is a division of Carson City, Nevada-based parent company Swift Communications that owns and operates 16 newspapers in Colorado, California, South Dakota and Utah. The Aspen Times and other Swift-owned regional publications are free to readers.

Within that three-day period, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis issued an unprecedented executive order prohibiting ski-area operations across the state, effectively shuttering this ski town during what is typically peak season.

Consistent with many print publications, The Aspen Times earns about 90% of its revenue from advertising, be it print or digital. Johnston views “the strength of advertising and the strength of our papers as a reflection of how the community is doing.”

“When the community is doing really well, our products tend to do very well: People have income coming in the door and people are in town and they have things to market. And we know that our local media works, so they invest more marketing dollars,” Johnston said in a recent phone interview. “And when businesses are closed, there’s not a lot of reasons to market your business.”

The Times and its weekly products, The Aspen Times Weekly and the Snowmass Sun, saw an immediate loss in business as clients withdrew ads for at least the foreseeable future. Like any business, the paper quickly looked to reduce expenses, starting in April by adjusting the weeklies’ distributions from stand-alone products to being published within The Times. The company also reduced the number of pages in each publication — though the amount of editorial content remained the same, Johnston said.

The Times also drastically cut its pages; on days that the paper historically would have been 80 pages, it was instead 32, Johnston offered as an example.

Also early on in the pandemic, The Times launched a donation page on its website, which Johnston said was already in the works.

“When COVID happened, we said, ‘Well, if there was ever a time, it’s now.’ …We are writing more and working harder than we’ve ever worked to produce news that is really relevant locally,” she said. “If people want to know what’s happening in Aspen, Colorado, the only place they’re going to figure that out is in Aspen, Colorado media right now.”

While the money was critical, Johnston said, the comments that came with the donations were equally, if not more, valuable.

“We needed that almost more than anything else,” she said. “We all know in this business that people mostly aren’t blowing up our phones every day to tell us what a great job we’re doing. It’s just not the business that we’re in. … So to get those messages, I think everyone was reminded why we do what we do.”

As far as staffing, The Times’ employees worked fewer hours and accepted reduced pay for a two-week period, Johnston said. Aside from that stint — and in large part thanks to a loan from the Paycheck Protection Program — the paper has been able to fully retain its staff, including the 10-person, full-time editorial team.

The Times also produces a few seasonal guides, all of which were adjusted for this summer. “Summer in Aspen” and “Summer in Snowmass” were combined into one publication and issued on a monthly (rather than a summer-long) basis starting in July. The company also released a one-time pandemic publication called “Aspen Silver Lining.”

While Aspen’s economic reopening in May generated an uptick in business, by no means has it reached pre-pandemic levels — “and frankly, I don’t anticipate that it will for the rest of the year,” Johnston said.

She continued: “Depending on what happens with the ski season, maybe it’s longer. That’s sort of the picture for us. We said if we can chip away at getting some business back and some revenue in the paper from now until the end of the year, we’re going to consider that a win.”

Local resident John Cody peruses two local newspapers, The Aspen Times and the Aspen Daily News, while awaiting an order from Jus Aspen in the Ute City Building on Saturday afternoon. Cody said he was specifically seeking updates on the status of Independence Pass following its recent closure and reopening.

Erica Robbie/Aspen Daily News

The Glenwood Springs Post Independent

Under the same parent entities as The Aspen Times — Swift Communications and, by extension, Colorado Mountain News Media — the Glenwood Springs Post Independent underwent two major changes last month.

On July 13, the 20-year-old daily newspaper reduced its publishing from seven days a week to three: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with the goal of adding a weekend edition later this year.

That same week, the paper’s publisher, Jerry Raehal, left his post. In a column at the end of June, Raehal announced said changes, as well as news that Bryce Jacobson would take over as publisher of the Post Independent and Rifle’s Citizen Telegram (also a Swift property). Jacobson, who started his new role in Glenwood Springs on July 6, previously held other positions at Swift, including one as a publisher in Greeley.

Bryce Jacobson was named publisher of the Glenwood Springs Post Independent last month. In July, the 20-year-old daily paper went from publishing seven days a week down to three.

“Facing sharp declining revenues in COVID-19’s wake, the Post Independent initially cut two days, reduced the average number of daily papers by 20%, and reduced hours and salaries for our staff,” Raehal wrote in the June 25 column.

He said that the PPP funding helped the paper pave its roadmap to the future, “and when we looked at our expected revenues and expenses, it felt like a crisis.”

In order to continue operating as a daily, the PI faced scaling back an already modest-sized staff as well as the number of papers on the street.

“In short, a worse paper with less distribution,” Raehal wrote.

Johnston, whose managerial position with Colorado Mountain News Media includes overseeing the PI, noted that Glenwood’s staff is “much smaller” than that of the Aspen newsroom. “The impact is really felt when someone leaves or there’s a vacancy,” she explained.

And it was felt twice more, beyond the transition in the publisher’s seat. Two PI reporters, Thomas Phippen and Matthew Bennett, parted ways with the paper in May and June, respectively. The paper currently employs seven full-time editorial staffers.

