‘It’s just my turn’: Inside Silverton’s 151-year-old newspaper
SILVERTON, Colo. — Every Friday, the newspaper arrives in Silverton the hard way.
It’s printed 60 miles away in Montrose, then hauled over Red Mountain Pass, through steep, winding roads before reaching a handful of kiosks in a town of 800 people. Other copies travel even farther, landing in mailboxes as far away as California and New York.
The Silverton Standard & Miner, founded in 1875, is one of the oldest continuously operating newspapers in Colorado, and one of the few small-town papers still committed to print. In recent years, several print newspapers in rural Colorado, particularly the eastern plains, have shuttered.
Today, publisher DeAnne Gallegos runs the Silverton operation with five part-time staff, a remote designer in Mexico City and a network of local contributors. The weekly paper prints about 300 copies in winter and up to 500 in summer. A single issue costs $1.
The business barely breaks even. Digital subscriptions, $55 a year, now outpace print and help offset the losses.
Financial challenges aside, Gallegos said the mission remains the same: document the community, in print and online, one week at a time.
Gallegos spoke with Rocky Mountain PBS about keeping the Standard & Miner going. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Rocky Mountain PBS: How would you describe the Silverton Standard to people outside Silverton?
DeAnne Gallegos: It’s really a living historical relic of community local news. It was one of the first business licenses issued in the Western Slope of Colorado, and it’s also a designated historic landmark.
We highlight locals — who live here? What are they doing? What businesses have they started? What are their passions? But most importantly, the role of any community’s local newspaper is documentation of public record.
RMPBS: What does it take to produce the paper each week?
DG: You start getting pitched ideas Friday. Then Sunday or Monday night, we build the skeleton, make virtual folders and plan out the paper.
Tuesday is newspaper day. Everything gets written. Our deadline is 2 p.m. Tuesday to have all folders buttoned up. Then the designer lays it out. We review Tuesday night, finalize Wednesday morning, send it to print, and it goes out digitally Thursday morning.
We print in Montrose. Rory has to drive from Silverton over Red Mountain Pass, through Ouray, Ridgway, Montrose, pick up 300-plus copies and drive it all the way back.
Sometimes the papers are ready at 5 p.m., sometimes 11 p.m. That became a safety issue, driving that pass at night. So we changed our process. Now digital goes out on time, and print comes back when it’s safe.
We have subscribers all the way from California to New York. I think they are people who either grew up here, families are from here, or have an attachment to Silverton and want to feel a part of what’s happening weekly within our community.
RMPBS: Is print still financially viable?
DG: No. It’s extremely expensive. Most print paper comes from Canada, postage has more than doubled and we lose money on every printed paper.
If I wanted to recoup costs, I’d have to charge close to three dollars per paper just to mail it. That’s not sustainable. So to protect print, I have to grow digital subscriptions. That’s what offsets the loss because we’re trying to preserve the original form of a newspaper.
RMPBS: Do you think one day you might stop printing?
DG: That’s not even up for consideration right now. It makes no business sense but we’re trying to protect and preserve a 150-year-old relic.
People love touching it, reading it, getting it in their P.O. box. They keep it. It becomes a keepsake. When someone’s in the paper, they want to save that.
RMPBS: What kinds of stories matter most to your readers?
DG: They care about local politics, local players, but also each other.
We’re not actually a stagnant small town. People move in and out all the time. So I’ll interview someone who just moved here or someone who’s been here 50 years and tell their story.
One thing I added and was dying to add was the “Silverton Society” page. It’s kind of like Page Six. I take photos of people around town, events, just living their lives. It’s been one of the most successful additions. People want to see names, faces, what people are up to. It’s just fun.
RMPBS: What’s the most memorable story you’ve worked on?
DG: Oh god. The second you asked me that the most important and memorable story I had to write was my own father’s…sorry [crying] …obituary in November.
That was intense, but it was also beautiful to be able to celebrate him with my own words and images. He died on a Monday. Newspaper day is Tuesday so I had to write his obituary in less than 24 hours.
RMPBS: Why did you decide to take over the paper last year?
DG: The previous owner had been talking to me about it for a while. I kept saying it wasn’t a good time because my father was sick.
And she said: “There’s never going to be a good time.”
That really stuck with me. I always say it’s just my turn. This newspaper is not about me or any of the staff. This newspaper has been passed on to many publishers over the last 151 years. So it’s just my turn.
RMPBS: What role does local newspapers play in the digital age, especially with people using social media to get information?
DG: Social media is immediate and sometimes controversial, and it’s a lot of voices at once.
Our role is to report the facts and give people the source so they can go verify it themselves. We always include where the information came from.
And in a small town, there’s accountability. People can see and hear things for themselves and make their own judgment.
RMPBS: What do you hope the Silverton Standard looks like in the future?
DG: I don’t know what newspapers will look like in 100 years. Maybe it’s in our glasses, maybe it’s something totally different.
I think when you're in a small, isolated community, it's easier to be kept accountable and it's easier for people to see, hear, and learn with their own eyes and ears and make their own judgment. So I hope that community accountability remains and keeps the Standard a reliable source of information for the next 50 to 100 years.
Who knows what the population of this town will be? Who knows where even the human race will be by then.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
