We’re not dead.
A federal judge yesterday rejected an attempt by the state Attorney General to force Gannett Co. Inc., publisher of the Tucson Citizen, to resume printing the Tucson Citizen newspaper.
But if you read the Arizona Daily Star today, it’s headline says “Judge upholds Citizen closure.”
Nowhere in the story does it say the Tucson Citizen has been closed. If it is, what the hell am I doing here?
The Tucson Citizen lives on, albeit with a two-person crew tasked with creating a “robust” online opinion and commentary community portal.
Though the online version of the Tucson Citizen was discussed in court, neither the Star’s story nor The Associated Press story that has gone out over the wire to thousands of newspapers across the world, mentions that.
Last night the TV news broadcasts on all three stations said we were shutdown. None of the broadcasts I saw mentioned the continued online version of the Tucson Citizen.
This morning, driving in to work at the TUCSON CITIZEN, the rip-and-read Arizona Public Media reporter said the Tucson Citizen was shut down.
If I was editing those reporters, I would have changed the copy to say “the Tucson Citizen has ceased printing a newspaper but continues to have an online presence and a skeleton staff.”
The lights are still on. The computers still work. The site, TucsonCitizen.com is still up. We may be a work in progress, but we are still at work.