A Colorado newspaper war is 'over’ as the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel shuts down
The news behind the news in Colorado
One of the great small-town newspaper dramas of the past decade in Colorado appears to have come to a close. At least for now.
“This will be our last publication,” the partisan right-wing Sangre de Cristo Sentinel print publication announced Aug. 1.
The paper was based in Westcliffe in Custer County. To offer a sense of its orientation, it displayed a “Trump Won” yard sign in front of its downtown offices following the 2020 presidential election.
For years, the weekly broadsheet had been in a bitter war with the more established weekly Wet Mountain Tribune. Each sold for $1 per copy around the rural southern Colorado town of about 500 nearly an hour west of Pueblo.
This newsletter has chronicled the newspaper war, which often turned personal between the older Sentinel publisher George Gramlich and the millennial Tribune publisher Jordan Hedberg.
The fights included a defamation lawsuit, a battle over who should get to print the county’s public notices, personal insults, and more. “The conflict between the two papers has gotten so ugly that coffee shops have taken sides,” the Colorado Sun’s Jennifer Brown wrote in 2023. Hedberg once even complained of death threats.
In its closure announcement, the Sentinel attributed its shutdown to “serious, personal health issues.”
Custer County, as small as it is, has had an interesting media ecosystem, and the Sentinel’s role certainly added to it.
The paper, which has been printing for 13 years in the valley, did so in the tradition of the partisan press of an earlier century. A group of conservative activists from the Tea Party movement had launched it to try and shift the county’s government to the right.
A successful 2017 recall election had shown Gramlich, the Sentinel’s publisher, the power of local media. “We wanted to make a difference but we had no clue of the influence a local newspaper has on the local politics and culture,” he once said on a radio show. “We’re not journalists, we’re partisans,” he added. “And we make no bones about it. We don’t pretend to be journalists. But it’s working for us.”
The paper published political invectives, memes, rants, and jeremiads with varying degrees of proper punctuation and grammar.
In 2018, the Sentinel referred to the Colorado Press Association as “obviously part of the left wing, corrupt, deep state press” after the CPA’s then-director indicated support for the group’s members to publish editorials “against anti-press ‘enemy of the people’ rhetoric.”
But one Custer County resident once told me that the Sentinel closely covered the local high school, which likely boosted its readership.
In its final issue this week, the Sentinel thanked its supporters and shared what it believed has been some of its greatest impact over the years.
Such successes included killing building codes and a “Dark Skies county law,” ousting “poorly performing commissioners,” getting anti-pot candidates elected to local office, raising money for vets and the sheriff’s office, fighting “manic COVID restrictions,” running an Independence Day parade, persuading the county commission to put its meetings on YouTube, and more.
“We are shutting down now but it is very doable to revive the Sentinel or start your own conservative newspaper,” Gramlich wrote in his goodbye column. He added: “This little local newspaper has had a huge impact in our area. You can do it, too. Remember, media is where things get done. And the fight is local, Patriots, watching Fox News doesn’t cut it.”
There was a hint last summer that the dust might have been settling between the two papers in Westcliffe.
Reporting for the Denver Post, Bruce Finley, who traveled to the town, wrote that lawyers for the papers had coaxed their clients into a mediation session over Zoom. The Sentinel later published a “settlement statement” in its pages, retracting things it had printed about the Tribune’s Hedberg.
Hedberg said this week that he is still suing the Sentinel’s Gramlich for defamation.
But as for the recent announcement of his rival shutting down, he said, “the newspaper war is over.”
Now, a message from Gary Community Ventures…
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Colorado’s child care system faces an inflection point. On average, the Denver Post reports, parents pay $13,000 to $20,000 a year per child on child care. And despite charging some of the nation’s highest tuition rates, the Colorado Sun has reported many of our state’s child care providers struggle to remain open due to increasing operational costs.
We’ve seen great reporting on how this dilemma impacts rural communities, grandparents, businesses and even our military. Yet many Coloradans remain unaware about how our state’s child care issues directly impact them.
