By: E&P Staff Testing, one, two. Testing.
That's all the Denver Newspaper Agency (DNA) says it was doing with a draft letter for advertisers that says The Denver Post will be the Mile-High City's only daily starting March 1.
In a posting on the Web site of Rocky Mountain News, the Post's partner in the DNA, Finance Editor David Milstead and staff writer Jeff Smith report the agency that runs the business, production and distribution operations for both papers has prepared such a letter for advertisers -- but maintains it is just a draft not based on any information the Rocky is actually going out of business by March 1.
Rocky parent E.W. Scripps put the tabloid up for sale in early December, and closed bidding Jan. 16. Since then, Scripps has not said if anyone bid on the paper. The Post's parent, MediaNews Group, has said if the Rocky is sold it will exercise its right to buy the entire DNA, leaving any buyer with the enormous task of creating a production and distribution system from scratch.
The letter says in part:
"Effective March 1, 2009, only one major daily newspaper will serve the metro Denver market -- The Denver Post. As our advertising partner, we want you to know the closure of the Rocky Mountain News will only minimally change our print and online audience ... All current Rocky Mountain News subscribers will now receive The Denver Post."
Included in the letter, which DNA and MediaNews Group officials said was not sent to any advertiser, is a new logo describing the agency as "publisher of The Denver Post."
A DNA spokesperson told Milstead and Smith that the dates included were "purely placeholder dates -- they don't mean anything."
Scripps spokesperson Tim King said the unsent letter came to the company's attention Tuesday night. Scripps declined to comment on it "since we have not completed the sale process and therefore have told neither the DNA nor the Denver Post about the future of the Rocky," he told E&P.
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