Following Republican President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a socialist newspaper on Colorado’s conservative Western Slope is on the rise.
“We’re up 10 percent new subscribers every month since the election,” said Jacob Richards, editor of the Revolutionist, a monthly print newspaper based in Grand Junction.
“It seems like more people are paying attention to what’s going on, our readership has definitely gone up, and we’ve been getting a lot more feedback,” he said over the phone this week.
The paper is a nonprofit all-volunteer effort that doesn’t sell ads or take donations, but sells subscriptions on a sliding scale. And it’s a throwback to a newspaper of the same name founded in the early 1900s by S.B. Hutchinson of Grand Junction who was the first socialist police chief in the United States.
The Revolutionist has been around in its new incarnation in some form since 2023, but started printing regularly about a year ago.
Since then, its reporting has led to the reassignment and suspension of sheriff’s deputies, Richards said, and recently scuttled an arrangement between a local medical institution and the federal ICE immigration agency.
“We definitely have an anti-capitalism point of view,” said Richards, 44, who works part time at a bookstore, freelances for Writers on the Range and Denver VOICE, and leads wilderness hunting and guiding trips.
“We come from a very much activist movement media point of view,” he said. “We kind of want to cheerlead the progressive and community-centric and leftist stuff happening here in conservative Western Colorado.”
To that end, the Revolutionist doesn’t mind getting involved in issues it covers. When the paper reported on people pelting a gay-pride float with rocks in Montrose, which caused damage to an automobile, the paper helped raise money to fix a windshield.
The paper helped people experiencing homelessness organize at City Hall. After reporting on what he called police brutality, Richards said the paper helped a victim find a lawyer to file a Civil Rights claim. He said the paper is currently supporting protesters in their movement at Colorado Mesa University after reporting on what the Revolutionist called a “climate of hate.”
“Being that movement media, that community media, that activist media, we don’t just kind of report on a story and then profit from somebody’s trauma for some clicks and views,” Richards said.
The Revolutionist isn’t alone in having a newsroom leader willing to share his views on capitalism. The publisher and former editor of the Colorado Sun is on record saying, “I’m a capitalist.”
Other local news organizations in Colorado also financially assist those they cover.
Denver’s 9NEWS asks its viewers to help raise money for local nonprofits, and Denver7 has a “Gives” campaign that openly seeks funding for its story subjects such as a same-sex couple who said they were denied fertility insurance coverage. TV stations in Denver and Colorado Springs have also run fundraising drives to help their local police departments raise money for tactical gear.
The Revolutionist, with 132 subscribers as of March 13, has a core group of about a dozen volunteers who help put it out each month.
The paper prints an additional 300 copies for distribution in Grand Junction, Richards said. They send PDFs to supporters who print them from work or home and distribute copies in Parachute, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Redstone, Paonia, Montrose, Norwood, and Durango.
Colorado’s Western Slope, which elected and re-elected the firebrand ultra-MAGA congresswoman Lauren Boebert, is a conservative, largely rural area.
But it has a history of collectivism and communal organizing.
When New Yorker writer Peter Hessler, who lives in Ridgway, wrote an iconic 2011 story about a pharmacist in the area (it’s called “Dr. Don,” you should read it), he provided some socialist history about Colorado’s Western Slope.
An excerpt:
Settlers originally came to this remote place because they desired an alternative to capitalism. During the eighteen-nineties, a group called the Colorado Co-operative Colony hoped to build a utopian community in the region. Its Declaration of Principles explained that market-oriented competition makes it “almost impossible for an honest man or woman to make a comfortable living, and that a co-operative system, if properly carried out, will give the best opportunity to develop all that is good and noble in humanity.” (The history of the colony and its values is described in a 2001 dissertation by Pamela J. Clark at the University of Wyoming.)
At the end of the nineteenth century, socialist communities weren’t uncommon in the West. The arid landscape required extensive irrigation systems, and principles of shared labor made sense to people who were inspired by the theories of Karl Marx and Robert Owen. Anaheim, California, was settled through a coöperative water venture, as was nearby Riverside. Others failed but left idealistic names on the map: Equality, Freeland, Altruria. The Colorado Co-operative Colony published a newspaper called the Altrurian, which tracked the progress of the colony’s founding project, an eighteen-mile irrigation ditch that was intended to carry water from the San Miguel River. Settlers also planned to do away with debt, interest, and rent. The Altrurian dreamed of a glorious future: “If a small colony of outlaws and refugees could build Rome and maintain the state for twelve hundred years, who could guess what a well organized colony of intelligent Americans may accomplish.”
