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Dear reader,
If you're receiving this email, it's because you contributed to our end-of-year campaign to help fund exploration of a co-op newsroom, jointly owned by the community and staff of Boulder Weekly.
That was back in December (wow, does it feel like another lifetime!) I wanted to write you all and give you an update.
Unfortunately, it's not a happy one. Thanks to you all, we raised the money and got a grant to pay for a feasibility analysis from Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center (RMEOC).
The newspaper's owner, Stewart Sallo, had to be the one to sign the contract with them. As soon as he did, the employees — and, by extension, the community members who paid for this study — were cut out of the process.
Stewart told the folks at RMEOC to stop communicating with us. Representatives were not even allowed to confirm that the contract had been signed. We have since been told the work is ongoing, but any attempt to ask even the most benign questions (Such as: "When will the work be done?") were futile under Stewart's complete and total information blackout.
Today, Wednesday, July 2, after protesting this and other ownership practices, I was fired from my position at the Boulder Weekly.
I am sorry to leave Boulder Weekly, because I considered myself a watchdog for your hard-earned money. You gave it to us, the employees, in hopes that we could create a more equitable and sustainable news future for Boulder County.
Now you are left with no one to ensure the outcome you paid for. For this, I am deeply sorry. Please know that I did my very best to remain under increasingly untenable circumstances, always keeping in mind the thought of what you, the readers, deserve.
I encourage you to reach out with questions or concerns to Stewart Sallo, ssallo@boulderweekly.com.
Thank you all for the unwavering and kind support you provided Boulder Weekly. Journalism is a valuable public service that should not be subject to the whims and bad judgement of one person or a group of shareholders; extractive and toxic ownership — which plagues more than one news outlet in this community — is exactly why we need community-owned news.
I'm sorry we weren't able to deliver that to you.
In solidarity,
Shay Castle, editor-in-chief |
