The Local Vail Newspaper
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The Town of Vail Newspaper
A major part of a small community is its newspaper. Nearly everyone is interested in
what goes on around town, while others look to the community newspaper for
information on recreation and entertainment. Some like to keep tabs on marriages and/or
deaths in the community, and every town has its political junkies who enjoy writing their
opinions in the letters-to-the-editor section.
In Vail, Colorado, the major daily newspaper is the Vail Daily
available online at
Here you can browse world and national news, local news, check on
the game scores of interest, scan the classified ads, look for real estate or jobs, see what’s
happening in entertainment and the arts around town, read about Vail business, check out
the newspaper’s columnists, see what the newspaper editors are thinking, discover what’s
happening in education, submit a news tip, write a letter to the editor, determine what
travel conditions will be like, peer through mountain web cams, and you can link to other
area newspapers.
One of these other papers is The Valley Journal
an
arts/entertainment/alternative weekly publication. The issue current to this writing
(September 29 – October 6, 2005) reports on a potato launching festival in Carbondale,
an economic plan for this same community, the Red Ball Express bringing aid to
Mississippi in the wake of the hurricane Katrina, decidedly liberal political opinions
about President Bush, and other articles about local news and opinions,
a less politicized weekly that
focuses on interesting local stories, living in and near Vail, some commentary, and nods
to local blog writers.
Several other community daily papers can be accessed from the Vail Daily site, including
the Eagle Valley Enterprise (www.eaglevalleyenterprise.com) out of Eagle, Colorado; the
Summit Daily News, which looks very similar to the Vail Daily; the Leadville Chronicle, the newspaper for an old mining town that could
experience another boom time soon; The Aspen Times, a weekly paper for that other
world-famous ski area; the Citizen Telegram out of Rifle, Colorado; the Post Independent
out of Glenwood Springs; the Snowmass Sun; and the Grand Junction Free Press, another
daily paper.
It’s a fact of publishing life that keeping local newspapers alive for the relatively small
communities in the Colorado mountains is very difficult if the newspapers are independently
run.
As a result, papers have merged together over the years. Swift Newspapers,
Incorporated is the parent company for most, if not all, of
the Colorado newspapers mentioned in this article. So if the websites look similar
for the individual newspapers, you can assume that the same web designers worked
on them.
Corporate headquarters is in Reno, Nevada and houses corporate administration,
the technology department and training center. Swift Newspapers, Inc. supports papers
in California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and Nebraska.
One might think that corporate headquarters keeps a tight reign on the local newspapers,
thus reducing the uniqueness of each paper, but this isn’t true. Headquarters allows
autonomy among the newspapers in order to reflect the local color and character of the
regions. However, none of the newspapers are truly independent, and so a certain amount
of control does reflect, not so much in the news that is presented, but in the news that is
not.
A true independent newspaper in Colorado is the Colorado Springs Independent, which has won numerous awards for individual journalists and for
the paper itself.
Nevertheless, the newspapers in and around Vail, Colorado
do most of
what the communities need in this news medium, but not as much investigative reporting,
known as mud raking in the professional vernacular. Sometimes when changes come
about, you will see investigative reporting in the local papers. It’s just that change in
mountain communities come slowly, or as in the case of Leadville’s economy, in cycles
of boom and bust. If it’s really important, it’ll be in the papers.
Search for more information about Vail Colorado
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