The End Of A Fully Local Paper

The classic view of the newspaper press. . . now really a thing of the past.  The inky, largely all male, domain of the those who put the papers out every day.  I've known a few printers and have been in the old Star Tribune printing room once, which had the atmosphere of Navy enlisted quarters in the old days.

The largest newspaper in the state of Wyoming is, and has been for a long time, the Casper Star Tribune.

I like newspapers.  Anyone who stops in here would know that due to the fact that I frequently post old papers here, and I make reference to newspapers here very frequently.  I've subscribed to The Casper Star Tribune since I was out on my own.

I come from a family of readers, and that includes newspaper readership.  When I was a kid my father subscribed to the Tribune and he picked up the The Rocky Mountain News every day.  On Sundays we typically had the Tribune,The Rocky Mountain News (now extinct) and The Denver Post.  At one time while I lived in Laramie I subscribed to the Tribune and The Rocky Mountain News.  At various points, in addition to the Tribune and The Rocky Mountain News, I've subscribed to The Catholic Register, The  Whitehorse Daily Star, and the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.  Papers I frequently read in the past, which I didn't subscribe to, included the college journals for Casper College and the University of Wyoming, the Laramie Boomerang (which shows up here a lot in connection with the 1910s) and the Stars and Stripes.  When I stay out of town somewhere, I always buy the local paper wherever I am and read it cover to cover.  Clearly, I like newspapers.

Indeed, I briefly pondered being a newspaper journalist for the same reason that a lot of others have been in that field.  I love writing, and I thought about trying to be an author of books (which I have achieved to a very limited extent).  I was writing for my high school journal, the Gusher, and it was interesting and we had a contact with the Tribune.  Having said that, I lost that interest quickly (and in fact a speaker who came over from the Tribune helped motivate my feelings in that direction, one of a few so so experiences I've had with newspaper journalists since that time). 

So it gives me no pleasure to note that since the first time since The Natrona Tribune started publishing in Casper in 1891 there will not be a locally published paper.

1897 edition of the Natrona Tribune, Casper's first newspaper.

Oh, I know, the Tribune will claim and is claiming that its not in trouble and that its still locally publishing. . . just from Cheyenne.

Bull.

The Casper Herald, one of the Tribune's actually ancestors.  The Tribune came about due to the merger of the Casper Star and the Casper Tribune Herald.

The Tribune is publishing from Cheyenne. That much is clearly true. And its decision makes business sense.  As its publisher, Dale Bohren, noted in an article in the Tribune, outsourcing the printing to a third party makes business sense. And that third party publisher, Adams Publishing Group, already prints newspapers for the Laramie (Laramie Boomerang), Cheyenne, Rock Springs and Rawlins markets.

Well, okay.

Casper not only had two. . . or more newspapers, even while having a smaller population than it does today, there were other newspapers printed all around the county, such as this one from the now completely disappeared Bessemer.

But any reader of the Tribune would realize that the paper has gone from a substantial daily down to the size of a small town paper over the past two decades.  During that time period it was often fairly rocky in appearance and quality, although Bohren, who came from the Casper Journal which was purchased by Lee, which owns the Tribune, puts out a consistently good product. But that product is now declining down to a small town newspaper.  A reader of the Tribune, if they weren't familiar with it, wouldn't find it all that much different than The Laramie Boomerang or the Riverton Ranger, quite frankly.  It's in trouble.

It claims more readership today than at any time in its history, due to its online subscribers.  Well, I have my doubts. Subscribing to the Tribune is really expensive as it has attempted to stay in the black.  And advertising, which is the king of newspaper revenues, clearly isn't what it once was in the Trib.  I'm not saying that the electronic subscriptions aren't there, but they clearly don't tell the full story.  I frankly wonder if electronic subscribers get a reduced price of some sort (in which case maybe I'll consider dropping down to that, even though I like holding the paper in my hands and being able to browse it).  It's really questionable at this point whether its worth the price.

One of two newspapers that served Midwest and Edgerton in the 1920s.

Indeed, with the rise in price has also come a drop both in content and in volume.  It used to be that subscribers to the Tribune also received Bohren's Casper Journal.  No longer.  Ironically, at least fairly recently, the Tribune would drop Journals off at the houses of non subscribers in hopes, apparently, that they'd subscribe to something.

Well, publishing a paper in a city that's 150 miles away is not publishing it locally.  Oh, I get it, reporters will submit their stories electronically and somewhere in the Trib they'll put the format of the paper together and then get it to Adams. But distance does mean difficulties and that's just not the same.  Moreover, getting the Tribune to Casper will mean getting the print edition out in sufficient time to haul the paper 150 miles to Casper, get it out to the distributors, and getting it to  your door.  Newspapers famously go "to bed" late so that they can be up to date. In order to do that, the Tribune reporter's deadline is going to have to be pretty darned early.  One more decline in the paper.

Second Salt Creek journal, also from 1923.

This also means that on bad weather days, and if this year keeps up the way its going right now we can anticipate a bad winter, there just won't be Casper papers in Casper. That's significant for more than one reason.  If you are publishing an advertisement, let's say "Big Snow Shovel Sale!", having the paper stuck in Cheyenne isn't going to do you much good.  Same thing is true if you are waiting on the fourth publication of that legal notice you need to foreclose on something. . . snowed in that day. . . run it again . . at expense.

Not good, and frankly, potentially fatal to the paper.

And then there's the human cost.

One story the Tribune didn't tell, and that's typical of the Tribune when it reports about itself, is what this means for the 25 full and part time employees of the press room. They're loosing their jobs.  People who worked in actually printing the paper have been told that August 5 is their last day.

Newspapers generally are relatively liberal in nature and tend to be, like plaintiff's lawyers, declared champions of the working man.  If you start laying off the working man, no matter how solid your economic reasons, your claim is weakened in that regard.  And something is going on down at the Trib in this area anyhow.  What it is, isn't clear, but the reporters unionized last year for some reason.  One reporter I was interviewed by was wearing his union button when he did it. That sends some sort of a message.

Its a real change for Casper.

Local paper?  

Well. . . .