Example: Anyone can take a look at a Kevin Flynn article about the five worst bridges in Denver -- a strong, newsworthy story accompanied by a slideshow whose main drawback is a lack of captions. In contrast, a Cindy House piece about "upside-down lightning caught on video" can't be viewed unless a visitor is logged in -- and while membership is $4 per month and just $24 per year, that's still more than most people are likely to pay, especially given that footage of a man surviving a brush with a vicious lightning bolt is just a trip to YouTube away.
Credit the RMI crew for continuing to fight the good fight. After all, INDenver Times, while still online, is limping along by borrowing headlines from many other sources; at this writing, for instance, the main offering concerns a beam that had become a 911 memorial returning to the World Trade Center site -- a report that doesn't exactly scream "local content." At this point, though, the Independent's battle for survival remains uphill. But perhaps lightning will strike.
