Colorado Community Media’s two dozen newspapers will get a much-needed lifeline in the form of a printing press, allowing it to bring printing needs in-house while reducing costs and providing a longer-term solution for other publishers along the Front Range.
The National Trust for Local News, which owns Colorado Community Media, purchased the press after raising $900,000 in grant funding toward the project. The donations came through the Colorado Media Project and its coalition of funders: the Bohemian Foundation, Gates Family Foundation and the Colorado Trust.
Amalie Nash, head of transformation for NTLN, said the hope is to start printing CCM’s newspapers on the press, located in northeast Denver, by the end of May. By summer, the Trust plans to offer printing services to other newspapers seeking a more affordable solution.
The effort to buy the press began after Gannett Publishing Co., which owns the USA TODAY Network, announced it was closing its plant in Pueblo last August. With few places left to turn, more than 80 Colorado publications that relied on the Pueblo press, including those at CCM, scrambled to find alternative solutions.
“We were faced with a decision point and had to figure out where to print instead,” Nash said. “So we started seeking bids and trying to figure out how we were going to continue to provide print products that people want.”
CCM wasn’t alone. The Colorado Media Project, a nonpartisan philanthropic initiative dedicated to supporting and sustaining local news, surveyed publishers impacted by the Gannett press closure and found that one publication was forced to close. Several others were wrestling with whether to go digital-only, and at least three publishers of multiple papers opted to consolidate titles.
In October, The Colorado Sun reported that the findings of a working group on the future of printing in Colorado, published by the Colorado Press Association, Colorado News Collaborative and the Colorado Media Project “underscored the blow of the Pueblo closure and highlighted the nearly exhausted printing capacity statewide and ‘unsustainable’ cost increases. The report voices concern that continuing those trajectories could lead to the demise of a ‘sizeable number’ of publications.”
Nash said CCM ultimately chose to contract with The Denver Post for printing, but did not consider it a long-term solution.
“Since the National Trust for Local News purchased Colorado Community Media in 2021, our printing costs have gone up 60%, which was obviously very significant for an operation of this size,” said Nash, adding that “we started having discussions around these larger commercial printers closing and the fact that there aren’t very many options in the Front Range. So, we asked: what if we came up with an option. What would that look like?”
NTLN began researching, talking to funding partners, and putting together a plan to buy a press.
“It’s heartening to think that we have an opportunity that helps us regulate our press costs better and that we have a real opportunity to help the media ecosystem in that way,” CCM Publisher Linda Shapley said.
While the print newspaper and magazine market has steadily declined since the mid-2000s, it’s still projected to earn $123.5 billion in the U.S. this year. Many communities still lack reliable internet access, and some people continue to prefer printed news, according to Nash.
And getting a paper copy to commemorate an event is still meaningful for many. Recently, parents whose children were featured in a bilingual newsletter dedicated to Commerce City reached out to Shapley, asking if there were printed copies available.
“You can show the story on your phone or a computer, but it’s just not the same,” she said.
At the same time, CCM has focused on its digital transformation, relaunching its websites last fall and introducing new newsletters. Shapley said it’s important to give people news in all the formats they want it.
“As much as people talk about how print is going away, the fact of the matter is that it’s still here, and it needs support,” Shapley said.