Laid off Rocky reporters find new voice online
Amana Miyamae News 2
March 10, 2009
The Rocky Mountain News, or at least its voice, has found new life online. Reporters who were laid off when the 150-year-old newspaper stopped printing in late February are now posting stories daily on www.iwantmyrocky.com. Transportation reporter Kevin Flynn says his first weeks of unemployment have been busier than he ever imagined. He says the end of the Rocky came as he was writing several stories that needed to be told. "Following those stories and informing people the way I had been...mattered to me," he says. "I wanted to tell them how these things turned out." The website began as a place for the public to mourn and to protest the demise of their favorite paper. But soon after the last edition was printed, it became something more. It became a place for Flynn, and so many other journalists, to keep telling their stories. "The community benefits from having these alternate voices watching the institutions of this city and the state on behalf of the people and getting people involved and responding," said Flynn."That's how things get done." Arts and entertainment writer Mary Chandler admits, the grief is still fresh. "One day it's just, it's gone," she said. "I think the hardest thing has been the thought of losing my voice." She hopes to find it again soon. She is learning to post stories on the web, to work out of her quiet office instead of a buzzing newsroom. But she hopes www.iwantmyrocky.com will find the sustainability her beloved newspaper could not. "I think there is still a demand for the voices that were in that newspaper. Let's do it, let's try it and let's see what we can make of it." For now, the unemployed reporters are working on the website without pay. They say they have no expectations, but are hopeful it can eventually draw enough revenue to support a newsroom staff. "Maybe people will look back 150 years from now and say, 'Those were the people who resurrected it and took it to the new media and made it what it is today."
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