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Colorado media’s ‘Epstein Files’
If your newsfeeds (and family gatherings) have been anything like mine this summer, you haven’t been able to escape a headline or conversation about the “Epstein files.”
If that’s not you, then congrats. And if you’d like to get caught up on the single issue that’s been most roiling the Trump administration, the MAGA movement, and politics in general in recent weeks, Ezra Klein has a good primer about the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and why the story is so sticky.
Here in Colorado, each week I try to connect national media developments to what’s happening in our own state if there’s an obvious connection.
And when it comes to the Epstein files, there actually is. The conspiracy goes deep.
OK, not really. But it turns out, longtime columnist Warren Epstein has launched a new column called, you guessed it, The Epstein Files.
“I’m psyched to be part of The Pikes Peak Bulletin reinvention, and I’m proud to be on the Board of Directors. With your help, this talented team of board, staff and free-lancers will guide us forward,” he wrote in this week’s digital edition. “I’m also hoping that my Epstein Files column will be a regular fixture.”
Epstein, that’s Warren not Jeffrey, was a columnist at the Gazette, then retired after serving in a position at Pikes Peak State College. Lately, he’s been writing for the Bulletin, which is based in Manitou Springs where he lives.
Here’s more from him about what he plans to do with the new column:
Which takes us back to The Epstein Files. Sometimes, I expect this column to cover serious journalism or articulate heartfelt thoughts about where our community or our country is going right or wrong.
But I also want it to be an oasis of funny. If I’m going to make fun of the powers that be (and believe me, I will), I have to also make fun of myself and the once mighty Fourth Estate – journalism.
He has asked readers to “Please send us your favorite newspaper goofs … unless they’re mine.” So, perhaps you’ll be hearing more from him in this newsletter.
The development involving this new column comes with some bittersweetness, though. The nonprofit newspaper has paused its print schedule after it ran into funding woes. Epstein, that’s Warren not Jeffrey, has joined the paper’s board to help.
The Bulletin, which is still publishing original local journalism online, is running a $25,000 fundraising drive. “Vital grant funding has not arrived as anticipated and we have a budget shortfall,” the paper states.
A recent newsletter from the Bulletin includes this line: “Today, we are finally doing what so many have promised yet no one has done — releasing The Epstein Files.”
The Bulletin is revamping its board, bringing on industry vets like Carol Wood and courting contributors like Noel Black, Epstein said.
Over the phone this week, Epstein said he would like to see if there’s a market for an online news site in Colorado Springs that can monetize its content. He said the outlet needs a big re-launch within the next month.
“There is no alternative to the Gazette that is significant anymore,” he said, noting the recent demise of the Colorado Springs Independent. “And so that’s an opportunity.”
This week’s newsletter is supported in part by the Regional Air Quality Council, the Front Range’s lead air quality planning organization. The RAQC collaborates with state governments, organizations, and individuals to improve air quality and protect Colorado’s health and environment through planning, policy development, and program implementation. The RAQC’s current priority is ground-level ozone, the Front Range’s most pressing air quality issue. For more information, please visit RAQC.org.
To learn more about ground-level ozone, what individuals can do to protect their health, and how to help improve our summer air quality, please visit SimpleStepsBetterAir.org. You can also sign up for timely text or email alerts to know when it matters most.
The National Trust for Local News ‘hitting reset’ after ‘months of turbulence’
Media writer Liam Scott took a look at the National Trust for Local News this week for the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University.
The upshot is that the organization, under a new director, Tom Wiley, suffered its “biggest disruption” since its creation in 2021, in, of all places, Colorado.
That would be the stunning sale in May of its 21 newspapers to an Arizona-based publisher, Times Media Group. Now, Scott reported, the nonprofit is “hitting reset.”
Some nuggets from the story:
💸 “The Trust’s decision to sell most of its Colorado papers to Arizona’s Times Media Group was a financial one, according to Wiley, who said operation costs ended up rising higher than originally anticipated. ‘There was a cost problem,’ he said. But, he added that it wasn’t a decision that was made lightly. “It wasn’t knee-jerk. It wasn’t without a great moral compass,” he said. ‘There isn’t some Machiavellian, secret cabal.’”
