The Albuquerque Tribune, a newspaper that won a Pulitzer Prize as recently as 1994, will publish its last issue on Saturday. Circulation at the afternoon daily had dwindled from 42,000 in 1988 to just 10,000. Owner EW Scripps Co. had put the paper up for sale last August, but the only serious bidder wasn’t able to close the deal and no other interested parties emerged. Editor Phil Casaus said the last three editions will feature stories about The Tribune’s role in Albuquerque journalism. The 38 editorial staffers were informed this morning.
The Tribune was founded in 1923 and was part of the country’s oldest joint operating agreement. Under the deal, the Tribune and the Albuquerque Journal operated separate newsrooms, but combined business operations. Afternoon papers have been hit particularly hard by the advertising slowdown. BusinessWeek said there are only about 600 of them left in the U.S., down from 1,000 in 1990. See also the Reuters coverage.
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Small Calif. paper reduces publication days:
http://tracypress.com/content/view/13643/2242/
“Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of waiting out this slow period,” publisher Robert Matthews said.
The Albuquerque Tribune was a poor evening newspaper that launched a lot of careers. Mike Davis and Eric Draper went from the Albuquerque Tribune to eventually work on G.W. Bush’s white house photo staff.
Stacia Sprag and Toby Jordin retired from newspapers after just 10 years in newspapers all on the ABQ Tribune as photographers. They each married doctors and quit newspapers.
Kaylynn Deveny left the ABQ Tribune after 20 years as a photographer. She went on to obtain a seat in a fine art photo program in Wales. She came out with a book about an elderly man she met in Wales. The book sells for about $5.00 on Amazon.
Hank Steuver won 2 nominations for the pulitzer prize while at the Albuquerque Tribune. He went on to the Washington Post. He wrote a book about his travels around the U.S. The book sells on Amazon for about $ 2.00.
The Albuquerque Tribune offered its reader the same AP wire stories as the morning paper. With few rare exceptions, the ABQ Tribune did not offer its readers much of an alternative to the corporate journalism found in its competitor the local morning newspaper.