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A group of Rocky Mountain News journalists with support and backing from three Denver entrepreneurs launched a subscription drive Monday for the online news site INDenverTimes.com.
Their goal is to get 50,000 subscribers by April 23 — the 150th anniversary of the first edition of the Rocky Mountain News — in order to launch the full site by May 4.
INDenverTimes is an effort to reinvent the newspaper for the Internet age, featuring many of the reporters, editors, designers and other journalists that the Denver community has come to depend on for coverage of local and national news, sports and the arts. News will be free, but the subscription will invite readers inside the newsroom as never before through news analysis, insight, online chats and other features.
Former Rocky staff involved in the effort so far: Sam Adams, Tom Auclair, Lisa Bornstein, Mark Brown, Tim Burroughs, Mary Chandler, Mark Christopher, Kevin Flynn, Tillie Fong, Steve Foster, Scott Gilbert, Chuck Hickey, Cindy House, Kevin Huhn, Kim Humphreys, Jay Lee, Aaron Lopez, Gary Massaro, David Milstead, John Moore, Alex Neth, Melissa Pomponio, Bill Scanlon, Hank Schultz, Marc Shulgold, Ed Stein, George Tanner, Chris Tomasson, Bob Willis and Mark Wolf.
To learn more about INDenverTimes or to subscribe, visit INDenverTimes.com.
Wishing you every success with your goal of 50,000 subscribers. I’ll subscribe, and I’ll also be happy to post to my blog and Colorado Twitter followers and encourage them to subscribe, also.
Believe!
I will subscribe….I’m doing it now. yea yea yea.
Good for you guys! I miss many of you (especially Drew Litton and Tracy Ringolsby) and will definitely subscribe. I wish you all the best in bringing the Rocky back to life, albeit in a new incarnation.
I love the idea and really hope it works out, but wonder why you couldn’t use the Rocky Mtn News name in your new site? Is a copyright issue?
Best of luck on the success of INDenverTimes.
I have subscribed — looking forward to reading it.
Out of crisis comes creativity and opportunity. I can’t wait to see what you do with this new platform. Off to subscribe, twitter, blog and post on Facebook.
Just signed up.
I did get some validation error with my email it said after I hit the process button. It says it completed fine, but I have yet to get a confirmation email yet or anything.
off to go Twitter/FB as well
I just spent 10 minutes trying to subscribe. You have no place on that new site to report a problem.
The credit card expiration date box is NOT working.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
Not subscribing.
I just subscribed using the Firefox browser and it worked beautifully.. And I live outside the US
I just subscribed. This is a great way to continue receiving the best reporting in Denver! Best of luck in reaching your goal — and going beyond it!
FINALLY! It’s about time people in the business of news realized the best hope for print media is by offering more content and different content instead of less.
@ Loretta: Try these emails: subscriptions -at- indenvertimes -dot- com and generalinquiries -at- indenvertimes -dot- com
Ok, I was a big fan of the RMN, and was very sad that it shut down. But, you’re going to have to convince me that for even as little as $5/mo you can deliver better news than I can get from a bazillion other sources on the internet for free.
Sorry, didn’t finish…
Anyway, I’m not saying I’m against it, especially at that price. I guess I’m just saying I’m skeptical and prefer to wait and see what it’s like before I subscribe.
I am very excited about this, folks. You’ve got some of my favorite Rocky writers on board and a great name.
Yay for opportunity amid the downturn.
PLEASE bring some form, any form, of The Rocky Mountain News back. I will be HAPPY to subscribe for a number of reasons, the least of which is to let the Post know they can’t force Denver into one not so pleasant paper. My subscription will be a couple of days in coming (limited income) but it will come.
Thank you Rocky Mountain News staff for giving us a choice again!!!!
Signed up, wou!ld love to get this on my Amazon kindle.
!
I’m not so sure I like the name — the little things, right? — but I’m looking forward to see what comes out of this. It may be a revolution — who knows?
Best of luck in your new endeavor but I wouldn’t expect much success trying to follow a failed subscription model.
Please give us a reason to pay. Then I will pledge.
