But the reality feels different for some employees of Colorado’s largest newspaper who haven’t seen a wage increase in three years as the cost of living in desirable Denver rises around them with each new crane and real estate listing.

The same reporter added: “If my car were to break down, or if I were seriously injured, I don’t know how I would survive financially.”

On their bargaining day, employees wore black T-shirts reading “#SaveLocalNews” and “Democracy depends on journalism.”

Tony Mulligan, the administrative officer for the Denver Newspaper Guild, says there was no outcome to the negotiations. There have been “two sessions and really no progress,” he says. The last time Denver Post employees got a pay hike was a 3% increase in 2016, he adds, and before that the last real increase was in 2008. Right now the employees have proposed a 5% annual hike for the next three years. The next bargaining session is scheduled for mid-August.

Despite the personal financial pinch they might be feeling…

Next week, journalists, employees and allies of alternative weekly newspapers from around the country will flock to Colorado where Boulder Weekly is the host paper for this year’s annual conference of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia.

Event organizers this year for the July 11-13 conference in Boulder promise “shenanigans in the mountains,” which, given the traditionally unruly nature of the American alt-weekly crowd, is generally implied. There will be booze. There will be consumption of mind-altering substances. And, of course, there will be “quality sessions and networking.”

Recent years have been brutal for the newsrooms of alternative weeklies, the places I feel incredibly lucky to call the birthplace of my own career in journalism. The once venerable counterculture organs of the American underground have gone out of business or been taken over by tie-wearing stiffs of city dailies. In Montana, after the Missoula Independent sold to the corporate daily chain, the suits shut it down and locked its staff out of the office within 18 months. Albany’s Metroland, the alt-weekly of my suburban New York youth, is gone. Just last month, the New Times in Syracuse folded after a 50-year run. Three years ago, the publisher of the Free Times in Columbia, S.C., my first full-time newspaper job, killed himself as sales talks were in the works with The Charleston Post and Courier; a staff writer was laid off after the purchase. Other weeklies, including Columbus Alive, are going online-only, which to me is like hearing they’ve entered hospice care.

In Colorado, the state’s alt-weeklies are all still alive (how much does legal weed help?), and next week will be an opportunity to hear about the bright spots in the industry. As for Boulder Weekly, editor Joel Dyer tells me the publication has maintained its revenue “at or near our highest historic levels over the last five years,” and that its staffing levels in the editorial department have remained the same for the past quarter century.

“I really believe that it is BW’s commitment to the editorial side of the newspaper (yes, I said ‘newspaper,’ not some concocted title that tries to bury the fact that we are primarily a print product) that has been critical to our long-term success,” he says. “When news organizations start cutting their editorial staffs to maintain or increase profits, it usually is the beginning of the end. They wind up with a small handful of unenthused, overworked writers putting out top 10 lists and they can’t figure out why people stop reading them.”

Here is the schedule of events, which includes editorial and business roundtable discussions, trainings on sales and copyright law, sessions on podcasting, SEO, data storytelling, and more. Two Colorado alt-weekly vets, Alan Prendergast of Westword and J. Adrian Stanley of The Colorado Springs Independent, will present on Saturday, July 12, at 2 p.m. for a session called “How I Got That Scoop: How to Break the Big Stories.”

Dyer will also lead a panel on immigration coverage. “We chose that subject,” he says, “because we believe that immigration is no longer just another story, but rather represents a critical point in American history that will do much to decide the fate of the nation moving forward.”

A Front Range arts, culture, and tech magazine urged readers to “Go after Times-Call advertisers” after the Longmont newspaper last month published what the magazine called a “hate-filled” opinion editorial by a guest writer about homosexuality and Gay Pride Month. (I won’t repeat what the writer said here; you’ll have to read the piece or Salt’s quotes from it.) “What on earth are the Editor and Publisher of this paper thinking?” Salt magazine wondered about the decision to publish the opinion column. “You want to make a case for local journalism? You have just made a case against it.”

