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At 6:30 p.m. on May 17, an alarm shattered my writing flow. This was my cue to transition between two unfortunate realities: reporting on Kim Keilin’s unceremonious termination from the helm of Aspen’s primary employee-housing development to attending David Krause’s farewell party following his swift resignation as editor-in-chief of The Aspen Times.

Two local leaders whose passion for serving the community was contagious – and measurable in hours worked and lives impacted, including mine — both ousted for all the wrong, but parallel, reasons: The companies to which they had devoted a combined 41 years were acquired by national corporations with billion-dollar pockets, granting influence over a town they know only by name and investment properties.

As corporate entities pillage the character and charm of our funky little ski town, I seek solace in knowing that Aspen’s soul lies within the fabric of the community and its people.

But when those community institutions and the people who uphold them become collateral damage in the pursuit of the bottom line — that’s my breaking point.

My name is Erica Robbie, a byline that equates to nearly 2,000 stories over more than seven years with Aspen media. A million or so words later, this is my first op-ed.

Aspen drew me in early, as did writing. My first writing accolade was in Aspen Elementary School’s Fraser Creative Writing Contest. Although my childhood stint only counted two years as a full-time resident, I’ve always felt Aspen was home. More than a decade later, I returned the day after I graduated from Southern Methodist University with a degree in journalism, on June 1, 2015, with only the belongings in my car, a short-term lease on a studio and a stranger’s word to pay rent in exchange for the futon.

Equally hellbent on a career in journalism, when The Aspen Times called two weeks later to offer me the city reporter position, I felt like I’d won the lottery.

Assuming that the word “city” was a general reference to around town, I soon realized the term referred to local government — arguably a newspaper’s most important beat as a community watchdog — and a subject I knew nothing about. Fortunately, I’d experienced the concept of trial by fire on my first day on the job, spontaneously interviewing Arianna Huffington.

The life lessons and skills I acquired in my four years at the Times and two years at the Daily — learning how to listen, investigate issues, use my voice to elevate others, cover breaking news, start a magazine from scratch (Local), produce video content and host on camera, ask the right questions, use social media as a meaningful tool, among others — are incalculable and invaluable.

I am forever grateful to Aspen media for this experience and, until recently, remained a staunch supporter of both newspapers.

Regardless of which team I was playing on, until mid-June my sentiment was steadfast: The community should support both news outlets. It is a rare privilege for a town today to boast two competing newspapers — a statement I shared publicly after leaving the Daily as an editor last summer to freelance full-time, and maintained as recently as early June, upon formalizing a short-term writing contract with the Times.

Unfortunately, that contract lasted less than a week. Immediately it became clear to me that the venerable newsroom where I cut my teeth was not the one with which I was engaged. This was days before the Times scrubbed columnist Roger Marolt’s piece that chastised the paper for censoring content, then fired the seasoned editor Andrew Travers for running the column, despite receiving the publisher’s blessing (an experience he details in a 5,000-word first-person piece, “How to Kill A Newspaper,” published in The Atlantic on Thursday).

The amount of damage the Times’ new ownership, Ogden, accomplished in a span of six months — dismantling an entire newsroom and a 141-year-old institution — is astonishing and perilous.

Watching Ogden carelessly burn a community pillar and my colleagues, friends and mentors broke my heart — and then lit a metaphorical fire.

Recognizing that no one can “save” the Times, I channeled this energy to bolster the Daily and dialogue around local media and why it matters. A personal initiative fueled by nothing more than genuine passion and concern led to me referring business to the Daily — informally, at first. With time, this evolved organically into a working relationship to exactly this effect.

In my conversations around town, a troubling theme continues to unfold: Even among regular consumers of local news, the community lacks understanding about the ownership behind both papers and misconceptions abound.

No, Sotheby’s does not own the ­Aspen Daily News.

The Aspen Daily News is owned and operated by two longtime members of the community and media: David Cook and Spencer McKnight. The duo tapped three Aspen real estate brokers as silent financial investors in 2017 to purchase the paper from its founder and then-owner, Dave Danforth, who started the Daily News in 1978. In September, Cook and McKnight — with the help of philanthropist Jill Soffer as a silent minority investor — bought them out.

The Aspen Times’ rich history includes a string of ownership changes since it was founded in 1881. Swift Communications owned and operated the paper from 1995 until December. In addition to the Times, Swift owned the Glenwood Springs Post Independent, the Snowmass Sun, Vail Daily, Summit Daily News and several other papers throughout Colorado as well as in California, Utah and South Dakota.

Ogden Newspapers, Inc., which is based in West Virginia and owns more than 50 daily newspapers from New York to Hawaii, acquired Swift and all of its publications at the end of last year. Ogden is owned by the Nutting family as part of its billion-dollar conglomerate. Ogden CEO is heir Robert Nutting, who also owns the Pittsburgh Pirates and made headlines at the same time as the Swift acquisition in December after selling a few East Coast ski areas to Vail Resorts.

The source of your news is as important as the news itself. Knowing firsthand how closely readers follow both papers, I was shocked initially by the extent to which stakeholders were in the dark on the Ogden situation and the structure of both papers.

Call it a medium’s dilemma: How does the press cover news of the press? It is sensitive and sticky. I experienced this discomfort last spring while examining how the pandemic had withered the valley’s media landscape. Belaboring over every word to ensure objectivity while reporting on a sector in which I was embedded, I considered scrapping the two-part series on more than one occasion. Ironically, the Colorado Press Association awarded the piece Best Business Feature during its annual convention.

The inherent challenge of media reporting on itself is awkward at best and perceivably self-aggrandizing at worst. The latter is why the Daily’s editorial leadership opted last year to not publicize news that the paper’s owners had bought out its investor group.

I asked to write this column with mixed emotions: disgusted by Ogden’s mismanagement, devastated for my former colleagues and disheartened by the current state of the Times as well as the opportunities lost for future journalists like me — young, hungry and eager to make a difference. If another motivation exists to enter a dying industry defined by daily deadlines, immense pressure, notoriously low pay and public scrutiny, I don’t know what it is.

I wholeheartedly hope to someday advocate for both Aspen news outlets again. As the situation continues on its seemingly descendent trajectory, so too does my faith. On Thursday, Meredith Carroll’s column (“I’ll fix it for you, Jeff Gorsuch”) was temporarily removed from the Times’ website amid social media allegations that it was spiked, before it inexplicably reappeared.

To this day, Ogden has yet to acknowledge its transgressions — let alone offer an apology or steps to course-correct — and is still, evidently, censoring content. Ogden’s next blow is on display in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), where the Times’ office is on the market for rent.

The only bright spot to an otherwise tragic situation, and now a subject of national news, is that Aspen is still a two-newspaper town. Most communities are not so lucky. I remain deeply grateful that Aspen still has an outlet for my words and — more importantly — free speech to exist.

Erica Robbie is as stunned to be on the sales side of a newsroom as she is by the events that led to it. She welcomes your criticism but prefers your business and love at Erica@aspendailynews.com.

Erica Robbie is a contributing editor for the Aspen Daily News. She can be reached at erica@aspendailynews.com or on Twitter @ericarobbie .

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