Put government officials under a glaring spotlight. Tell locals where the party is. And keep a wary eye on news of the outside world.
Those instructions — that editorial DNA — is evident in the first three stories of the inaugural issue of the Aspen Daily News on July 1, 1978.
“CONFLICT OF INTEREST SUGGESTED IN NEWELL FIRING,” the opening headline blared over a taut (if tangled) story about the city manager axing the fire marshal for a mix of personal and professional reasons.
That was followed by a one-sentence story: “ALTHOUGH A PART OF THE FOURTH HAS BEEN ‘CANCELED,’ there’s still a huge softball tourney on this weekend, plus fireworks on the Fourth with the Dirt Band playing at Snowmass.”
Followed by: “THE U.S. EMBASSY IN MOSCOW IS SUGGESTING A CRACKDOWN on Soviet journalists in America. The crackdown apparently is a response to recent Soviet pressure on two American newsmen in Moscow.”
Three paragraphs. Thirty years of editorial guidance.
Dave Danforth, the paper’s founding reporter and editor, set out to write a “news digest” for well-educated Aspen underdogs. The stories were short and the first slogan of the paper was “Straight and to the point.” (The current motto, “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen,” stuck for obvious reasons.) Back then, like today, scandal and weirdness were both prized.
Subtle humor was also welcome, such as this item from the first issue: “$8 SUMMER READING PROGRAM AT PITKIN COUNTY LIBRARY holds sign-up today at front desk. Children can receive awards; some read better than we do.”
The little one-page, “almost daily” paper moved from an 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheet to 8 1/2-by-14-inch sheet by late 1978. It stayed that size until the fall of 1982, when it went to a four-page affair, with a more traditional front-page layout and longer local news stories. Although until the early 1990s, news from the outside was still deftly handled in the “Real World” box on the front page, perhaps so newly arrived locals could feel better about actually having left it all behind.
By 1984, the Aspen Daily News was publishing 16-page papers in a tabloid format and looked to all the world like a credible small-town newspaper (although surely some early readers might disagree).
But the Aspen Daily News still reflects its editorial beginnings.
Danforth begrudgingly gets credit from the paper’s staff for being the paper’s principal, and usually only, reporter and writer during the first three to five years of its scrappy existence. Since then, he’s never complained that a story was too short. Or too direct.
And humor and weirdness, well presented, still seem appreciated.
While Danforth usually wrote short stories, sometimes readers would find, as they did on Jan. 25, 1982, a headline like this: “CITY BUS DRIVER MAY BE MAKING WINDFALL IN MANAGEMENT OF CASTLERIDGE,” with the byline claiming it was “First of a Three-Part Daily News Series by Dave Danforth.”
Yes, investigative series are still what Danforth most hopes to find in the Daily News.
Along with news of government officials abusing their positions, where to have a good time in Aspen, and news of that other world.
bgs@aspendailynews.com