👀 “I was glad that they were able to sell to somebody, as opposed to maybe shutting some of the papers,” said Colorado Press Association CEO Tim Regan-Porter. Better to sell off some of them than hold onto all of them and run the company into the ground, he said.
🗞 Times Media Group spokesperson David Leibowitz said “that the company was not in a position to make any guarantees about future staffing decisions. ‘We are operating with transparency, urgency, and care. Our priority remains the survival and relevance of local newspapers in communities that need them now more than ever,’ he said.”
🤔 “It’s difficult to point to any specific decision by the Trust to explain what went wrong and forced it to sell the papers. Most likely, the error was acquiring so many papers so fast. ‘They grew a little too quickly before having in place the infrastructure that they needed,’ Shapley said. Regan-Porter agreed: ‘They had a lot on their plate, and something needed to give.’”
🗣 In an emailed statement to Scott, Leibowitz “said several of the Colorado publications involved in the sale ‘were in serious financial distress,’ with two slated to close. “Times Media Group stepped in not to wring the last few dollars from this transaction,” Leibowitz said. ‘These newspapers are worth saving.’”
🤞 As for my own comment to the reporter when called to provide one, I said about the new owners: “I’m encouraged that in two months, I haven’t had to write a story yet about layoffs at those papers or one of them closing down.” (I hope that continues to be the case, and if anyone hears anything going on at those papers, please reach out.)
Read the whole thing here.
The Colorado Sun is one of the top 20 nonprofit news sites in the U.S. by traffic
This week, Joshua Benton at Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab published a list of the top 25 nonprofit news sites in the country based on traffic.
The nonprofit statewide digital Colorado Sun ranked No. 16.
From the piece:
Nonprofit news sites have an interesting relationship with web traffic. Many of them were founded specifically to do the sorts of journalism that aren’t likely to trigger Chartbeat spike alerts: investigations, policy deep-dives, niche topics, or coverage of overlooked and disadvantaged communities. Most nonprofit outlets don’t run advertising, which means they lack the primary incentive commercial news sites have to chase traffic.
I pinged the Sun’s editor, Dana Coffield, to see what she had to say about the news.
“It was pretty interesting to see the progress we’ve made these past seven years quantified in a chart, and it is encouraging to see ourselves performing well compared to organizations that have been around much longer,” she said.
But she added that it’s also important to remember that a few good stories can make or break monthly performance, noting a 70+% decline for the National Catholic Register the month after Pope Leo was selected.
“For that reason,” Coffield said, “we need to keep consistently producing content that is meaningful for the readers we have and the readers we are hoping to meet, and develop an audience recruitment and retention strategy that is resilient in the face of major changes to search.”
🌿 This week’s newsletter is proudly supported by PR firm Grasslands: A Journalism-Minded Agency™, founded by Ricardo Baca (ex-Denver Post, ex-Rocky Mountain News, and current Colorado Public Radio board of directors). We understand journalists because we were journalists — and we’re here to help. Need expert sources or compelling stories? Our diverse client roster includes beloved Colorado institutions (Naropa University and Illegal Pete’s), innovative wellness brands (Boulder County Farmers Markets, Naturally Colorado, Eden Health Club), bold natural products businesses (Wild Zora, Flatiron Food Factory, Flower Union Brands), and other purpose-driven organizations. As creators of the Colorado Journalist Meet-Up and longtime champions of quality journalism, Grasslands recognizes the essential role reporters play in our communities. Our team is ready to connect you with sources, data, and unique perspectives that elevate your reporting.
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More Colorado media odds & ends
📡 Last week’s newsletter reported that there are 52 public media “outlets” in Colorado, citing a Colorado Sun story, which used that figure in a headline stating there are 52 “stations.” The Sun story has since been updated “to clarify that 19 radio stations in Colorado hold the licenses for 52 different signals.”
☢️ Reporting for her book “Countdown,” Colorado journalist and author Sarah Scoles “navigated secrecy” and “deft conversations around classified information and dealing with a variety of constraints,” the Colorado Sun reported.
