On what's about to happen in newspapers

It has been an interesting week. It's now Friday, 8:30 a.m. A week ago, America's Fish woke with a queasy stomach and the most severe hangover since college -- thank you, Johnny Walker -- after the Rocky Mountain News staff spent the evening informally toasting our paper to the grave. (The formal wake would be a couple nights later with a salsa backdrop.) Despite needing another three or four hours sleep, we had to go to office one last time to clean out the desk and say goodbye.

Since then, much has happened. IwantmyRocky.com has received a boost of adrenaline from Kevin Flynn and the arts and entertainment staff and much of the presentation desk from the Rocky. Tracy Ringolsby and Jack Etkin have taken the coverage of the Rockies into their own hands. And Drew Litton just keeps drawing. This week has been strangely busier than last week, a good feeling, to be sure, to have something to do rather than nothing. But it's mostly helping to avoid the question: what happens next?

There are two answers: 1. Who knows? 2. Nothing pleasant.

What happens with IwantmyRocky, if/how/when that evolves into something larger, will be mostly positive, a noble experiment, maybe a successful experiment. The larger issue is what's happening in this industry. The Seattle P-I is preparing to go online only -- that, at least, is some relative good news. But the San Francisco Chronicle is going to lay off 225 people unless it gets drastic concessions from the union -- if it gets the concessions, the paper will still lay off 150 people, a third of the staff. The Miami Herald, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, both Philly papers, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune . . . they're all teetering on the edge and it's just the beginning. Many see what happened here in Denver as the last battle between the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. We here at America's Fish regard it as the first domino in a long row of bad things to happen to media and democracy in the country in the next year.

Something needs to happen to replace those voices -- or to revive them -- once they fall. That's the real hangover from this experience.