The Estes Valley Voice will host a launch event Monday. In addition to a wine and cheese social, an Estes Chamber ribbon cutting and the introduction of the members of our creative team, EVV will host a private screening of filmmaker Rick Goldsmith’s new documentary “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink.”
The 90-minute film challenges the popular narratives that newspapers are dying simply because they are dinosaurs or because publishers did not know how to monetize their product with the rise of the internet to tell a more complex story behind changes in the news business.
Stripped for Parts looks at how many newspapers have been the victim of “distressed investing” and “vulture capitalism” by corporations that buy local papers, sell off the real estate and other assets, shut local offices, close the printing facilities, and pare the journalism staff to the bare-bones to create what is called a ghost paper.
As that happens local readership drops, circulation numbers fall, and the emphasis is shifted to “eyeballs” and “digital clicks” for advertising revenue rather than on local, boots on the ground news reporting.
Goldsmith, a two-time Academy Award nominee, has produced a powerful documentary that takes a deep dive into how newspapers across the country have faced the challenges of takeovers by media conglomerates and how some communities have rallied to “take back their news.”
Goldsmith spoke with Estes Valley Voice Wednesday about his film, the conversations it stimulates, and questions it raises including why are newspapers declining? What can a community do so it does not become a news desert? What is the role of public service journalism?
“I think what the film does is it brings out the issues,” Goldsmith said.
“What about public funding of journalism? Because that’s an issue that probably no journalists worth his or her salt would have even 20 years ago thought about but now it’s part of the conversation about how we are going to really save and preserve local journalism,” Goldsmith said.
Many new newsrooms—like the Estes Valley Voice—are organized as public benefit corporations. Others are nonprofits. According to Colorado law, a public benefit corporation pays taxes just like any other corporation, but it is mission driven and does not have to prioritize a financial return on investment for its capital partners. While the mission of any business is to stay in business, a public benefit corporation prioritizes people over profits to serve the community, and that is a different business model than many publishing businesses.
Stripped for Parts starts with video of the announcement of the closing of the Rocky Mountain News in 2009 and how journalists from The Denver Post left in 2018 to form The Colorado Sun, one of the leading news outlets today in Colorado and a national model for digital newsrooms.
Goldsmith said he is concerned about local newspapers being taken over by corporate giants that own all the papers in a market or regional area because when the news is controlled by a monopoly it reduces the diversity of reporting and the public gets fed a homogeneous stream of information.
“That’s a problem in journalism,” said Goldsmith who has talked with publishers and editors in large and small communities. “Anytime you have a monopoly the community suffers for sure,” Goldsmith said.
According to the American Journalism Project, the decline and closing of local newspapers is correlated with lower voter and civic engagement, an increase in public and private corruption, and greater incivility and polarization in the body politic.
In the last Town of Estes Park Municipal Election held in April, only 43 percent of registered voters chose to participate, a drop from 55 percent in 2020.
Nationally more than 2,600 weekly publications have shuttered or merged since 2004, and the rate has been accelerating. In a report last fall by Kevin Simpson and Jennifer Brown for The Colorado Sun, more than 52 papers have shut down over the past decade in Colorado, and Corey Hutchins with Inside the News In Colorado reported in the past two weeks that five more Colorado newspapers have announced their closures, first three papers on Colorado’s Eastern Plains, and then two more papers.
Since beginning work on the documentary, Goldsmith has seen opportunities for new independent and locally owned newsrooms to emerge to fill the void created by the shrinking of old legacy papers and by closing of printed papers.
As a new newsroom startup, the Estes Valley Voice is something of a mix between the Little Train that Thought it Could and a little food truck that is parked down the street from a global franchise selling hamburgers and fries. While we are no threat to the big shoulders publications that are thriving, we are serious journalists who will work hard to provide reliable news to the Estes Valley community.
What the community can expect from EVV is local reporting by journalists who care passionately about our community. We will not be covering or commenting on the national election. That is out of our lane. We will not be partisan, but we will be political. We will take positions on important local issues, and we will advocate for local concerns.
We have a diverse editorial board of community members, none of whom are advertisers. We will not publish stories written by businesses or organizations as if they are news stories. We will do our own, independent reporting and writing.
We welcome letters to the editor and comments on our reporting, and while we are open to public debate on controversial issues and criticism of our writing and reporting, we reserve the right to edit letters or comments for brevity as necessary and for vulgarity or pure vitriol. We also welcome well written opinion editorials. For more information about the editorial polices of the Estes Valley Voice, please read our Purpose, Mission, Values and Goals statement.
We hope you will support the work of the Estes Valley Voice and if you are interested in joining us for our launch event, please use this Eventbrite link or email us at news@estesvalleyvoice.com by Sunday evening as seating is limited.
And yes, the drinks, popcorn and your ticket to the film are on us.
Just two days ago (Aug 4) Vince Bzdek wrote a great article in the Denver Gazette titled: “What happens when a town loses its soul?”. It’s about Alden Capital’s closing the Brush newspaper. A very good, but very sad read.
Alden Capital is the owner/destroyer of the Trail Gazette and a good number of Colorado’s newspapers, including the Denver Post, Longmont Times-Call, and Loveland Reporter Herald. It’s probably only a matter of time before they shut down the Trail Gazette.
As a subscriber, I appreciate your “We will not publish stories written by businesses or organizations as if they are news stories.” stance.