The Denver-based Rocky Mountain News will cease operations today, Friday 27 February, announced Ricky Boehne CEO of E.W. Scripps, the paper's parent company, at a staff meeting yesterday.

Speculation over the future of the Rocky Mountain News had been rife since last December, when executives declared that it would be putting the paper up for sale, along with 50% of the Denver News Agency, which manages the paper's business administration. At the time, employees were told that the paper was a casualty of the financial malady that had gripped the industry, with Scripps revealing losses of $16 million in 2008 alone.

Boehne echoed this again yesterday, saying the paper was "a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges." Just as recently as a few weeks ago, directors had been in talks with a prospective buyer, explained Boehne, but unfortunately they were unable to come up with a feasible business plan and talks eventually came to an end.

Boehne praised the Rocky Mountain News as being "long the leading voice in Denver" and judging by the number of awards it has received - including four Pulitzer prizes since 2000, with two as recently as 2006 - there is general consensus supporting this view.

Editor John Temple also commended staff for the manner in which they continued with the daily business of reporting and putting the paper together since first hearing about RMN's uncertain future, saying: "People outside could not tell from looking at it the personal struggles."

Yet no amount of critical acclaim or industry awards was enough to safeguard against closure, with Boehne admitting: "There's no paper in Scripps that we hold dearer." However, the CEO also acknowledged that the RMN had an unprofitable business model that was "locked in the past." He went on to defend the decision by executives to keep the Denver Post over the Rocky Mountain News - which have been sharing business operations since 2001 - by saying that the Post's broadsheet design, with its established Sunday edition, was better suited to withstanding future market pressures.

The Rocky Mountain News was founded in 1859 by Wiliam N. Byers, with the first edition published on April 23 of the same year. E.W. Scripps Co bought the paper in 1926 and it formed part of its media empire, which today includes television stations and syndicates, as well as newspapers. During the Second World War years, the paper was struggling and it seemed that closure was inevitable, however, the paper's editor at the time, Jack Foster intervened by persuading Scripps to abandon the broadsheet format in favour of a tabloid one - a move credited for reversing the paper's fortunes.

Some sixty years later, the economic tide has once again turned against the paper, this time with irreversible results. The closure of the Rocky Mountain News comes at a critical time in the industry with other city newspapers across America and throughout much of the world suffering from tumbling advertising revenues, poor circulation figures and dwindling share prices.

Earlier this week, the Hearst Corporation announced that it was considering either selling or closing its San Francisco Chronicle. As Chronicle staff await further news on their fate, it is unsettling to hear of a well-respected title with award-winning journalists that has succumbed to the current economic climate. Once again, questions are raised about the business models used by many of today's newspapers and there are renewed concerns regarding the future of the industry.

Sources: Rocky Mountain News, New York Times, Editor and Publisher, Poynter Online