Ray Ring

Senior Editor

This is so journalistic:

The Albuquerque Tribune today reports its own death, beginning with:

The Albuquerque Tribune will publish its final edition Saturday, ending a buoyant and sometimes bare-knuckled presence as the city’s afternoon newspaper.

… The Trib’s daily circulation in January was about 9,600 … In 1988, the newspaper sold about 42,000 copies a day.

… The Tribune … won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 (and) was a finalist for journalism’s highest award in 1996 and consistently won state and national awards …

Same old story: Many dailies, including those in the West, suffer declining revenues and staff.

Same time the Trib takes its last breaths, for instance, a couple of states away, in the San Francisco Bay area, the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune and several more papers have announced new cuts.

But meanwhile, we also see a countertrend — nonprofit journalism shops (like this website and magazine) carry on the mission of public service.

One of the notable new nonprofits is ProPublica. ProPublica (forgive the wonky name) promises to field:

… the largest news staff in American journalism devoted solely to investigative reporting, with roughly 25 fulltime reporters and editors. ProPublica will be supported entirely by philanthropy and will provide the articles it produces, free of charge, both through its own web site and to leading news organizations selected with an eye toward maximizing the impact of each article.

ProPublica takes more shape today by hiring three veteran journalists — from The New York Times, the Washington Post and The Nation. Stay tuned for more good nonprofit news, we hope.