The History of Independent Media in Boulder County

Media literacy has become increasingly important since the debut of the internet. In most households, the news no longer arrives on the doorstep of the house first thing in the morning. Instead, it attacks viewers while they scroll on social media, providing snippets of information (often taken out of context) to play on one’s attention. While “media” has been around for thousands of years, the past two decades spurred the development of new types of media and completely changed the structure of who and what is behind the news. Yellow Scene Magazine is in its 25th year of production. It’s seen multiple iterations of the media over more than two decades. Here’s a brief history of independent media in Boulder County and how it drove the industry to where it is today.

Feud fuels award-winning journalism in Colorado

The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News continuously battled it out for more than a century to become the newspaper head of the state. In 1980, the tides turned when The Denver Post forfeited its lead after Times Mirror Company purchased the publication. The purchase created more interest in Colorado’s journalism field, attracting reporters from other states.

Corey Hutchins, the co-director of Colorado College’s Journalism Institute, told YS, “Denver Post had about 300 reporters. The Rocky Mountain News had about 300 reporters, and they would compete for scoops, in a city with 600 reporters crawling all over local governments looking for what’s going on and what people needed to know in that rapidly growing city.” One year shy of a 150-year celebration, Rocky Mountain News shuttered its doors, completely changing the face of Front Range journalism.

The hedge fund dilemma

A rising availability of online news sources began tanking print media sales in the late 20th century. By the early 2000s, the majority of journalism shifted to an online platform, causing economic strain across the industry. Publications that chose to keep print alive continuously found that it was too costly to do. And even The Denver Post, which existed for more than a century, found itself struggling to make ends meet. In 2010, Alden Global Capital purchased The Denver Post in another significant move that changed journalism across Colorado. In 2018, the company laid off a third of its journalists.

Hutchins recalled, ”We went from a city that had about 600 journalists to two papers to a city with one that now has about 60 something.” Across the nation, a similar pattern emerged. In fact, two hedge funds own three of the nation’s most prominent news chains.

While companies like Alden Global Capital began massive layoffs, editors and journalists found themselves gravitating towards non-hedge-owned companies. In 2018, a group of journalists who had previously worked for The Denver Post left the publication to establish The Colorado Sun, a non-profit news organization that quickly gained success and support across the state.

A shift towards new-world media

Hutchins explained that since the early 2000s, the city of Denver has seen a lot of “new, innovative online outlets” servicing the region as well as the expansion of public media. Even more significant was a shift in culture that changed how reporters receive and publish news. Hutchins said, “Collaboration has supplanted competition in Colorado, and Colorado is kind of a pioneer of that ethos.” At the same time that hedge funds were seizing control of news publications, creating guidelines and restrictions on the type of content that could be published, the journalism field retaliated by working together to support fact-based reporting.

One-man media shows

Subsequently,  the industry has recently seen a rise of one-man independent media outlets across Colorado. These outlets, which are generally online resources, often come in the form of an e-newsletter, a digital site, or a podcast, and they have seen large success since those who run them have often been laid off by a hedge fund or a similar corporate-owned publication.

Hutchins explained that these forms of media have been successful “because they’ve already built an audience of credibility in that community.” Hutchins points to The NoCo Optimist in Greeley as one example, and the Western Slope as another.

Shifting Journalistic Integrity and Ethical Standards

One question that’s permeated the industry throughout the monumental shifts it’s experienced over the past two decades is: Is it possible to maintain journalistic integrity and ethical standards when a publication is corporate or hedge-fund owned?

Publications that are owned by a large entity often see a restriction in the type of content they can publish. It’s also not uncommon for buying guides to emerge on these publications, without a testing process. This means that writers shape recommendations surrounding gear and products (for which the publication receives an affiliate commission) based on online reviews instead of in-the-flesh evaluation. The average reader then consumes this type of content, blissfully unaware that the products they’re about to purchase could be lemons.

While new independent media outlets like one-man shows and small online newsletters, podcasts, and other outlets could potentially eradicate this issue, determining the integrity of a media outlet, “certainly is a case-by-case situation,” says Hutchins.

Independent Media vs. Non-Profit Media

At the same time that independent media resources began crowding the internet, non-profit media sources also saw a significant boost. In order to be classified as a non-profit media outlet, the outlet has to assume 501(c)(3), which provides tax-exempt status. While nonprofits are not owned by corporations, they do operate under controlled guidelines when accepting grant money. This means that they’re generally less “independent” than, say, a friend’s blog or a podcast with a single owner.

Both independent media and non-profit media sources generally operate under the pretense that they will educate the community instead of prioritizing profit for shareholders. In theory, the profit these media types acquire should then be invested back into the product to create the newsroom. But even some independent publications are susceptible to perceived obligation from advertisers who support the publication. Which begs the question: Does anyone not have an agenda?

Algorithmic News and How it Shapes Media Consumption

One of the many challenges that readers face today while consuming news content is navigating misinformation. Most social media platforms feature some kind of news product that’s often brief, taken out of context, or even artificial. But unless a reader is media literate, they may take content that’s inaccurate and spread it amongst their peers, who assume that the source is valid.

What’s more is that algorithms are widely used to choose content that they perceive to be in alignment with the viewer’s values, providing a very small piece of information without context to fuel the viewer’s beliefs. In order to equip oneself with a factual and whole depiction of news events, the viewer needs to be able to evaluate it for holes, inaccuracies, and partial truths. In many cases, this vital piece of the process is ignored or overlooked.

Hutchins theorizes that part of the reason why this happens is because it’s up to the viewer to educate themselves on how to evaluate content since it isn’t a common skill for education institutions to teach. What’s more is that most news outlets are unlikely to teach the viewer because of their own in-house financial strain.

