(Pueblo, CO) -- More than a dozen small town newspapers in Colorado face some big challenges as the Chieftain Commercial Printing Press announced they’ll close their press in August, namely finding someone else to print their daily and weekly newspapers.
According to an announcement on social media, more than 60 people could lose their jobs in August. The press prints newspapers for the Bent County Democrat, the Rocky Ford Gazette, Trinidad Chronicle News, the Kiowa County Independent, The La Junta Democrat, the Fowler Tribune, The Limon Leader and the Pueblo Chieftain to name a few. In an earlier article published in the Pueblo Star Journal on the history of the press, Manager Todd Albo stated,
“If this press wasn’t running, the smaller town papers would be out of business. These little towns wouldn’t have a newspaper.”
As of now, there’s no word on which newspapers would have the ability to go 100 percent on-line or which ones would seek alternate ways to get a newspaper printed and distributed.
Here's a link to the article referenced above:
Here is the list originally posted in the above article:
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How very sad. Small town newspapers certainly aren't what they used to be, but this is almost a death knell. Never in my days in journalism school or working on newspapers did I ever think this would happen.