May 6, 2021
$1.00
DOUGLAS COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
DouglasCountyNewsPress.net
VOLUME 119 | ISSUE 26
Leaders seek change in school COVID rules Community debates continue as students finish the year BY JESSICA GIBBS JGIBBS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The acquisition is the first for NTLN, a nascent nonprofit that seeks to leverage national foundation funding to buy and bolster local newspapers threatened by faltering business models and the encroachment of hedge funds and corporate conglomerates. The Colorado Sun, a statewide news outlet founded and run by former Denver Post journalists, will oversee daily operations at Colorado Community Media.
First one secondary school closed its doors. Then four. Within days, six Douglas County middle and high schools had shuttered to in-person learning, sending those students back online for two weeks amid COVID-19 outbreaks. Incidence rates continued to climb through late April, likely spurred in part by new, more transmissible variants. What had been a long-anticipated, and for many a long-pleadedfor, return to 100% in-person learning at Douglas County School District secondary schools seemed for a moment to hang in the balance. Interim Superintendent Corey Wise responded with a promise that in-person learning was “here to stay.” But thousands of people were being placed in quarantine, in addition to the string of schools moving to remote. Wise recently joined several area superintendents in calling for an end to mandatory quarantines.
SEE SOLD, P2
SEE RULES, P17
Ann Healey, former co-owner of Colorado Community Media, speaks during a meeting announcing the sale of the print and digital news company. At right, former publisher and co-owner Jerry Healey and reporter Thelma Grimes listen. PHOTO BY JOHN LEYBA/SPECIAL TO THE COLORADO SUN
‘Tell stories that matter:’ Colorado Community Media sold to news entity Colorado Sun, national foundation to take the reins of two dozen Denver-area newspapers BY DAVID GILBERT DGILBERT@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Colorado Community Media, the company that produces two dozen newspapers around the Denver-
area suburbs — including the Douglas County News-Press — and two shoppers has been acquired by a local and national partnership with the goal of building a sustainable business model for local news, its ownership announced on May 3. Jerry and Ann Healey, the couple who built the company over the past decade, sold the network of papers that now spans eight counties and dozens of communities to a joint partnership between the National Trust for Local News, or NTLN, and The Colorado Sun.
Dream Big Dreams...
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 16 | SPORTS: PAGE 18
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