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.

It finally hit at about 3:30 Friday morning. Most of Thursday I felt mostly deflated, more irritated than actually angry. I was prepared, more or less. It had been almost three months since the initial announcement that Scripps was going to try to sell the Rocky, and there was ample time to prepare for what we assumed was the inevitable outcome. During those three months I occasionally felt optimistic, maybe hopeful, but nothing could ever fully shake the sense of dread. There were just too many complications in the situation, the economy tanking, the business model failing, the horrible intertwining of two businesses that should have been all out competing . . .

If my return to Colorado ends in nothing more than what I’m doing now, being among the last to stand up for this newspaper, then whatever pain I feel from the outcome will be worth it. Nothing this valuable should be allowed to fade quietly away.

When I look around the newsroom I see people lashing out at all things electronic as if a machine could really be to blame for changing how people want to read news. But it’s the readers, myself included, who are driving the change, not the technology.