🗣 Paolo Zialcita, the neighborhoods reporter for the hyperlocal news site Denverite, who covers the city’s “78 statistical neighborhoods and what they care about,” offered advice to emerging journalists for an installment in this week’s “Your First Byline” newsletter. (“Take the side roads,” Zialcita said. “You’ll never find good stories if you cut through entire cities on the highway. Some of my best stories are found by walking around a new neighborhood or taking the long way home. And if you don't find stories, you're making extra time for you to think about your next one.”)
🐙 Alden Global Capital, the newsroom-gutting hedge fund that financially controls the Denver Post and other Colorado newspapers, failed in its “attempt to get its tentacles on the Dallas Morning News,” Joshua Benton reported for Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab.
⚙️ Marco Cummings is leaving the Denver Gazette to become the Denver Post’s digital strategist. “I'm excited for this next chapter and the opportunity to help the Denver Post continue as a standard-bearer of journalistic excellence while growing its digital footprint,” he said on LinkedIn.
🤐 Jason Salzman, who runs the progressive Colorado Times Recorder nonprofit digital news and commentary site, published an open letter to the editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette after Salzman “emailed him the questions below three times over the past week and left a voicemail” but did not hear back. (Salzman sought clarification about recent public comments the editor had made about the paper’s owner, Phil Anschutz.)
🦬 University of Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders, who announced this week that he has beat aggressive bladder cancer, called out what Bri Amaranthus of Sports Illustrated described as “false claims, sources and rumors” that he was leaving the football program.
💸 A federal judge this week imposed more than $90,000 in attorney fees and sanctions on right-wing Colorado podcaster Joe Oltmann “whose unsubstantiated claims of election-rigging prompted a series of defamation lawsuits against him and those who broadcast the allegations,” Michael Karlik reported for Colorado Politics.
🍄 KUNC’s Brad Turner spoke with 5280 magazine writer Robert Sanchez about the journalist’s experimentation with micro-dosing magic mushrooms for a story on the therapeutic value of psilocybin. “I have told so many people I do not care if it was the micro-dosing or a placebo,” Sanchez said about the benefits. “I wish everybody could feel the way that I felt.”
Sponsored…
🗣 Newsletters like the one you’re reading that report on local media in a state “draw attention to the key role local news plays by writing about the stories and the impact of those stories,” said Richard Watts of the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont. “They help amplify and they showcase the importance of the media ecosystem for a vibrant democracy.” Furthermore, such newsletters can serve as the “canary in the coal mine to draw attention to media platforms in trouble, or actions by unscrupulous owners,” Watts added. “And they can share ideas and best practices across the system to help strengthen individual media platforms. And, lastly, they help create a community of stakeholders committed to the importance of a free press.”
🏆 The Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has rounded up recent “Best of the Best” award winners and posted them on its website.
🙄 “The cool, crisp air of autumn is on its way,” Alexander Kirk reported for 9NEWS on (checks notes) July 30. “There’s nothing like fall in Colorado and we want to highlight your photos,” the report stated. (Seeing the post on X was like the digital news feed equivalent of walking into a store to find Halloween decorations immediately after the 4th of July.)
💳 Denver’s alternative weekly Westword is trying to raise $17,000 from readers so the paper “can deepen our reporting on the critical stories unfolding right now: grassroots protests, immigration, politics and more.”
I’m Corey Hutchins, manager of the Colorado College Journalism Institute, advisor to Colorado Media Project, and a board member of the state Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For nearly a decade I reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations, including Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab. Colorado Media Project is underwriting this newsletter, and my “Inside the News” column appears at COLab. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter, hit me up.) Follow me on Bluesky, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.
Ironically, for all George Gramlich's red-faced ranting, the Sentinel often beat the Tribune on nuts-and-bolts community journalism: high school sports, crime news, clubs' and organizations' news, and that kind of thing. While Tribune editor Hedburg goes for Big Ideas and lawsuits, he has said publicly that prep sports, for example, are "uninteresting." A lot of families might disagree. Nor did he care to publish the sheriff's blotter so that readers could see if their neighbor was arrested for what he did.