Talk of reducing publication from the daily model had been underway for some time, according to Johnston. The pandemic was the impetus to “make some business decisions that will keep the PI relevant and healthy long term,” she said.

In a Q&A published July 1 with PI reporter Peter Baumann, Jacobson said the company “[is] sticking with” its decision to print three days a week.

“This is not a decision that was made lightly,” Jacobson said. He noted that the PI would continue to disseminate news and information online seven days a week.

The Aspen Daily News, Aspen 82 and Local magazine

A number of facets related to the overall state of the Aspen Daily News largely mirror those of the Aspen Times — which is unsurprising, given the two daily papers share similar audiences, clientele, revenue models and content, and they are free to readers.

The Daily News, much like The Times, shifted from being on track to boasting a banner year to emergency planning of the paper’s viability within a matter of weeks. The Daily News’ revenue also is predominantly (90%) from print and digital advertising.

“For the most part, we have followed a national trend in seeing a pretty dramatic decline in ad support,” Daily News publisher David Cook said recently.

While Aspen has experienced a healthy uptick in tourism and real estate transactions this summer, that hasn’t translated to ad dollars like it would have in the past, Cook continued. He believes this is a function of people’s profound uncertainties about the future.

Newspaper and magazine racks near the Carbondale Beer Works early Saturday afternoon.

Megan Tackett/Aspen Daily News

The Aspen Daily News umbrella also includes television and streaming channel Aspen 82; as well as the relatively recently launched Local lifestyle brand, which includes weekly editions and a larger, semiannual magazine; a weekly podcast called The Upload and a co-collaboration with the valley’s longest-running Spanish newspaper, El Montañas.

Cook and Spencer McKnight, who together co-founded Aspen 82 in 2012, serve as the ownership team of these outlets, alongside local investors and real estate brokers Craig Morris, Ben Roos and Ernie Fyrwald, via the company Paper Bag Media.

The first major change in the wake of the COVID-19 economic disruptions that the Paper Bag Media group took was at the end of March, suspending the Roaring Fork Weekly Journal, a newspaper that covered the midvalley. Cook, who launched the paper with editor M. John Fayhee in December 2018, is “cautiously hopeful” the weekly can someday return.

But while the flagship Daily News was in a strong position prior to COVID-19, as with aforementioned changes at other papers, talk of adjusting the RFWJ’s production due to struggling ad support began prior to the pandemic, which ultimately drove the decision.

Paper Bag Media launched Local last summer as the lifestyle brand under the Daily News umbrella, starting with a bi-annual glossy magazine. A rebrand of Aspen 82’s daily morning show, set at the top of Aspen Mountain and previously called The Lift, became the next addition to the Local media group as, simply, Local.

In February, the Daily News launched Local Weekly as a weekly lifestyle publication. When the pandemic effectively canceled in-person entertainment in March, Local Weekly paused “in the absence of a traditional lifestyle landscape in Aspen,” Cook said. As soon as the valley bears a semblance of cultural normalcy, he said, “we’re very excited to get this back on the street.” He called the adjustment “market driven and not financially driven.”

The third issue of Local magazine was published mid-July despite the pandemic.

Aspen 82’s morning show ended with the ski season — pivoting the last show to March 14, before Gov. Polis later closed the resort, from the usual snow report and “here’s what’s happening this weekend” to a hard-news broadcast. The company continued the COVID-19 news reports in the form of “The Daily Update” videos via the website and social media platforms. A more feature-esque version, The Local Update, soon followed.

Another addition to the Daily News brand is a recent partnership with El Montañas, the valley’s oldest Spanish newspaper serving Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin counties.

Expanding the Daily News’ reach to the Spanish-speaking community had been a longtime goal, Cook said. El Montañas will be inserted into the Daily News on Wednesdays as a stand-alone product beginning this week.

The Daily News, too, experienced a few staffing changes in recent months. Photographer Craig Turpin parted ways with the paper in May. In June, editor-in-chief Curtis Wackerle accepted a new role with the nonprofit Aspen Journalism. Anna Stonehouse, who previously served as the Times’ photographer, joined the Daily News this summer. Madeleine Osberger, who served as editor of the RFWJ, was named interim editor of the Daily News following Wackerle’s departure. This week, the newspaper posted a job opening to hire a more permanent editor.

As a whole, earlier this spring, editorial staffers were furloughed and rehired as contract employees. To date, the staff is employed, which is also made possible by a PPP loan. Combining two part-time positions, the editorial team’s full-time equivalent is about six.

Like The Times and PI, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Daily News also launched an online “support local journalism” fundraiser, which has seen more than 700 individual donors to date.

“The way the community responded to the call for community support was overwhelmingly positive — and gave us strength in an otherwise uncertain time,” Cook said.

He echoed Johnston’s sentiment on the value of the community feedback associated with the donations and also credited his staff for “rising to the occasion.”

Added McKnight, “What I’ve learned throughout this is that our town needs the news, and our team loves being there for them. This whole experience has really put things in perspective and has given us a new gear. It’s never been a more important time to be good at being a journalist.”

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