Death comes to The Range

Every journalist in the state must see the death of their profession lurking over their shoulder.  The demise of the Raton Range because of falling revenues, population, and readership was just a matter of time. Small newspapers are going fast around the country.  Unless they are big enough to be bought by rightwing corporations headed by the likes of the Koch brothers, then there are no lifelines for them.

The Albuquerque Journal's ever diminishing content and ever increasing right-wing view of the world cannot be offset by doing their editorial cartoons in color.  That is the only big change I see in that poorly edited paper, except for occasionally insightful and entertaining columns by Winthrop Quigley and Leslie Linthicum.

Will the Journal be around for long?  Probably, but in a radically altered state perhaps.  One might see them dropping their Saturday and Monday editions, or even more.  It might be the only way they can save themselves.  It might help if they gave less of a neocon view of the world on their editorial pages.

I really want to see professional journalism exist in widely read digital and paper formats.  I don't want to have to rely on social media for my information.  And perish the thought that the only news we get would be the sex story of the day on TV news and a run down of the police blotter and five security camera videos of the day.




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Jim Baca

Jim Baca has a strong record of visionary service to New Mexico. He recently retired as the State of New Mexico's Natural Resource Trustee. He has served as Mayor of the City of Albuquerque, as well as two prior terms as New Mexico’s elected State Land Commissioner. He served as the Director of the National Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior in the first Clinton Administration. Jim Baca also serves on the Boards of numerous non profit organizations including The Wilderness Society and the Wyss Foundation and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Baca has run a successful public affairs consulting practice when not serving in public office.

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