An old school newspaper struggle impressed by trendy politics is raging in Westcliffe and dividing readers

WESTCLIFFE — Primary Avenue of this postcard-pretty city not removed from the bottom of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is simply six blocks lengthy. 

But there are two weekly newspapers — each thriving, each creating wealth, each all in on a newspaper struggle. 

The Moist Mountain Tribune, its rose-red door in a line of artwork galleries and low retailers, has been round for greater than 100 years, relationship again to the times when the city was bustling with silver miners. The Sangre de Cristo Sentinel is written in what was as soon as a house on the alternative facet of Primary Avenue, the place a banner proclaims the 10-year-old newspaper presents “a special view from the identical mountains” and a “Trump Received” signal is staked within the grass.

Count on a powerful response for those who convey up the truth that Custer County, with solely 5,000 folks, has two newspapers, whereas another cities have none in any respect.

“Sadly,” some say, shaking their heads. Others roll their eyes and sigh. Some are thrilled a brand new paper got here to city.

“It’s poisonous,” stated Angela Arterburn, who has lived in Westcliffe for 26 years, owns a gallery full of fine-art pottery and reads The Tribune.

“It creates a lot division, and it’s infantile typically,” stated Stacy Fite, who sells weapons, ammo and fly fishing gear on Primary Avenue and reads The Sentinel. “Nevertheless it was tremendous good to get the opposite paper in right here as a result of the opposite one was so left-leaning.”

“One is gossip. One is information,” stated Eileen Boughton, a Tribune subscriber who lives in Wetmore, simply up the street by the Moist Mountains.

Folks want one or the opposite, though some learn each. A couple of native companies will promote solely within the paper that aligns with their political opinions. The Tribune sees itself as just-the-facts, conventional journalism, although some on the town say it leans liberal. The Sentinel, the “Voice of Conservative Colorado!” is proudly right-wing, with a web page each situation devoted to the Second Modification and a newsroom the place reporters and editors carry sidearms.

County politics are on the middle of all of it. 

The Sentinel pushed for a recall of all three of the county’s commissioners in 2017, calling them “liberals posing as Republicans” who stopped going to Custer County Republican conferences and snubbed the annual Republican Lincoln Day Dinner after their elections. Two have been ousted within the recall, and one in every of their replacements was recalled in August in an election once more backed by the Sentinel. 

In 2020, the Tribune wrote an investigative piece that uncovered the questionable credentials of an optometrist employed by commissioners because the county’s high public well being official in the course of the top of the COVID pandemic. And when county commissioners subsequently voted to designate the Sentinel — changing the Tribune — as the brand new “paper of document,” which means it will get the estimated $5,000 in month-to-month income for printing required authorized notices, the Tribune sued the county and received.

The battle between the 2 papers has gotten so ugly that espresso retailers have taken sides and the Sentinel proprietor calls the Tribune proprietor names in his columns. “Ol’ Jordy ‘Pink Bug’ Hedberg induced Custer County a LOT of cash and hassle once more,” went a latest column questioning the Tribune proprietor Jordan Hedberg’s reporting on the causes of the recall election. The Sentinel has poked enjoyable of Hedberg’s “over-the-top COVID phobia,” calling him “Pink Bug,” the time period for the virus, first detected in China, that has circulated on the web.

Now, a lot of the city calls Hedberg “Pink Bug,” too. 

Locals say that whereas every newspaper has contributed to a resurgence in curiosity in native politics, the battle has primarily served to additional polarize Westcliffe. And for some, the damaging vibes are an excessive amount of — they received’t purchase both paper.

“It’s a small city,” stated Dwayne Chambers, whereas having fun with a espresso on the Sugarlump Co. and energized by a latest neighborhood potluck on Primary Avenue. “All people is aware of everyone and everyone knows what’s happening.” 

“Give the folks what they need”

Custer County is an 8,000-foot plateau dotted with cattle ranches and hay fields. It has, on common, the oldest inhabitants in Colorado, and is available in second nationally behind a county in Florida.