Within a year, they held their first purge. Ten members were expelled for being too communistic, and after that the newspaper often published aphorisms that clarified theories. (“Communism may be co-operation, but co-operation is not necessarily communism.”) By the winter of 1898, settlers were running out of food. (“Competition is a product of Hell; Co-operation will make a paradise of earth.”) In 1901, a member of the board revealed that the colony was bankrupt. A former president committed suicide. (“So long as you think of yourself alone, you cannot be a good cooperator.”)
Eventually, the settlers abandoned the principle of shared labor and contracted out to private work crews. In 1904, water flowed through the completed ditch; six years later, they decided on the name Nucla, after “nucleus.” The socialist dreams were never realized, but the irrigation canal continues to function today. And there’s still a Colorado Cooperative Company, which employs a full-time “ditch-rider” to monitor the system.
Richards, the Revolutionist’s editor, grew up around politics.
Some of his earlier memories are of his mother, who was recently elected as the mayor of Aspen, explaining to him who an erratic Hunter S. Thompson was at political rallies. Richards studied journalism in college in Grand Junction where he ran an underground zine on campus.
“It seemed to serve as a backbone to an activist community, and that’s really what we’re hoping to kind of jumpstart with something like the Revolutionist,” Richards said. “Building a budding activist community in this valley.”
The editor added that Mesa County now has a Democratic Socialists of America chapter, which he said is growing fast.
In December, Jen Schumann, a contributor to the conservative statewide Rocky Mountain Voice digital publication, penned a column about her concern of the growing influence of an anti-capitalist newspaper in Western Colorado.
“In towns like Grand Junction and Fruita, socialist ideology is finding fertile ground in the form of the Revolutionist, a grassroots publication distributed across 20 locations — from coffee shops to counseling offices and specialty smoking accessory stores,” she wrote. “This shift raises questions about whether the region’s core principles of free-market capitalism, individual liberty and the rule of law will remain intact, or if they’ll erode under the growing influence of socialist activism.”
More from the column:
The increasing presence of the Revolutionist in Grand Junction’s public discourse can be seen at City Council meetings, where calls for housing solutions have grown louder. These moments of public outcry can often be traced back to the publication’s influence. In its Winter 2023 edition, the Revolutionist issued a Call to Action, urging residents to attend public meetings and demand systemic change.
A newspaper openly seeking to change the politics of an area in modern-day Colorado isn’t without precedent.
In the southern Colorado town of Westcliffe, a group of conservative activists from the tea party movement founded the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel newspaper to try and shift the makeup of county government to the right.
“We’re not journalists, we’re partisans,” one Sentinel founder has said. “And we make no bones about it. We don’t pretend to be journalists. But it’s working for us.”
While the Sentinel is often at open war with its weekly Westcliffe rival, the Wet Mountain Tribune, the Revolutionist is open to working with other local outlets.
“As much as it’s kind of nice to jockey against the mainstream media, I realize the lurch they’re in,” Richards said, noting how the once-daily newspaper in Grand Junction has gone through several rounds of retrenchment and now prints two days a week.
For Richards, being anti-capitalist means “being free from the non-profit industrial complex and advertisers” so “we can cover topics in a way that challenges the powerful rather than [reinforcing] it.” It also means “we try to examine issues at a systemic level rather than the trivial day-to-day, he-said-she-said nature of our two-party politics,” he said. “We avoid the spectacle, and try to provide more context.”
The Revolutionist being nakedly anti-capitalist might be a minority view in its surroundings. Other local news organizations in Colorado have declared themselves for or against different things as well.
An editor of one large Colorado daily newspaper, for instance, once told college students on a field trip that he was OK calling the newspaper “anti-school shooting.” (Doubtful he’d hear much protest about that.) Multiple Colorado newsrooms are on record declaring themselves pro-democracy.
