The sad little secret about our local media

The Estes Park Trail-Gazette building is unoccupied.  Has been for weeks.  They used to staff it with a skeleton crew of one during some weekdays, but now, Black Lantern has moved out of the complex, and the only cars parked in the lot are contractors and carpenters preparing for new tenants.

The paper is obviously still being produced twice a week, as usual, but the reporting is sent in electronically, the layout/composition done from home, and the actual paper printed down in Berthoud, in the Lehman facility (home to the Loveland Reporter-Herald, closed to the public since March), also a "public unwelcome" facility.

Who really cares if the public isn't allowed in to see any of the sausage being produced, or contribute any suggestions as to the flavor of sausage these entities churn out.

Well, we all should, because things that tout themselves as "community papers" should at least attempt to represent the community.  As of late, any calls to any Trail-Gazette telephone numbers go directly to voice mail, and, currently, the "news tips" voice mailbox is full, so why bother. 

When someone is physically sitting in an office, they can refuse to see you, or refuse to schedule an appointment, but at least the message is sent that you wanted to see them about something.  They know that you know you are getting the brush-off.  

Under the current system, when you send an email to the Reporter-Herald editor John Vahlenkamp, as I did recently (since the Lehman Publishing Empire is unwilling to open its doors to anyone or anything save subscription and advertising revenue), the most you know is that the email wasn't kicked back as undeliverable - You have no idea if the editor trashed it immediately, or after reading the first sentence and recognizing it didn't include an offer of exchanging advertising dollars for soft coverage (who's with me, Stanley Hotel and Estes Park Health).  So you can continue to waste your time resubmitting, or you can more constructively waste your time trying to dig up a secret email address or an unpublished cell phone number.  Or join the Rotary, where John Vahlenkamp may drop in every other happy hour for a couple of drinks, who knows, even though you don't live in that community and don't own any business in that community.

Our local news media has decided to cover the news independent of the people who live their lives in this community, grow businesses in this community, donate their free time to good causes in this community, and essentially produce the news.  Why would a paper need to get their hands dirty when they can write at arms length on subjects of interest to them?  Did we need a three-parter on the various visitors centers in the National Park?  Compared to, say, the reason oh captain our captain hasn't had a funeral, while the remnants of a family pack up and flee in the middle of the night, and while we continue to await a report of an investigation we already know isn't truly being investigated?  And that is only being delayed in the hopes that something comes along in the meantime to distract attention from a peremptory lazy non-report.

Newest Estes Park Police Department uniform

Your choice.  Some of you don't remember the local newspaper office being the first thing open in the morning and the last thing closed, a place where common man, the prodigal family returning to the area for a visit after years away, the high school athletic captain or FFA club president, or the downtown businessman or businesswoman alike could drop in and grumble, ponder and opine, ask for help, exchange ideas.  That is all too guache now, too difficult. It is much easier (and less likely to ruin your appetite, or interrupt your golf game) to ignore folks, pretend they don't exist and their problems or concerns aren't important, by not allowing them into the palace to begin with. 

Or maybe these bastions of freedom are all going broke slowly, and want to keep the yearly subscription money coming in with no real guarantee they will be around 52 weeks from now.  Pays your money and takes your chances.  Because I promise there is no local Clark Howard equivalent who gives a damn.