Nothing will be printed by the Boulder Planet anymore -- the publication went belly-up last week. The Planet had a tough time finding a niche in a market also occupied by the Boulder Daily Camera, the Boulder Weekly and the Colorado Daily, but owner Doug Greene, who also holds the deed to the Boulder Theater, insists that competition didn't doom his baby, and neither did red ink; he notes that after years of losses (and major layoffs beginning in 1998), the paper began making money a few weeks ago, in part because the Denver Post included the Planet in some ad-bundling deals. But for Greene, a major Internet player who hopes to make a mint off his yet-to-be-launched Boulder.com site, the small profit didn't justify the hard work it took to make it. Moreover, he says it was difficult to recruit talented journalists when such scribes knew that by going into what he calls "the dot-com world," they could make a lot more green. "It's very difficult finding the right people unless you can promise a big upside," he allows. "And we couldn't look someone in the eye and say, 'You've got a great upside here.' It was a labor of love, and a lot of times, labors of love don't pay."
You can say that again.
Susan Goldstein
A right to her opinion: Channel 7 general manager Cindy Velasquez has revived television editorials.
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A pair of journalism awards presentations sponsored last week by the Associated Press and the Colorado Press Association, respectively, prompted energetic spinning by both Denver dailies. In the AP contest, the Rocky Mountain News was named best large newspaper and took home eleven of seventeen first-place awards on the way to racking up twenty honors, as compared to two first places and thirteen baubles overall for the Denver Post -- a comparison the Post chose not to make (its article about the competition didn't mention the News at all). The math got even trickier when it came to the CPA: The News boasted that it won twelve first-place nods as opposed to the Post's ten, while the Post said it took home nine first places (one less than the News claimed) of what it said were just fourteen top editorial honors available.
That doesn't add up -- but Denver's newspaper war seldom does.
Something else that doesn't compute: In a February 22 Post article about Denver cops breaking up a rally staged by a group demanding justice for Ismael Mena, an innocent man slain in a botched no-knock raid, Denver Police Department spokeswoman Detective Mary Thomas -- part of the DPD's public information office, which caught flak for its dealings with the press in this space last week -- is quoted as saying, "If there's a complaint, the First Amendment doesn't apply." Does that mean the next reporter who gripes is going straight to the hoosegow?
Have comments, tips or complaints about the media? E-mail "The Message" at Michael_Roberts@westword.com.
