Betcha Ed Quillen is pissed.
Last month, Quillen, a Salida-based contributor to the Denver Post, offered what I saw as a dubious reason for why the Rocky Mountain News had gone under: The tabloid had focused its circulation efforts on the Denver metro area, as opposed to energetically promoting its product to readers elsewhere in Colorado. In regard to the Denver Post, which had maintained more of a statewide presence, I wrote at the time that "it may actually be losing money on every subscriber living in remote communities on the Western Slope or the eastern plains," adding, "The Post would be well advised to bite the bullet, whether it frustrates its Salida correspondent or not."
According to "Post Trims Delivery in Some Areas," publisher/MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton has decided to do just that. Beginning in July, only the Sunday paper will be delivered to what reporter Aldo Svaldi refers to as "outlying parts of the state."
My father, a Palisade resident who died in February, would have loathed this move. As I noted in an item about his passing, he spent every morning pouring over copies of the Rocky and the Post at a Grand Junction doughnut shop. But as much as it disheartens me to think of other newspaper lovers like him in smalltown Colorado having this a.m. ritual snatched out from under them, the move makes good business sense. While folks at the Post continue to insist that the broadsheet's circulation numbers are jim-dandy, the economic climate and the shift of many consumers away from print means papers must be extremely judicious with their resources -- and paying to ship a relative handful of issues hundreds of miles to customers most Denver-area advertisers have no interest in reaching doesn't meet that standard.
Sorry, Ed -- and sorry, Dad.
