The Colorado Sun pits Civic-backed startup against The Denver Post

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As the staff at The Denver Post dwindles, due to staff protests and layoffs from corporate owners, the journalists will find a new home at The Colorado Sun. The Sun is currently staffed by former Post employees and will be ready for reporting by midterm election season in November.

The Sun is even receiving calls from Post employees asking to switch to the new paper, supporting the Sun’s mission to be completely supported by readers. The ad-free publication will not have a paywall and has enough funding to remain solvent for the next two years.

It hopes to begin publishing in early September, and former Post journalists are looking forward to work in a less stressful and emotionally turbulent environment. One journalist, John Frank, looks forward to producing more stories he is interested in and going more in-depth with feature writing.

The ambitious digital-only startup is aiming for a success story much like The Texas Tribune’s. In its early days, the Tribune wasn’t a threat to the print newspapers that dominated the Texas scene, but slowly grew to an award-winning nonprofit publication. Other nonprofits such as Mississippi Today and The Daily Memphian are also success stories, filling gaps in coverage that many for-profit newspapers don’t have the resources to fill on their own and giving young reporters a chance to reach their full potential.

People in the industry are starting to realize that while years ago leaving a big-name newspaper for a digital startup might have been risky, there is potential for better opportunities from these ventures.

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