More Opinions Columnists

• V.B. Price: Preserving our water is greatest challenge the city, state faces
• Jeffry Gardner: End of The Trib is part of the demise of serious journalism
• Katherine Augustine: Time with friends from Japan provides treasured memories

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

The big money's in Cajun cooking.

At least it is for E.W. Scripps, owner of the Food Network, HGTV, 10 TV news stations, something called Shopzilla, Peanuts and 18 newspapers — including, for the moment, The Albuquerque Tribune.

Writing about the impending end of The Trib is something I've been reluctant to do. Since Scripps announced in August that the paper was for sale — at the time, I suspect, Scripps management must have thought this was a gentler way of saying "toast" — rumors have skated about the city detailing its imminent purchase by local businessmen one minute, and the doors finally closing on the paper the next.

It's a curious thing: Someone in business wanting to buy a newspaper in this day and age. Common wisdom dictates the industry, as we know it today, will be deader than William Randolph Hearst in the not-too-distant future.

That said, new owners wouldn't be obliged to keep The Trib as an evening paper, and the thought of another a.m. daily is almost an irresistible temptation, I'm guessing. There is a certain cachet in our society in being the renegade, the underdog, the pea under the mattress.

Years ago, publishing powerhouse Meredith — think: Ladies Home Journal and other thick, advertising-heavy magazines geared to women — rolled into Albuquerque and announced it was starting a bi-weekly morning paper with the goal going daily.

Unfortunately, Meredith was only half-serious, and the New Mexico Sun closed its doors after less than a year. However, for those of us who worked on the paper it was a good bit of fun.

Sure, Sun staffers endured the snide asides of the "big" papers' writers — if the Journal or The Tribune can be considered big in a land where local USA Today sales probably rival the Journal's daily home deliveries.

But digs and jeers aside, one more paper meant the status quo was a tad less static — even if it was only for a few months. And that was a good thing for readers and writers alike.

I've never considered The Trib "alternative news." The fact that Albuquerque hasn't truly had an alternative paper succeed until the Alibi is probably due more to its being a fair-sized city with a small-town economy, more than anything else.

And, meaning no disrespect to the Alibi, whose writers have in the past, er, cherished my columns, few in The Trib's or the Journal's newsrooms have picked it up to see if Alibi staffers had a breaking story that needed serious attention.

Yet, even as The Tribune's readership has declined, The Trib's staff routinely routed the a.m. paper's coverage.

We can't begrudge Scripps for doing what it must to keep its stockholders happy. Nor can we expect local concerns to throw good money after bad. However, like everything else, competition makes everything better — and that includes journalists.