PS. Why did you put a draconian license agreement and that people must accept before even learning more about the venture.
Good luck! I’m looking forward to the future of Denver free press!
Thrilling news! It’s just what I was hoping for. Hope Mary Voelz Chandler is apart of this endevor. This is the jumping off point, you are going to not just do well, you will produce a product that will be the next big thing for Denver.
Great!!! Too bad you can’t use the RMN name. My dad worked for the RMN for years and wrote a book on the history of Denver and the News for the centennial. Book called “The First Hundred Years.” I am so pleased that something is rising from the ashes! Subscribing.
Your YouTube video is the most powerful thing you have selling your idea, and its hidden as the second link on indenvertimes.com. I’m glad I clicked and watched, because without it you’ve being too vague. Embed the video on the front page and it’s another step in the right direction.
>Please give us a reason to pay.
You probably pay at least sixty bucks a month for cable. That’s a lot of money for Sportscenter and Hannah Montana.
You can pay $5 a month to support real journalism.
“Information wants to be free” meant “free to move,” not “free of charge.” It’s time to fix a very bad mistake.
Rock ON.
Lisa
Congratulations on today’s announcement.
We need as many independent news sources as possible in our state. That includes ones driven by citizen journalists and those featuring the work of professional journalists.
While the business model of newspapers is one that may be on the way out, it doesn’t make the role of professional journalists any less important. I’m sure the Town Crier never though he’d be put out of business by the newspaper. But, in the end the goal of the endeavor was the same; the news just got delivered in a different way.
InDenverTimes is a way to keep tested and credible journalists working and providing a valuable service to our state. I’m glad to have signed up for a subscription.
JS
I need a homepage on my computer that I look forward to reading every day…count me in! Great solution folks.
Congrats on your announcement today! I have already made my subscription pledge! How many do you have so far? Why not put a counter on your home page? Fingers crossed! Best, Mary
I will subscribe as long as the new Rocky site stops the liberal bias.
I would like real news, not opinion.
Hi! Thank you all for your support, your subscriptions and your feedback! To answer some questions that have come up in this forum:
Q: Why aren’t we using the Rocky name?
A: The name and the intellectual property associated with it are tied up in legal stuff for the foreseeable future. Although we treasure the name and everything it stands for, we believe it’s time to get this new venture going NOW – not months or even years from now.
Q: Why should we have to pay for news we get free elsewhere on the Internet?
A: Simple answer – you don’t have to. INDenverTimes will offer the news for free – no subscription required. But what you will get for subscribing is content you CAN’T find anywhere else – insight, context and commentary from voices you know and trust.
We’ll continue answering questions as they arise – thanks again for all your support!
Cindy House, INDenverTimes.com
In Denver Times represents the future of the daily newspaper. Charging a nominal monthly fee for online content ensures that readers will receive quality reporting & writing.
Newspapers in other major cities are going to be watching you carefully. This is exciting!
I will miss the tactile experience of holding a print edition of the newspaper, and perhaps even the newsprint smudges on my fingers. I’ll get over it.
Best of luck. I’ve just pledged my subscription.
Any word on whether Littwin, Griego and Johnson will join you?
Barbinco, thanks for your feedback and support! We are always interested in good journalism and good journalists, but we have no specific knowledge of any other former Rocky staffers coming on board at this time. Please check back in the coming days and weeks – we hope to announce more staff members soon.
Cindy House, INDenverTimes.com
I’ll do it! Be sure to test your website.
If you need testers, real people with real experience,
shoot me over an email.
I think it’s great at only 16 cents a day! Go go go!!!
Is there a way to give gift subscriptions?
Are they using social media to push this effort? With a blog, active twitter accounts, Facebook fan page and maybe even a LinkedIn group, this might be possible. I would have liked to read more about their fundraising methods.
I like Angela’s ideas! And whoever said to put the subscribe or website link on the YouTube vid right up front. Nice to see you here, Cindy.
If you all can make this work in Denver, maybe we journos in Kansas City can do the same thing. Count me in as a subscriber … and when/if Kansas City can do it, will you put the word out for us, too?
