Newsrooms’ demise hurts democracy

by J Scott Christianson, Columbia Daily Tribune Columnist

A couple of weeks ago, one of Denver’s two daily newspapers, the Rocky Mountain News, folded after nearly 150 years of continuous operation. It was done in by a convergence of several forces: the Internet, media consolidation and the current recession.

At the Rocky Mountain News, classified advertisers were largely lured away to free services like Craigslist, Ebay and Monster.com. Subscribers logged in to MSN and other news sites instead of waiting for the familiar “plop” of the afternoon…