More than 200 copies of the
Ouray County Plaindealer were recently stolen out of distribution boxes around town. The newspaper
had just published a front-page story about an alleged sexual assault at the home of Ouray’s police chief.
Journalist
Corey Hutchins has some thoughts on this. The co-director of the Colorado College Journalism Institute writes a weekly newsletter that goes behind Colorado headlines. In that newsletter, “small and mighty” are the words he used to describe the Plaindealer, which was purchased by residents Mike Wiggins and Erin McIntyre in 2019.
“This is not a vehicle for advertising with a little bit of, fun, fluffy news sprinkled in, like you might find in the diner in some small town somewhere. This is a newspaper, I believe that has, since they've owned it for the past few years, taking public service journalism seriously,” he told In The NoCo.
And that’s in a county of roughly 5,000 people, amid a crisis of shrinking local news.
It means the small paper is still managing to be a watchdog and hold local government accountable. A lot of Hutchins’ research tells us this isn’t the norm, though. He joined host Erin O’Toole to discuss the incident in Ouray County -- and what it tell us about the state of local journalism.
Read a letter from the Plaindealer’s
publishers on why the paper reported about this incident here.
What is In The NOCO?
KUNC's In The NOCO is a daily look at the stories, news, people and issues important to you. It's a window to the communities along the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The show explores the big stories of the day, bringing context and insight to issues that matter. And because life in Northern Colorado is a balance of work and play, we explore the lighter side of news, highlighting what makes this state such an incredible place to live.