Loss of Rocky Mountain News is heartbreaking

Denver is hardly alone in this predicament. Increasingly, newspaper readers have gravitated toward the Internet. As the economy has contracted, so has newspaper advertising for real estate and automobiles. Classified ad revenue has been co-opted by Web sites like Craig's List.

Some of the nation's largest newspapers have filed for bankruptcy protection. Others, like the Rocky Mountain News and the Albuquerque Tribune, both Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers owned by Scripps, have shuttered in the past year. Recently, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer were put up for sale. All told, four owners of 33 newspapers have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the past 21/2 months.

It's hard to know how this is all going to play out. I just know that Salt Lakers should not take for granted that they are one of the few remaining cities in the United States that are two-newspaper towns.

Marjorie Cortez, who was schooled by a number of Rocky and Denver Post reporters early in her career, is a Deseret News editorial writer. E-mail her at marjorie@desnews.com