Algorithms are problematic because they create the “bubble phenomenon,” which essentially involves providing viewers with a tiny piece of an event. While social media has largely made news more accessible to the masses, it also creates a conundrum surrounding misinformation and clickbait, which is content that’s designed to fuel readership through exaggeration and wordplay.

Being able to navigate the many intricacies of this type of media consumption is a vital part of education. Hutchins adds, “Media fluency is absolutely critical, and something that we need to make sure, those of us who care about this stuff need to make sure we’re teaching as much as we can, and also, individuals need to take responsibility for their own news media diets and consumption.”

Enter: Independent News

Shay Castle, the Editor-in-Chief of Boulder Weekly, started her own publication after leaving the Daily Camera in 2019. Her entrance into the independent media field is relatively recent but she has been observing Colorado’s independent news scene for many years. She reflects, “I think we’ve seen a huge amount — at least in Colorado — of people founding their own independent media outlets whether that’s a newsletter on Substack or something like Boulder Reporting Lab. There’s been so much energy around new media.”

When asked whether or not independent media is an important part of the industry, Castle says, “Someone I knew recently told me a different version of this question. What would the world like if [independent media] didn’t exist? And I think when we’re talking high level independent media — folks that aren’t controlled by a corporation, Boulder Weekly, Colorado Sun, Yellow Scene — we are not chasing profits.”

Independent news has historically been shown to expose corruption, hold authorities accountable, and provide a platform for debate, which large corporations seldom do since it involves taking a stance and reducing profit. One of the first strategies that authoritarian governments have implemented to gain control in the past is to stifle funding for independent news outlets, resulting in less education and a less ability to self-organize against tyranny.

Today, the integrity of a publication can still generally be found in its relationship with money, according to Castle, “You can’t both do the public good and be profitable. So I think independent media is important because we need folks who are prioritizing the mission above all else.”

Why Independent News Matters

World hunger is continuously a problem, impacting more than 800 million people every year. While developed countries are not immune to this issue, extreme famine has yet to take place in a country with democratic principles and independent media resources. This suggests that there’s a direct tie between the vast circulation of news that’s funded by the individual instead of corporations with the single-minded goal of profit.

This type of news is also responsible for informing the greater public about decisions they have to make in their lives, whether that’s in regards to managing COVID-19 exposure or determining which political candidate to support during the latest voting call.

While large news outlets are generally responsible for mass consumption, small, independent companies are generally more immersed in the local communities over which they report, which gives them an advantage when it comes to providing informative coverage.

In 1791 Bill of Rights was established to ensure that no government entity should become more powerful than its people. Across the nation, the media is sometimes referred to as the “fourth estate,” which recognizes its importance in supporting voter education as well as democracy. The disassembly of independent news would not only make the education of US citizens more challenging, if not impossible, it would also potentially threaten democracy.

Stacy Feldman, Founder and Publisher of the Boulder Reporting Lab, tells Yellow Scene that independent media reduces corruption, “Academic research shows when local newspapers shut down, corruption increases, municipal budgets grow, and government salaries rise — because no one is watching. These outcomes are considered negative due to the lack of oversight.”

As a non-profit, Boulder Reporting Lab works to educate readers about the pressing issues of the times. Feldman released the publication in 2021, after recognizing the need to support non-profit education, “We started by covering COVID but we also did a lot of work to try to talk to members of the community and really understand what it was that people thought was missing not to be derivative or duplicate,” she recalls.

Challenges that Independent News Faces Today

While independent news is flourishing to some extent across the state of Colorado, it does come with its own set of challenges. At the forefront of those challenges is funding.

“No one has quite figured out the funding yet,” says Castle, “That’s why you see so many non-profits. Even the Colorado Sun didn’t start as a non-profit but they transitioned.” Castle explains that Boulder County generally has a lot of wealth, which makes it possible for some independent news publications to exist. More rural regions of the state are less lucky.

Another issue that local media resources are facing is readership trust. Nationwide the vast majority of citizens are skeptical of the media at large. Smaller, local publications with different practices from hedge fund-owned publications get lumped into the same category as all of the other news publications, which leads to general distrust.

Feldman says that there’s likely a correlation between reputable news declines and authoritarian government, “I think that you could create a throughline to that phenomenon — the decline of local newspapers, to algorithms filling the void, to the rise in fascism.”

The Future of Independent News

Despite the continuous struggles that the independent media faces, it’s been a historically resilient field. And it continues to be the most trusted source when it comes to whistleblowing and exposing corruption. While the industry has yet to stabilize, the immersion of new forms of independent media and a determination to continue educating and sharing the truth is putting the industry in the spotlight once again. What’s also true is that the community is more involved than ever in this process.

Feldman says that in recent years, the independent news industry has “just exploded. Especially non-profit journalism. I started working in non-profit journalism during the second Bush administration. Yeah, I mean you can look at the numbers at the institute of non-profit news, but their membership has really skyrocketed.” She adds, ”I think it creates a natural incentive for meaningful journalism because that’s what people want to pay for.”

While media skepticism remains problematic across the industry, some readers recognize that publications should not be lumped under a single umbrella. “People tend to trust local news more than national news, which they should,” says Castle. Still, there’s a massive need for the development of media literacy across the nation. Without it, the existing issues will perpetuate fear and the dissolution of reputable news sources.

Another interesting development is that some outlets are taking the reins. In fact, Castle says that Boulder Weekly is beginning to transition to employee ownership, marking the progression of locally-funded media sources. “We’re just getting started but there’s so much talent and passion here. We know from research from other employee-owned publications they’re more sustainable, they pay better. Who better than to make decisions for the future than the people that are working here,” she says.