Earlier this week, the New York Times published a long article by reporter Jack Healy that documented some of the problems surrounding Ogden Newspapers and the Aspen Times. Today, The Atlantic deepened our understanding with an article by the former editor of the Times, Andrew Travers:

At the Aspen Times, I had a front row seat for corporate censors and thin-skinned billionaires stifling the free press. I wrote about it all for @TheAtlantic: https://t.co/7xdvDSEv8q

— Andrew Travers (@andrewhtravers) August 18, 2022

From Travers' conclusion:

Less than nine months ago, on that Tuesday after Thanksgiving when we first virtually met Bob Nutting, the Times editorial team consisted of 13 people. The week of July 4, it was five, including just two full-time reporters. One resigned after 35 years. After yet another column was spiked, Marolt quit in protest and went to the Daily News. Local businesses have pulled their ads in protest, and Pitkin County commissioners have taken their legal notices to the Daily News. (Having a second paper as an option, commissioners recognized, was an extraordinary privilege.) Although the Times eventually republished the Marolt column from June—this time with none of the internal emails—it went nearly four months without running any new reporting on Doronin. Finally, on August 9, the paper ran a version of the Rick Carroll story they’d killed back in April. In it, Carroll quotes a joint statement by Ogden and Doronin’s representatives claiming that Doronin “does not exercise, or seek to exercise, any control over The Aspen Times’ current or future coverage of him.” (In a statement to The Atlantic, Ogden emphasized that it “continues to support The AT newsroom,” Doronin “has no say over the paper’s reporting,” and “our editorial independence has not been sacrificed.”)

In Aspen, we have an engaged readership that made a lot of noise when the stewards of its journalism institution abnegated their responsibility, abandoning principles of press freedom in the name of business. We have other responsible news outlets that could cover what happened to me and to the Times. And by virtue of being Aspen, we have the eyes of the world on us.