Another Newspaper Ceases in Mountain States Region

News coming out of Tucson today is not good with the announcement of the cessation of publishing for The Tucson Citizen. Gannett, the parent company of the Citizen, has announced the newspaper will cease publishing on Saturday 21 March if no buyer is found by that time to purchase the paper, which is all but a complete probability. The Tucson Citizen is one of the Mountain West region's oldest and longest publishing newspaper, going back to 1870 when it was entitled The Arizona Citizen. The newspaper is published under a joint operating arrangement (JOA) with The Arizona Daily Star newspaper. The Citizen is an afternoon newspaper, a publication window which has all but disappeared nationally in recent years.

The Tucson Citizen's demise come on the heels of the disappearance of other noteworthy newspapers in the region with the demise of The Phoenix Gazette, The El Paso Tribune, and The Albuquerque Tribune. A number of other newspapers are likely to die as well soon this year, including the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News, The Denver Post, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The demise of The Tucson Citizen leaves only Salt Lake City (Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News) and Las Vegas (Las Vegas Review-Journal, Las Vegas Sun) as cities in the Mountain States region with two competing local daily newspapers being published by years end.

The sudden and swift collapse of the newspaper industry across the nation is a stunning development and truly tragic. It truly is a great loss to the causes and principles of democracy, liberty, and the ideals of having an informed and engaged public.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/frontpage/107869.php

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/index.jsp

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