Rocky Mountain News

So print media peeps were dealt another blow a few weeks ago. The Rocky Mountain News, a paper that has been in print for 150 years, shut down. 150 years of providing service to the community and it's gone.

To be honest, I got a little choked up.

It's one thing for the baby start-ups to go under, but a well-established and widely-respected big city newspaper like the Rocky? That's just sad. Admittedly, the Rocky has been on the outs for a while. I know they were trying to sell not too long ago. For the low, low price of $1 million (or something like that) you could buy a newspaper.

But in the end it just couldn't pull through its slump. It's so weird. I remember front pages from the election, the convention, when Bush declared war, 9/11, the Columbine shootings... I saved some of those. Maybe I won't get rid of them after all. I want one to hold on to. To remember the event, sure. But mostly to remember the newspaper that was once a powerful behemoth of information.

As a wanna be journalist from Colorado, it was just genuinely upsetting news. I feel like newspapers have a presence in their communities. There's something safe and reliable about newspapers. They're dependable -- at least, they were.

Maybe the internet is where it's all headed anyway, I don't know. But there's something so nice and comforting about the newspaper -- it's damp smell, the inky pages, the humorous ink blots that can black out half a story, the feeling that you have to be a member of the elite to actually be printed in the REAL LIFE NEWSPAPER -- that the internet will never be able to capture. And I don't want it to.

I want newspapers to be special forever. The Rocky certainly will be.