Staff at the long-running alt-weekly newspaper, the Colorado Springs Independent, were laid off on Monday. The immediate and severance-free firing was a shock to the small team after resurrecting the publication less than a year earlier.
The paper, along with the Colorado Springs Business Journal, is in the process of changing ownership. The move marks the third major shakeup for the Independent in two years. Now, it’s unclear how, when or even if it will return or if archive digital articles will be available to the public.
In late 2023, Financial shortfalls as well as a bungled rebrand and shift to a nonprofit led to the Independent ceasing publication. Two months later, prominent Colorado Springs businessmen Kevin O’Neil and JW Roth announced they had purchased the paper and the business journal.
A newly branded umbrella organization, the Pikes Peak Media Company, hired former Summit Daily News editor Ben Trollinger as editor in chief and kept the Independent’s publisher, Fran Zankowski.
In an editorial published in the first issue of the new Independent last May, Trollinger spoke of his intentions to earn back the trust of the “Indy’s” audience, which had come to expect “fearless, sometimes polarizing, reporting.”
“It’s a lot to live up to,” he wrote. “But, we’re ready for the challenge.”
That challenge ended up being short-lived with the sale of the paper this week and uncertainty about its return.
An awkward position
Pam Zubeck, a longtime Independent reporter who retired amid the 2023 closure, said she felt there was a lot of promise in the new ownership of the paper at that time.
“It would be well funded, which it was not in the last several years,” Zubeck told CPR News. “That's always encouraging to see a publication that has a wealth of resources behind it.
However, that ownership team soon left the new Independent in a difficult spot. O’Neil and Roth were each spearheading major projects in the city which left the community deeply divided. O’Neil’s proposed downtown apartment tower—which would be the city’s tallest building—faced pushback from residents unhappy with changing the skyline. Meanwhile, Roth built a new outdoor concert venue, the Ford Amphitheater, which faced immediate criticism from neighbors.
Trollinger said while the owners did not dictate news coverage to the Independent’s staff, their projects underway in Colorado Springs were impossible for the paper to ignore.
“O'Neil and Roth made headlines like nobody's business,” Trollinger said. “It was uncomfortable. If we didn’t cover something they were involved in, it looked suspicious. If we did, public perception might be we were a mouthpiece or a propaganda organ.”
It increasingly became a challenge for the two papers to operate independently. Trollinger said the publications were losing money. In the weeks leading up to the staff’s Monday layoffs, he sensed frustration from the owners and an “impatience, maybe, with our lack of willingness to understand and serve their interest.”
The latest ownership
The Springs-based Colorado Media Group publishes NORTH Magazine, the Southern Colorado Business Forum and Digest as well as some local radio and television content. On Wednesday, CMG announced it was acquiring both the Colorado Springs Business Journal and the Independent.
“The papers and our advertising partners deserve an elevated experience in media and CMG has proven they are quite capable of delivering,” Roth said in a press release announcing the sale.
CMG owner Dirk Hobbs said serious discussions around the sale began in February, but said he did not know about the plans to liquidate the papers’ staff.
“All I can tell you is that I'm sympathetic to that team,” he said. “It's shell shock, right?”
Hobbs said two-thirds of the staff of the business journal and Independent have expressed interest in being part of whatever happens to the publications under his ownership.
For the business journal, that plan is clear: the brand will continue for a time within Hobbs’ Business Forum and Digest, though it will eventually sunset. For the Independent, Hobbs said he is not yet sure what to do. He wants to keep the Indy’s focus on the city’s food and arts scene. As for its 30-year reputation as a grungy and aggressive alternative weekly, he’s less confident.
“I feel it's my responsibility to go out and get some information,” Hobbs said. “We're going to do a series of focus groups to try to understand what is needed, what is wanted, and how we can integrate it into what we have in mind so far.”
Zubeck said while she respected the reporting of the new Independent under Trollinger’s leadership, it never professed to be the same publication she worked for. She said she doesn’t know what value the Independent as a brand has for the community at this stage.
“I wouldn't know why you'd want to keep the Independent name, because it'd be confusing to people depending on what the new owner wants to do with it,” she said. “I'm 99 percent confident that he's not going to make it an alt-weekly.”
Whatever happens, Zubeck said she hopes Hobbs restores the online archives of the Independent’s reporting, which languished under the Pikes Peak Media Group.
“That would be the best community service that could be done,” she said.
“There were so many good stories done over the years of the Independent that are not accessible unless you kept every hard copy that appeared on newsstands.”
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