Going, Going, Gone

After 150 years, Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News is headed to the mainstream media graveyard – which from the looks of things is going to be a pretty popular place over the next few years.

Times have changed … and by and large daily newspapers did not change with them.

Last year, for example, the newspaper known to locals as “The Rocky” lost $16 million for its parent company, E.W. Scripps – which tried desperately for months to sell the paper.

No such luck.

From the AP:

Mike Simonton, a bond analyst at Fitch Ratings, said a number of other newspapers could close by the end of 2010, and those that survive will be focused on local news with smaller staffs and less printed content.

Four owners of 33 U.S. daily newspapers have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the past 2 1/2 months, and a number of other newspapers are up for sale.

“We think this downturn is incremental to a very severe longer-term pressure from the Internet,” Simonton said. “Many of the newspaper groups are in dire financial situations. We believe there will be more newspaper group bankruptcies and more newspapers closing over the next two years.”

Good.

And good riddance.

The more newspapers that kick the bucket the better off we’ll all be … and we’re not just in terms of the trees we’ll save.

Information is power, and at the end of the day the people are taking that power back.

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