 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | Swift Communications |
| Publisher | Samantha Johnston |
| Editor | David Krause |
| Founded | 1881 (as Aspen Weekly Times) |
| Headquarters | 314 E. Hyman Ave. Aspen, Colorado, 81611, U.S. |
| Circulation | 6,500 [1] |
| Website | aspentimes |
The Aspen Times is a free, 6,500-circulation daily newspaper in the ski resort town of Aspen, Colorado, United States, with a history dating back to 1881.
The Aspen Weekly Times' first issue was published April 23, 1881 when Aspen was a silver mining town, and the purpose of the newspaper was to bring news about the outside world to miners. The original owner was D.H. Waite & Co under the leadership of Davis Hanson Waite who sold the paper to B. Clark Wheeler in 1885 and later became Governor of Colorado. Within months, Wheeler converted the paper into a daily. Wheeler was a promoter and had various business interests. In 1880, Wheeler changed the name of the city from Ute City to Aspen. In the 1890s, the paper returned to a weekly publication schedule as the population of Aspen dropped due to the bust in silver prices.
In 1956, Bil Dunaway, a U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division veteran, bought The Aspen Times, and over the next 35 years would amass a local media empire. At one time, he owned KSNO-AM 1260, Aspen's cable TV company and its only newspaper. Downvalley, he also owned Glenwood Springs, Colorado radio station KMTS-FM 99.1, the Valley Journal in Carbondale, Colorado, The Rifle Telegram and Climbing magazine. Dunaway was a crusading newspaper editor as well as a world-class ski racer and a prolific mountaineer.
In 1988, Dunaway hired Dave Price to create a daily edition of the Aspen Times. Price had previously been a reporter at the Aspen Daily News and news director at KSNO and KTYE radio stations. After months of planning, the "'Aspen Times Daily'" was launched on November 9, 1988 with Price as its first editor. The first issue came out the morning after a major local election, and the headline on the inaugural issue was "Dems sweep county."
In 1990, Price covered the arrest of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson on sex assault charges. The charges were dropped after Price reported that the alleged victim was an undercover agent who fabricated the assault claim in order to give the district attorney a pretext for searching Thompson's Woody Creek ranch for drugs. Thompson reprinted some of Price's stories in his 1990 book "Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream."
In 1992, Dunaway sold the Times to a group led by Loren Jenkins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post. Jenkins improved the newspaper by redesigning it and bringing in national and international news and cultural reporting and reviews from the services of the New York Times and the Washington Post. He also gave the newspaper an editorial edge that sought to slow down rampant development and preserve the local values and nature that had always made the Roaring Fork valley special. Jenkins left town in 1996, taking the post of foreign desk editor at National Public Radio.
In 1995, the ownership of the paper changed again, and this time the group included as many as nine investors by some reports. Among them were local businessmen George Stranahan, Michael McVoy and longtime Times writer and novelist Andy Stone. [2]
On December 1, 1999, the Aspen Times was purchased by Swift Communications of Carson City, Nevada in a regional newspaper buy up. [3] Swift moved all printing operations to Gypsum, Colorado. Swift Communications owns at least ten other Colorado resort town newspapers. All of their online newspapers share the same content management system and as of May, 2011 the ability for readers to leave comments about articles was indefinitely removed, due to issues of incivility. [4] [5] [6]
In Fall of 2011, the Aspen Times re-enabled anonymous commenting for users with an active Facebook account. [7]
The Aspen Times printed both weekly and daily editions until 2004, when the weekly was converted into a Sunday edition. At that point, the Times Daily went from Monday-Friday to seven days a week. The word "Daily" was dropped from the title of the daily paper in the 1990s.
On April 13, 2022 Vladislav Doronin, an international real estate developer and art collector, who was involved in a real estate development at the entrance to the Aspen Mountain ski area, sued Swift Communications for defamation with respect to the newspaper's coverage and characterization of Doronin. The legal action was settled by confidential agreement and dismissed May 27, 2022. During the pendency of the suit, coverage of Doronin was suspended by the publisher. [8] Tension over the matter resulted in firing of the editor, Andrew Travers. [9]
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains' Sawatch Range and Elk Mountains, along the Roaring Fork River at an elevation just below 8,000 feet (2,400 m) above sea level on the Western Slope, 11 miles (18 km) west of the Continental Divide. Aspen is now a part of the Glenwood Springs, CO Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Free newspapers are distributed free of charge, often in central places in cities and towns, on public transport, with other newspapers, or separately door-to-door. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising. They are published at different levels of frequencies, such as daily, weekly or monthly.
Aspen Mountain is a ski area in the western United States, located in Pitkin County, Colorado, just outside and above the city of Aspen. Situated on the north flank of Aspen Mountain, its summit elevation is 11,212 feet (3,417 m) above sea level. Aspen Mountain forms the end of Richmond Ridge, a long ridge that extends ten miles (16 km) south at approximately 11,000 ft (3,350 m) to join the main spine of the Elk Mountains.
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Dave Price is an American journalist who has edited, published and founded a number of free daily newspapers including the Daily News and the Daily Post in Palo Alto, California, and the Aspen Times Daily in Aspen, Colorado.
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Swift Communications Inc. is an American digital marketing and newspaper publishing company based in Carson City, Nevada. Swift's primary markets are resort town tabloid newspapers and websites as well as agricultural publications. Swift Communications has been noted for "being outside of the mainstream" and "drawing national attention inside the industry" for disabling commenting and implementing paywalls on most of its online newspaper's websites. Many of Swift's newspapers are heavily composed of paid advertorial "sponsored content".
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The Times-News is a US daily newspaper serving the Twin Falls, Idaho, area.
The Aspen Daily News is a 14,500-circulation (unaudited), 7-day-a-week newspaper in the ski resort of Aspen, Colorado that started in 1978. In 1978, Dave Danforth, then working as a stringer for The Denver Post and some national publications, began printing up a one-sheet "missive" and distributing 2,000 copies around Aspen. "It was typewritten, both sides, with a little band of ads one inch high, a free handout," former Aspen journalist Andy Stone recalls. "He had a taste and a flair for sensational journalism."
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