Face The State Staff Report
According to its investors, reports of InDenverTimes' demise are highly exaggerated.
The online-only news site, created in the shadow of the shuttered Rocky Mountain News, suffered a setback last week after falling far short of its goal of signing up 50,000 paid subscribers. Following that announcement, some writers including David Milstead and Steve Foster, severed ties with INDT investors, citing differences over newsroom organization and business strategy. The site's investors are now speaking out.
The investors, Ben Ray, Kevin Preblud, and Brad Gray, are pressing on, but with a smaller staff and narrowed news focus. "We haven't changed anything, we've got the name, the brand, the platform, and people from the Rocky are still contributing," Ray said. "We're not really trying to change the model at all."
Ray admits there is some confusion over the venture's future, especially since the announcement regarding last week's split came from writers, not the investment team. "Our message probably was confused, but as time went on we realized we do have something and we are moving forward."
An announcement regarding the site's future is expected today or tomorrow, but the next phase of the project will focus more on local business and sports coverage and employ a staff of 15 or fewer reporters. Ray and his team also continue to employ two ad salespeople, hired during the initial development of INDT, whom he says have already found success in securing advertisers.
More than 30 former Rocky reporters were part of the initial effort, and Ray says a number of those personalities will stay on despite the departure of some of their colleagues. Writers will be presented as "contributors," who will share in the site's revenues under a model yet to be finalized. "We'll work out some sort of revenue sharing deal", Ray said. "Reporters need to understand they can be brands in themselves."
Investors also plan to reintroduce a "premium" subscription model for dedicated news junkies, details Ray says will be available by the weekend. A senior editorial staff has not yet been named.
Trent Seibert, a former Denver Post reporter who now runs TexasWatchdog.org, an online investigative reporting site, says INDT's investors are wise to pare down and start anew with a smaller newsroom. "One of the best online news sites right now is the Voice of San Diego, and they have 8 reporters," he said. While a small staff can't cover every story in Denver, they can focus on producing highly localized content. "People love local news, you can't get it anywhere else."
While INDT was created in the wake of a failed newspaper, Ray says the site may give birth to a print product such as a weekly Sunday edition. That model isn't without precedent: the Christian Science Monitor recently transitioned to providing daily news coverage online, with a week-in-review edition available by mail. Denver-based Clarity Media, backed by Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz, owns both the online news Web site Examiner.com, as well as free Examiner print publications in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Though the two subsidiaries share a similar name and corporate parent, they do not generally share content.
Whatever the model, the trio behind InDenverTimes isn't ready to give up on its vision of a profitable online news site. "We're still on the same mission as we were before," Ray said.
Clarification: The original version of this story indicated the Examiner print editions shared content with their online counterparts; while the companies are both operated by Clarity, their editorial staffs operate independent of one another.