I spent my wonder years as a Denver Post paperboy, which meant once a month or so we canvassed sections of our mountain town selling subscriptions to the afternoon and Sunday paper. Our competition was the hated Rocky Mountain News. Our sales pitch, when it wasn't "help me win a trip to Lakeside Amusement Park/Cheyenne Frontier Days/Disneyland," was based on the superiority of the Post's "sectionalized" structure.
So I never warmed to the rival "Rocky." The tabloid's format just never felt right. Even 50 years later, I still have a visceral negative reaction, the same way kids who grow up in Chevy families will never drive Fords. But tomorrow, the paper owned by Scripps, the company that recently shuttered the Cincinnati Post, closes up shop, and it's hard not to feel sorry to see it go.
In the past decade, the Rocky has won four Pulitzer Prizes, more than all but a handful of American papers. Its sports section was named one of the 10 best in the nation this week. Its business section was cited by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers as one of the best in the country last year. And its photo staff is regularly listed among the best in the nation when the top 10 photo newspapers are judged.
I was sure I'd written about the excellent "Final Salute" series that won two Pulitzers, but haven't found anything in my collected works. Todd Heisler's photography shows why the Pentagon didn't want pictures of caskets returning from Iraq.
Dean Singleton, who also owns the St. Paul Pioneer Press, owns the surviving Denver Post, but it's not exactly robust, either. [Note: I've updated this to correct a misstatement that Singleton owned the Rocky. The two papers had a joint operating agreement.]
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Also on Friday, a well-regarded local design firm will close its doors. For decades, they've done very good work, nationally recognized, and as I was getting my company off the ground, they were an important collaborator. They designed our original logo, I wrote their capabilities materials, and we did some annual reports together. They did business with integrity and quality, and the only reason I'm not naming them is, I don't want to commemorate them here simply as a victim of a crappy economy, when they were so much better than that.
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On a totally different note, the sweat pants are back.