Thanks to all who have voiced their support for InDenverTimes.com. To the skeptics, we know we have to earn your support. We think we can do that by offering news and insight you won’t find anywhere else. What’s more, we’re not just trying to develop a new model for delivering the news, we’re creating a community with more interactivity so that we’re delivering the news you want. In any case, whether you’re a subscriber or not, you can still get the local news free on InDenverTimes.com. Check that out, and we’re sure you’ll want more.
Tim Burroughs, InDenverTimes.com
Making Lemonade out of Lemons, and the really good spiked lemonade at that!
You all represent that best of the best. Your movement represents exactly what journalism is all about. Thank you for reminding people to not jump in the lake and follow the leader. This country would be so much better off if citizens followed their discipline and became leaders of its necessary evolution as opposed to complaining about their misfortune.
Who are your 3 main investors?
You are all an inspiration, Thank you!
Yes! Of course I will subscribe, pester all my relatives and friends to subscribe and try and get my SPJ chapter at CSU to do some sort of activity promoting this! Maybe we can canvass Fort Collins for pledges or something, anything to make this succeed!
I know John Ensslin is the Region 9 SPJ director… perhaps he could use this arm to give the SPJ chapters some guidance in rallying for pledges? I am so pleased the Rocky’s tradition can live on in this groundbreaking venture for newspapers!
Maybe down the road, when the RMN name isn’t tied up in legal issues that can be incorporated in later.
I am really *really* torn.
I don’t live in Denver. Never even been to Colorado. But I think it was really shitty of Scripps to shut the paper down *that shy* of 150 years.
I think it enough to spend $60 a year, even though, as noted above, I don’t live in Colorado.
And then.
And then, I got to your legal agreement. And, unlike most people, I actually read it.
Fire your lawyers, please? Or at least go get a copy of “The Terrible Truth About Lawyers: What I Should Have Learned at Yale Law School”.
No, wait: I’ll teach you the most important lesson.
Don’t let your lawyers run your business for you; that’s not what they’re for.
Here, now; let me go get over it — I’m unreasonably bitchy today for reasons that have little to do with your lawyers — and I’ll probably chip in anyway.
Pledged. Let’s take it back, companeros.
Good luck, my friends. I’m subscribing now!
I definitely will subcribe. I hopw you will continue !EXTRA and cryptogram.
To answer the question about who is backing this push: they are three local entrepreneurs, Brad Gray, Kevin Preblud and Benjamin Ray. Preblud and Ray are native Coloradans, and Gray has a long history in the Denver business community. All three were appalled at what happened to the Rocky, and wanted to be part of trying to figure out what’s next in the news business.
Hank Schultz
INDenverTimes.com
I was all set to subscribe until those two words, auto renewal, reared their heads. I’m sorry, I just can’t do auto renew.
Not subscribing.
Expect web-based news to be free.
Sorry.
I’m subscribing in memory of my cousin, John Accola. I think he would have been a strong supporter and active participant in this new venture.
Richard B
Pawleys Island, SC
I have just subscribed and hope you success. If there is any staff that could make the first internet new paper work, it is you.
Go!
Joe
I’m IN! Nice job ex-Rocky staff. Good luck!!
Angela, Mosley: Twitter, Facebook, Blogs?! Their the reasons why these people have no jobs!
It looks like this model is also being tried by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
see http://www.seattlepi.com/business/403793_piclosure17.html
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday (March 17, 2009)
The Hearst Corp. announced Monday that it would stop publishing the 146-year old newspaper, Seattle’s oldest business, and cease delivery to more than 117,600 weekday readers.
The company, however, said it would maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation’s largest daily newspaper to shift to an entirely digital news product.
- I’m game to subscribe here to support news in the Rocky Mountain region!
Concerned about having to pay for news at InDenverTimes.com? Not to worry. Readers will still get their news for free. But for readers who want more than the news, for 16 cents a day they can become subscribers and receive the insights, perspectives and columns from InDenverTimes journalists. Subscribers can also take advantage of live interactive chats, mobile feeds and other advanced technologies. It’s all part of bringing readers locally focused news and keeping the spirit of the Rocky alive.