The spectrum of what newsrooms are comfortable saying they are for or against is likely to shift with the times and the sentiments of what newsroom leaders feel is within the bounds of community consensus. In the early 1900s, the United States had a vigorous socialist press. These days, a newsroom leader saying “I’m a capitalist” isn’t likely to get them kicked out of any clubs.
For Richards, the Revolutionist isn’t worried about taking a stand.
“Sometimes I think a news source that’s a little more feisty can sometimes say things a little more directly,” he said. “We don’t just report on something, we go ‘this is wrong and this is right.’”
‘Fundamentals and the Future’: Panels announced for SPJ conference in Denver
On April 5, journalists from news organizations and colleges and universities across Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico will convene at the Slate Hotel in Denver.
The Colorado Pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is this year’s host for the annual four-state conference. The event coincides with the SPJ Region 9 “Top of the Rockies” awards.
The slogan is “Fundamentals and the Future.” The keynote speaker is Kevin Flynn, a longtime Colorado journalist, author, and politician.
An announcement from the Colorado chapter of SPJ, of which I’m a board member, lists the panel lineup.
More from the announcement:
Fundamentals and the Future is open to journalism professionals, students and allies from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Discounted tickets are available to SPJ Colorado Pro members; CLICK HERE for details on joining Colorado SPJ.
Conference price: $50 for SPJ members, $75 for non-members. Students are admitted free, but you’ll need a ticket. CLICK HERE to buy tickets.
The evening awards reception is free, but you’ll need to obtain tickets, even if you have tickets for the conference. CLICK HERE for awards tickets.
Learn more here.
The SPJ board has also announced the winners for Journalist of the Year, Keeper of the Flame, Educator of the Year, and its First Amendment award. Find those winners at the website, too.
Colorado podcast duo amplify ‘stories from marginalized communities’
A new generation of bilingual, community-driven journalists is “working to reshape and expand the narrative of Latino voices,” wrote Rossana Longo Better for Colorado Community Media’s La Ciudad this week.
More from the story:
“Mujeres de Color,” a podcast led by Nicole Guzmán and Liliana Salcido Beltrán, has gained national recognition — including a feature by María Hinojosa on her radio program, “Latino USA” — for its commitment to amplifying stories from marginalized communities.
From using social media to engage young audiences to hosting Spanish-language reproductive justice workshops, Guzmán and Salcido Beltrán are redefining what community journalism looks like in Colorado. Their mission? To ensure that their community is informed, empowered and represented — not just when tragedy strikes, but in everyday stories of resilience, activism and cultural pride.
Longo Better interviewed Guzmán and Salcido Beltrán for La Ciudad.
“We try to create content that young people can see themselves in and relate to — whether it’s videos, memes or something that can attract young people,” Guzmán told her. “We’ve noticed on our social media that they love content about the community. So, we always try to focus on the community aspect — photos of the community, testimonials about laws at the Capitol, or pictures from workshops that Liliana conducts.”
Lake City newspaper for sale: ‘I wouldn’t just pick anybody’
Two years ago, this newsletter speculated about what might happen when Grant Houston, who runs the Lake City World newspaper on the Western Slope, retires.
At the time, when he was 68, he was wondering the same thing.
Two years later, he’s once again beating the drum and letting people know that if he goes, the only newspaper in Hinsdale County might go with him.
This week, Houston gave an interview to Laura Palmisano at KVNF community radio in Paonia. “It’s never been a huge moneymaker but it’s kind of been self-sufficient through the years,” he said.
But he is still looking for a successor.
“Obviously we’ve all got a check-out date,” he said. “That’s a big worry. I’d like to see this paper continue. … I wouldn’t just pick anybody.”
As for who that might be, he said: “I would be interested [that] whoever takes it over from me has the same commitment to Lake City: to fairly report the news.”
Annual ‘Collaborative Journalism Summit’ comes to Denver
This year, the Collaborative Journalism Summit, hosted by the Center for Cooperative Media at New Jersey’s Montclair State University, will be in Denver.
Held May 15 and 16 at the Delta Hotels Denver Thornton, the Summit this week announced its schedule. (I’ll be on a panel with Kareem El Damanhoury of DU and Melissa Milios Davis talking about news-mapping projects and how to keep up the momentum after publishing them — like with this weekly newsletter.)
