By José Velázquez
Reporter, Tiempos del Mundo and Associated Press
Quito, Ecuador

I was very excited when I arrived at the Denver Rocky Mountain News to find that I had ten mentors. However, four months later, only seven were left. Three were part of an exodus of people who had a change of heart after the paper announced a Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) with longtime competitor The Denver Post. For some people it was devastating.

The Denver Rocky Mountain News is more than a newspaper for Coloradans. It is one of the nation's fastest growing papers, and Colorado's second oldest continuously operating business. After all, this 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner is nothing but a business. It appears that some of the journalists working in the newsroom just couldn't handle this fact. In the old days, running a business in the west was a matter of tough competition.

Denver's first newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News was first published on April 22, 1859 just 20 minutes ahead of the Cherry Creek Pioneer. Through the years, the News prevailed over its competition remaining strong and prestigious. "With no radio and no television, newspapers were the only mass medium available to promote a town," wrote Rocky Mountain News reporter Rebecca Jones in an article about her paper's epic history.

In 1892, a weekly called The Denver Post appeared for the first time and became the News' long-lasting rival. As time passed, the Post became an afternoon-daily paper. In 1926 the Morning Post was launched. Meanwhile, the News (now owned by Scripps Howard) merged with the young and little Denver Express, to create an evening paper, the Denver Evening News.

The paper war now had two new battle fronts. And the war was fought in many fields besides the newsrooms—advertising departments were also in deep competition. Eventually a truce was declared and the News bought the Morning Post, and the Post bought the Evening News. In 1982, the Post switched from an afternoon to a morning edition and the struggle began again.

In 1984 and 1986, the Post received Pulitzer prizes, but the News clearly remained on top in terms of circulation and advertising. In spite of the awards, the journalism competition remained tight. In April 2000, the efforts of both newsrooms were recognized. The Rocky Mountain News was honored with a Pulitzer prize in spot news photography for its coverage of the tragedy at Columbine High School where two students killed 12 students and one teacher. The Denver Post won a Pulitzer in the category of breaking news reporting for the same story. But just a few weeks later, both papers announced the JOA that would merge their business operations while maintaining separate newsrooms.

In a way, the nation's last major newspaper war is close to being over, especially for those who work in the advertising and management departments. "After trying to set ourselves apart, we are going to join hands on the business side," wrote the News' Editor John Temple in an editorial column days after the statement. Temple's words were not much relief for employees, writers and readers. The announcement also left a bad taste in the mouth of loyal readers of one paper or the other. "I just don't like it. The competition is always good," said Roxane Baca, a life-long Post reader. "I learned that I will have to get the News on Saturdays, and nobody asked me if I wanted to. Nobody asked the readers about this," said the Denver woman.

Indeed, even when the editors and the publishers have announced that the JOA will not affect the newsroom, it is official that only the News could run on Saturdays while the Post will deliver the only paper on Sundays. Year 2000 has brought mixed feelings for the news staff. First they win the Pulitzer, and later they dropped to the uncertainty of the JOA. "While we have more questions than answers about our new arrangement, I always keep coming back to a simple truth: Life is better than death," wrote Temple in his column. For a Pulitzer-prize winning paper's editor, these words sounded more like a consolation than a promise to continue the war.

I arrived to Denver seven weeks after the announcement of the JOA. Five months later, it is difficult to tell how it is affecting the newsroom but fifteen staff members have left for different reasons—most to work in newspapers outside of Colorado, on websites or on projects not related with journalism. When the war was at its peak, the casualties and the resignations were far fewer.

"There is a fact that can not be denied...JOAs make journalists a little nervous, and of course some really don't like them," said Meg Campbell a retired journalism teacher of Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador. The goal of keeping the newsroom separate could be hard to reach "especially because it's not easy to build Great Walls of China inside the same corporation," said Campbell.

Some journalists wonder how the lack of a Sunday paper is going to affect them and their work. "Once a week, the readers will get a paper that they didn't ask for. The JOA is insinuating both papers are the same because as far as the readers receive a paper—any paper—the rest doesn't matter," said Campbell. The Denver JOA is a 50-50 profit-sharing arrangement, with News owner Scripps-Howard paying a one-time $60 million to MediaNews, the Post's parent company, to make up for its relative financial weakness. "In the long run, Denver readers will have to pay realistic prices to buy newspapers, and Denver advertisers no longer will see extraordinary discounts on ad rates. These seem small costs for the rare privilege these days of having two competitive newspapers in the same city," wrote journalist John Morton in a special article for the American Journalism Review magazine.

In Denver's JOA, many questions float in the air without answers. So far, most people know how this started, but nobody can say how the 50-year agreement will end. The American Journalism Review magazine published that "in the late 1970s, 28 cities had two papers joined at their wallets via JOAs. Today, only 13 do—and the vital signs of papers in many of those towns are weakening by the month." The article, written by Paul Farhi, explains that "in the past 15 years, JOAs have ended—and newspapers have died—in St. Louis, Miami, El Paso, Nashville, Tulsa, Shreveport, Knoxville, Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio. Last year, Evansville, Indiana, joined Chattanooga among places where JOAs had succumbed." The truth is that time is money.

The truth is that page three of the papers are reserved these days for important names like George W. Bush, Al Gore or Victoria Secret and her new fall collection—pictures included of course. The truth is that after every war, there are always great chances to make more and better business. The truth is that advertising is as important as the news, and that money talks and rules the journalism. Now where is the full freedom of the American Press? In some countries, the media is affected by the pressure of the political power. In some other countries, the pressure comes from another kind of power—the power of the green bills.