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I've long considered The Tribune a part of the alternative media in New Mexico, as far as its content is concerned.

I might be biased, but its environmental and social-justice reporting; its community-oriented columnists; its local news, science, and political coverage; and its sports pages have always made The Tribune the best daily read in the city and often the state.

Now that it's about to close or be bought by new owners, whose goals are uncertain, I can also say the alternative press in central New Mexico might begin to flourish without the financial domination of the Journal/Tribune monopoly.

With the exception of the longevity of the legendary El Hispano News, started in 1966, the always eye-opening Corrales Comment and the fiscally robust and editorially expansive Weekly Alibi, I don't know of another print effort in the Albuquerque region that's been able to overcome the Journal/Tribune joint operating agreement, which allows them to sell advertising, essentially, in two newspapers for the price of one.

The longest-lasting alternative paper in recent city history, other than El Hispano, was the New Mexico Independent, owned and operated by the late Mark Acuff and his former wife, Mary Beth Acuff.

Starting in the late 1960s, the Acuffs produced the weekly paper for more than 18 years - an intellectual and creative success by anyone's standards.

Mark and Mary Beth were brilliant, courageous journalists and publishers, bravely critical of most establishment institutions but nondoctrinaire.

Having worked for them through most of the 1970s, however, I know it was economically tooth-and-nail all the way.

The same is true, I think, for other alternative papers, such as the Albuquerque News, Cathy Robbins's Albuquerque Voice and Steve Lawrence's Crosswinds Weekly.

Century magazine, published by the Rini and Price family from 1980 to 1983, though a critical success, ran up against financial troubles from the start. We published nearly 400 area writers in 74 twice-a-month editions, and covered the local scene with serious intent. But despite our strong subscriber base, national acclaim and wonderful writers, artists and cartoonists, we could never get around the Journal/Tribune joint operating agreement.

The JOA made it a tough go on alternative voices for many years, because the Journal itself also had an unintended news monopoly with radio and TV. Most stations, it seemed, literally took their news coverage verbatim from the morning paper, making other news sources seem so far beyond the mainstream as to be fiscally irrelevant.

I'm not sorry to see the passing of the JOA. But I am deeply saddened by the possible passing of The Tribune's spirited reporting, fine writing, in-depth coverage and irreverent, critically astute and often community-based opinion pages.

The Tribune's situation amounts to another tragic undermining of alternative voices in our state and region.