Mark Christopher, InDenverTimes.com
Advance technologies is why many journalist an photojournalist are attempting to their own websites.
When you have some guy sitting on a plane taking pictures from his cell phone after an emergency landing and their is some women sitting next to this guy twittering away… is the spirit going to provide you with
health insurance for you and your family?
Abandon ship! The geniuses at CNBC think this is a good idea: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29723143
Kidding aside, best of luck with this. If I weren’t a poor college kid and living on the East Coast right now, I’d not only subscribe but volunteer to help in any way possible.
The poor college kid is another reason why newspapers are going down.
Their not reading. Their linking and utubing and oblivious of the draft.
Cindy & Mark (or any other Rocky people)
I’m still confused to what your new publication will be. I really hope its not just a rehash of the same mistakes that are driving newspapers to the grave. Will you try to be a national website with nothing but AP stories and Britney spottings? Will you cover local & neighborhood events? Who will cover my neighborhood better: you, or the free monthly paper “Life on Cap Hill”. When you say local “insights, perspectives, and columns”, does this mean that you are reporters first or commentators first? BTW, I do miss your old columns. In the comments, you make it sound like a WSJ type site half open / half gated. Will it be more of a blog (i.e. TechCrunch) or an attempt to create the old rmn.com
I think its awesome you guys are giving this a shot. Who knows – being small business owners may even turn some of you Republican! Good luck
Hurrah for all of you!!
I’ve subscribed and I am wishing you a loyal, long list of subscribers and high morale as you pioneer to keep Denver a strong journalism city.
Karen Vigil
GREAT IDEA. I’ve already jumped onboard. Obviously there’s a lot of people already in as well. I hope you guys can try and salvage the name though. 150 yrs wasn’t just the people who wrote it, it transcended that, and the credibility was what the RMN name stood for. Either way I’m still in, but I would love to see the name make a comeback also. Even if it was just “The Rocky.”
Kevin, thanks for your feedback. We are going to be primarily a local news site, and that will include coverage of neighborhood events. But we also will provide local perspective on national stories that affect us here locally.
We will make it clear when we are presenting a news story written by one of our reporters and when we are posting an opinion piece by one of our columnists.
The news will always be free on our site. The subscription would cover things such as columns, perspective stories and interactive chats with our writers.
John Moore, InDenverTimes.com
A startling coincidence awaits if you read through this long post:
Our son Benjamin Ray, a digital branding strategy expert, is one of the three entrepreneurs assisting the former Rocky folks who introduced the INDenver Times earlier today.
After our return from the press conference, I happened to skim through a stack of personal columns that I wrote when I edited the Littleton Independent (1966-1981). In one column, entitled “A generation of non-readers,” I had quoted James Kilpatrick, who pointed out that Ben’s generation was reading less than earlier generations. My column discussed our 12-year-old son’s media habits – mostly TV, as home computers were years away.
I concluded, “…I’m sure Kilpatrick is right; on the whole, my generation, like the generations that preceded it, was a generation of readers. Ben’s is a generation of non-readers, more attuned to the audio-visual world of Marshall McLuhan. The implications are indeed sobering, and uncertain as well. I think something important may be irretrievably lost in this process. But I’m not sure. It may be that the ‘electronic education’ which Ben is receiving may be as useful and appropriate to his understanding of the world into which he is growing, as books were to me and my world when I was 12.”
Our daughter, Sara, was reading the column tonight – March 16, 2009. She said, “Look at the date your column was published: March 16, 1976.”
I hope this works out for all of us. I wish there would be a method of downloading a .pdf or something I could print. There is still nothing like sitting holding the newspaper in your hands. I also spend too much time in front of a computer anyway. Will have to work something out I guess.
As for having to pay, nothing truly worthwhile is ever free. And by the same token, something that is free, by definition, has no worth. Those who don’t want to pay are the same generation of people who think nothing of “swapping” music and other files for nothing. Last I heard that was called theft, not to mention disrespecting the time and talent of those who produce the work.
I’m glad to subscribe and will do so.
