Denver Post Editor Quits: Suppressed Editorial Published

DENVER, CO -- Former Denver Post editorial page editor Chuck Plunkett was expecting the other shoe to fall since he published his viral call in early April for Post owners Digital First Media to sell the 125-year-old paper to a local buyer to get out from under the "vulture capital hedge fund" that controls the paper.

Plunkett said he was forced to resign last week, after he assumes hedge fund owners at Alden Global Capital dropped the hammer.

"While I expected to lose my job when I hit publish that Friday afternoon, it took our parent company, Digital First Media (DFM), controlled by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, until late last week to push me out," Plunkett wrote in a guest Op-Ed in Rolling Stone. "Over the last several days, I was put in a position where resignation was my only honorable option."

Plunkett cited the fate of DFM-owned Daily Camera editor in Boulder, David Krieger, who was terminated after publishing an article critical of Alden Global on a private blog after it have been rejected by the Camera's publisher.

Plunkett had gone rogue by publishing his essay collection in early April, but his publisher demanded restrictions on the editorial page staff, he wrote.

The company's first attempt to silence me came days after the package caught fire in early April. Henceforth, I was to turn over publication plans for all opinion content three days in advance. The pieces were to be screened by a committee overseen by DFM senior leadership. In addition, I was forbidden to mention our owners, Alden, in any capacity.

Plunked submitted a new editorial for May 6, which was quashed, he said.

The May 6 editorial, which never ran, began: "A serious threat to journalism in Colorado and across the country is only growing stronger. Papers owned by Alden Global Capital and operated by Digital First Media now suffer not just from neglect, but outright censorship."

Corey Hutchins, Colorado Independent reporter and nationwide correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review, published the entire rejected editorial here.

“They don’t want to fire me because they’re worried about the bad publicity, but they don’t want me to say anything else,” Plunkett told CJR. “If I was willing to lose my job a month ago to speak out, what’s changed? Nothing’s changed. And how can I just agree to be quiet going forward?”

Local billionaires have offered $10 million in seed money to offer Alden to buy the Denver Post, but Plunkett is doubtful Alden will sell it.

National media reporter Ken Doctor reported through private sources that Alden Capital had earned a 17 percent profit in the newspaper business in a Nieman Lab post,"Newsonomics: Alden Global Capital is making so much money wrecking local journalism it might not want to stop anytime soon."

Former Denver Post publisher Dean Singleton also resigned from an advisory board, saying Alden had "killed a great newspaper."

Sometimes all it takes is a chart. #aldenexposedbydataviz https://t.co/aCOG2zg9Kw pic.twitter.com/Hfrp3qjG1B

— Dana Coffield (@denpostdana) May" class="redactor-linkify-object">https://twitter.com/denpostdan... 1, 2018

Related: Daily Camera Fires Editor Over Blog Post

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