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America’s Last Newspaper War: One Hundred and Sixteen Years of Competition between the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News

Ward, Kenneth J.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1521568820565621

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Journalism (Communication).
The Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post fought for dominance of the Denver, Colorado, newspaper market for more than a century, enduring vigorous competition in pursuit of monopoly control over a lucrative market. This frequently sensational, sometimes outlandish, and occasionally bloody battle spanned numerous eras of journalism, embodying the rise and fall of the newspaper industry during the twentieth century in the lead up to the decline of American newspapering and the death of the News, which ended the country’s last great newspaper war. This historical analysis charts the course of this competition throughout the lifetime of the News, which was founded in 1859. It begins by examining the Denver market’s early history, in which the News battled the city’s earlier newspapers for control in the decades before the Post’s founding. It then turns to document the 116 years of competition between the News and Post, drawing on manuscript collections scattered across the United States as well as oral histories with executives, managers, and journalists from the two papers. In particular, this dissertation interrogates these sources to better understand the strategies employed by the two newspapers in their competition with one another and against other challenges, such as widespread economic uncertainty and the decline of the newspaper industry. It explores the joint operating agreement entered into by the Post and News in 2001 to better understand its causes, conditions, and results in serving the goals of the two newspapers and the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970. Additionally, the dissertation investigates the News’s closure in 2009, critiquing the rationale for closing the paper offered by its parent, the E.W. Scripps Company. These questions are evaluated in light of the modern media ecosystem, one in which news organizations tangle with one another on the Internet as well as their native platforms as they compete for the strained attention of their audiences. This work offers practical lessons of immediate use related to market competition, product differentiation, emergent media, economic hardship, and public versus private ownership models, advice that benefits today’s publishers as they attempt to stand out in a difficult news environment.
Michael Sweeney (Committee Chair)
Aimee Edmondson (Committee Member)
Katherine Jellison (Committee Member)
Greg Newton (Committee Member)
454 p.
American History; Communication; Economics; History; Journalism; Labor Relations; Law; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Modern History; Multimedia Communications
newspapers; product differentiation; market competition; media history; private ownership; public ownership; emerging media; newspaper preservation act; denver; rocky mountain news; denver post; media economics; digitalization; scripps; medianews

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ward, K. J. (2018). America’s Last Newspaper War: One Hundred and Sixteen Years of Competition between the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1521568820565621

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ward, Kenneth. America’s Last Newspaper War: One Hundred and Sixteen Years of Competition between the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. 2018. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1521568820565621.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ward, Kenneth. "America’s Last Newspaper War: One Hundred and Sixteen Years of Competition between the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1521568820565621

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1521568820565621
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© 2018, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.