The Rocky Mountain News, Colorado's oldest newspaper, has published its final edition.
The News, which was founded in 1859, printed its last issue Friday. Owner. E.W. Scripps Co. announced Thursday that it would close the paper, which had been put up for sale in December after losing $16 million last year. No buyers stepped forward.
The end of the "Rocky," as the tabloid was known, leaves Denver a one-paper city with the surviving Denver Post.
The News had won four Pulitzer prizes in the last decade, but that wasn't enough to prop up falling circulation and a rising tide of red ink that is submerging newspapers nationwide. The News was the largest paper in the U.S. to close so far, but many others - including the Chicago Tribune, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer - are in dire financial straits.
The News had been in a joint operating agreement with the Post for the past eight years in which the papers shared shared business and production costs.
The Post, owned by MediaNews Group, reached a deal with local unions this week to cut costs by 11.7 percent. The Post is hiring a handful of News journalists.
"This newspaper has recorded all of the milestones and commented on most, but now its part in the saga must end," read an editorial in the paper's final edition. "For as long as we live, we will be grateful that we were able to contribute to the Rocky's rich legacy."
You can read more here and here about why newspapers are in trouble.
Photo by John Moore/Getty Images
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