This is very exciting and I am glad that Denver is going to be a test bed for Modern journalism!
pat:
people enjoy so many services and goods (yes, goods) for free online that it exposes an amazing contradiction: all that free stuff is great … but someone somewhere ultimately has to pay for it. take classified advertising. the free classifieds online are amazing. i use them. other folks at the rocky mountain news used/use them. one editor sold his used washer and dryer in less than two hours. but somebody is paying for those classifieds: the newspaper industry. this is what InDenverTimes.com is about, building a journalism model for the industry that will sustain itself in these changing times. we believe that folks in denver and colorado value good journalism and that a few dollars a month is something they’re willing to pay to get it. thanks for your comments, and we hope you’ll stick with us.
george tanner
InDenverTimes.com
steve: thanks for your support. our goal at InDenverTimes.com is to offer the very best of community journalism in formats that the 21st century news consumer will find the most useful.
george tanner
InDenverTimes.com
I subscribed. I’ve read the Rocky and I was saddened. But I hope that this new voice can be as strong and powerful as the Rocky was. I plan to read it on my cell, iPod and the computer. I hope in the future, we can get our weekly ads and daily comics online too. That would save even more paper.
Just subscribed. I hope it works out! Best of luck!
Signed up and super excited! Telling all my friends to sign up. Here’s hoping this works!
Steve R: At least this poor college kid knows the difference between ‘their’ and ‘they’re’.
Seriously though, college kids do read news, online, which, given your Cosbyesque ‘kids these days with their linking and utubing [sic],” you clearly don’t understand. The reason the newspaper industry is failing is because it hasn’t learned to adapt to us…until now, perhaps.
And while we’re on the subject of language, I didn’t say I wasn’t going to subscribe. I am. I said if I weren’t a poor college kid I would not only subscribe but volunteer. Maybe I wasn’t very clear on that point, but what I meant was that I need a real job to pay for my subscription.
As us kids say, I think you just got burned.
As Locke said, journalism, if it is to survive, has to adapt to its audience. The Internet is the perfect platform on which to do that. Readers can respond instantaneously to what they see and read, and news providers can in turn respond and join in the dialogue, enriching the experience for everyone. That’s the aim of InDenverTimes.com.
Tim Burroughs, InDenverTimes.com
Heard you on NPR this morning, and I just subscribed…I’d love to see a counter of how close you’re getting to success. Thanks for taking this chance. Just hunting for online info on Denver area restaurants is tough enough as it is…I need my Rocky reviews!
I am sooooo there.
My parents have been loyal subscribers of the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News for over 20 years. I’m a 20 year-old college students and I actually like reading newspapers and I desperately miss the Rocky. I hope the new site will be more balanced politically and still give some emphasis to national news. Good luck you have my subscription with you. Can we see a counter?
Sorry, I made some grammatical mistakes, my post should have read:
My parents have been loyal subscribers of the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News for over 20 years. I’m a 20 year-old college student and I actually enjoy reading newspapers. While, I like the Denver Post, I appreciated the contrasting view two newspapers provide. I hope the new site will be more balanced politically and still give some emphasis to national news. Good luck! You have my subscription with you. A truly ingenuous idea from a great paper, good luck! Can we please see a counter?
Thank you to all who have subscribed. A subscription counter is in the works.
Scott Gilbert, InDenverTimes.com
Locke: Aware and knowledgeable of the obvious. Stupid and blind of the scope of the matter.
I have subscribed! I can’t wait for the new site!
Steve R: Er, what? I’m not a cryptographer, I’m not going to sit here and try to cipher whatever it is you’re trying to say through cliched vagueness. You got caught scolding kids for their ignorance while proving to be blindly ignorant of grammar and technology, among other things, in the same post. I don’t think you’ve got any grounds to say I don’t or “kids” don’t understand the scope of whatever matter you’re referring to, given that you clearly don’t understand the realities of the modern marketplace yourself. Dragging your feet, blaming me and youths and their “ignorance” isn’t going to make those realities any less, er, real.
Face it, Steve: The newspaper is dead; long live the newspaper.