The theme of the conference is “Partnerships with a Purpose.”
“The Summit is designed to be a fast-paced event full of sharing and learning. Both days are typically packed with sessions, so prepare accordingly,” the Center for Cooperative Media wrote in a statement.
Register for the conference and learn more details about it here.
Share Inside the News in Colorado
Denver VOICE operating ‘on a smaller scale,’ collaborating on a documentary
Last fall, local media in Denver reported that the venerable “street paper,” the Denver VOICE, would close.
The newspaper, founded in 1996, was printing about 3,500 copies a month at the time and promised “news you won’t read anywhere else” with a “direct and personal impact to address the roots of homelessness.” People experiencing poverty and homelessness in Denver sell copies of the VOICE.
Not long after that news, media reported that the nonprofit paper had resumed operation after a funding crisis.
Now, roughly six months later, “we’re still operating on a smaller scale,” says editor Elisabeth Monaghan.
Lately, the paper has been focusing on collaborating with partners to better serve its vendors and others in the community who are facing housing instability.
“This includes our latest venture, which is a documentary we’re working on with Elevated Denver and Denver Basic Income Project,” Monaghan said.
Called “Unrestricted: How Cash Changes Lives in Denver,” the film follows the “personal journeys, struggles, and triumphs of individuals with lived experience while highlighting the vital work of nonprofits on the front lines,” according to an announcement.
“Collaborating on this project is an exciting part of the Denver VOICE’s expansion into multimedia and gives us a chance to work with exceptional community partners like the Denver Basic Income Project and Elevated Denver,” said Robert Davis, president of the Denver VOICE’s board of directors, in a statement.
Learn more about the Denver VOICE here.
More Colorado media odds & ends
👀 “I joined 34 of my colleagues in asking Robin Thurston, the CEO of Outside, to remove our names from the Outside magazine masthead,” wrote Gordy Megroz in a post on LinkedIn. “When I was named a contributing editor a decade ago, it felt like the highest honor. But the magazine is no longer what it once was and the brand has become increasingly incompatible with my values and the work I strive to do.”
🪧 “We are writing to express our dismay at the layoffs of Outside’s longtime editorial leadership and budget cuts that place an undue strain on the hardworking staff that remain,” part of the letter to Outside’s Colorado-based CEO reads. “We are equally alarmed by directives from the company’s leadership asking editors to refrain from investigative journalism and political coverage.”
📰 Alec Berg of Rocky Mountain Public Media reported on Colorado Community Media closing two of its Denver neighborhood newspapers. “Rocky Mountain PBS interviewed five Capitol Hill residents at Thump Coffee, a neighborhood coffee shop. All said they lived in Capitol Hill but had not heard of the paper, which Thump used to carry,” Berg wrote. “I’ll admit, I’m not really one to pick up the physical newspaper ever, but I see them as I walk by and I’d never even seen this one before,” one source said. (He did say he’s an online Denver Post subscriber and listens to Colorado Public Radio.) “I feel bad saying this but I’ve never read a newspaper in Denver,” said another.
📰 “In journalism, we have to toe a line and not give racism a platform while still informing the public,” said James Burky, a reporter for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
📼 “Colorado law says anyone can watch most criminal courts online. But not all judges comply,” reported Shelly Bradbury in the Denver Post. One particular judge’s practice “stands alone among Denver’s regular criminal courtrooms, the Denver Post found during a four-month review of Colorado judges’ livestreaming practices in the wake of the 2023 law change.”
✂️ TV news layoffs hit Colorado Springs station KOAA but missed Denver7 amid cutbacks at the company E.W. Scripps.
☀️ The nonprofit statewide digital Colorado Sun is hiring an experienced politics reporter it will pay $60,000 to $80,000. “The ideal candidate knows how to cut through the jargon and tell compelling stories that distill complex issues for our readers.”
❓ What is the future of the nonprofit Colorado Community Media chain and its owner, the National Trust for Local News?
I’m Corey Hutchins, manager of the Colorado College Journalism Institute and a board member of the state Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For nearly a decade I reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations. Colorado Media Project, where I’m an advisor, is underwriting this newsletter, and my “Inside the News” column appears at COLab. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter, hit me up.) Follow me on Bluesky, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.