On June 30, the Times-Call editorial board responded to the backlash. Responses “poured in” to the paper “via commentaries on this page and in social media messages,” while “a small number of readers responded in agreement” with the writer, the Times-Call wrote. “Understandably upset, some called for the editor to resign.” The paper defended publishing the piece on free-speech grounds and that a local newspaper’s op-ed page is a place to “encourage the vigorous exchange of ideas in their communities.”

More from the paper:

If you’re a local journalist, and traveling to a far-flung community would help you tell a better solutions-oriented story, there’s an available grant you might want to consider.

“The Solutions Journalism Network is now offering travel grants to journalists and news organizations based in the Mountain West,” according to the group. “We recognize that solutions stories sometimes involve looking outside of your own community to report on a solution that’s happening elsewhere. These grants can help you send a reporter there, so you can then bring the knowledge of what’s working back to your area.”

From the announcement:

Relying on emails obtained through open records requests, VICE’s Motherboard reported this week how “Amazon, Ring, a GPS tracking company, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service collaborated on a package sting operation with the Aurora, Colorado Police Department in December.”

From the story:

“As of now, we have not yielded any arrests,” Aurora Police Department captain Matthew Wells-Longshore wrote in an email on December 19, VICE reported. “I’m not sure if I should be happy or sad about that! Ha. Maybe happy that no one in the areas we are in are victims of package theft but sad that we won’t be able to showcase an arrest.”

You can view the documents VICE and Motherboard relied on for the story here.

Colorado is lucky to have three New York Times reporters living within our borders. Dave Philipps can essentially live anywhere covering the military and chooses to live in Colorado Springs. The other two Times reporters based here are Julie Turkewitz and Jack Healy. That means Colorado gets plenty of attention in the nation’s newspaper of record.

Last week was no exception when on June 30 Healy had a front-page story about how “Colorado’s first-in-the-nation experiment with legalized marijuana has infused the drug into almost every corner of life.”

From the piece:

Meanwhile, Turkewitz had a piece in A2 of the June 22 edition of the paper that detailed her reporting in the American West. The article was part of NYT’s “Insider,” that “explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.”

From her piece:

Read the rest here to learn what she found out.

The North Forty News went weekly this week

In May this newsletter reported how The North Forty News in northern Colorado was hoping to expand and turn into a weekly publication. On July 1, it did.

“We had great success with our ‘ramp up,’ releasing mid-month editions for the first time in the newspaper’s 27 year (monthly issues) history,” publisher Blaine Howerton says. “Pickup is tremendous and I’m confident our community will support quality journalism as an alternative to the other dailies in Northern Colorado. We are growing and there is something to be said for that! We are now Northern Colorado’s only weekly, covering and distributing to all of Northern Colorado (population of 800,000).”

An ‘hour without media’ when Pikes Peak officials told the press to ‘just stop reporting’

When a motorcyclist lost control and went flying off the side of America’s mountain, event officials instituted an immediate media blackout. From The Gazette in Colorado Springs:

“Lens caps,” a Pikes Peak official screamed, instructing photographers to quit taking pictures. In a moment when the only way for anyone to find out about the crash was via news reporters and photographers on the scene, race officials silenced them. For one hour and 20 minutes, there was no official information on social media or the live radio broadcast about the crash. Photographers were told not to photograph; reporters were told not to report. “As with all incidents on Pikes Peak, we need the scene to be clear from media and spectators so the safety team can attend to the victim in a quick and effective manner,” PPIHC Executive Director Megan Leatham said. However, the media at the time was more than 50 feet from the safety team and was never told to clear the area, just stop reporting.

In a story this week headlined “The hour without media: Pikes Peak Hill Climb shuts down press after Carlin Dunne’s crash,” Gazette intern Evan Petzold pieced together what happened with help from photographers Parker Seibold and Katie Klann, reporters Lindsey Smith, [and] George Stoia. Read the whole thing here.

*CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story identified a Denver Post journalist with her previous title as a public safety reporter. Noelle Phillips is now the paper’s breaking news editor.