It leans conservative, Christian and retired. 

The newspaper that has served the county since 1883 was not conservative sufficient for the likes of George Gramlich and a bunch of fellow retirees and ranchers who obtained collectively 11 years in the past and determined to make their very own. The ultimate straw got here after the Tribune refused to publish a few of their letters to the editor, Gramlich stated. 

He sums it plainly: “The Tribune was run by a liberal man. The paper was slanted liberal. Let’s begin a conservative one with a conservative, Christian slant and hopefully give the folks right here what they need. 

“The factor took off.” 

Gramlich, 73, stated the Sentinel prints 1,300 copies each week, and its subscription base is gaining on the Tribune, which has about 2,000 print subscribers in a county of about 5,300 folks. “We’re in all probability just a bit behind them,” he stated. “That’s going from nothing to a brand-new newspaper in opposition to a 100-year-old paper.” 

The Sentinel has attracted readers in Pueblo, Fremont and Chaffee counties who have been craving a conservative voice. It prints 24 pages each week, in shade, and has three workers and several other freelancers. Not one of the founders have journalism expertise, and Gramlich is nothing however open in regards to the paper’s political bent. 

“We didn’t wish to BS our readers in any respect. We inform them precisely who we’re up entrance,” he stated. “I’ve been studying newspapers since I used to be 12 years outdated and I’m an outdated man — there ain’t a paper within the nation that’s unbiased.” 

The newspaper not solely caters to conservatives, but in addition to older folks. Whereas a web page towards the again of the paper is devoted to gun information, one other web page every week is full of full-color memes — the identical ones youthful folks already noticed on social media. An version this summer season included a photograph of mountaineers trudging up Mount Everest with the caption, “A uncommon {photograph} of my dad and mom on their technique to faculty.” 

“Our readers actually snigger out loud on the memes,” Gramlich stated. “The paper will get handed round loads, neighbor to neighbor. To them, it’s nearly like old-style cartoons coming again.” 

Some examine the Sentinel’s model to the sensational and inflammatory journalism of the 1800s, when dozens of one-page or two-page “newspapers” have been handed out within the streets of Westcliffe and subsequent door in Silver Cliff in the course of the silver and gold growth. 

Tribune proprietor Hedberg accused Gramlich of egging on a “mob” that stubborn at and ridiculed county commissioners at a gathering in July. And Gramlich wrote in 2018 that the Colorado Press Affiliation was a part of the “progressive deep state that’s destroying our as soon as free society and changing it with a soon-to-fail socialistic nightmare” as a result of the commerce group supported a nationwide request that newspapers combat again in opposition to former President Donald Trump’s “enemy of the folks” rhetoric concentrating on journalists. (The Colorado Solar is an affiliation member.)

The Sentinel’s politics, although, are attracting subscribers, Gramlich stated. It noticed a lift in the course of the pandemic, when the paper printed tales making enjoyable of masks and calling vaccines harmful, and referred to the coronavirus as “WuFlu.” The commissioner recollects even have introduced in new subscribers. 

“It was big-time politics right here for 5 – 6 months,” he stated. “We efficiently recalled two of them and simply missed the third man by 60 votes.”

Gramlich, who stated he retired in Westcliffe after operating a world insurance coverage software program firm and elevating cattle within the Adirondack Mountains of New York, stated that having two opposing newspapers retains the city energized and engaged. 

“I believe it’s a wholesome factor,” he stated. “It’s been a enjoyable journey. We love poking enjoyable on the lib paper and so they love poking enjoyable at us.” 

“I do have an agenda. It’s referred to as the reality.”

County commissioners who voted to strip the Tribune of its standing because the “paper of document” didn’t attempt to disguise why. They said throughout that public assembly in January 2022 that they have been bored with proprietor Jordan Hedberg’s damaging tales. 

Hedberg not solely uncovered the questionable credentials of the general public well being director, however printed an article in 2021 noting that one commissioner confirmed as much as a gathering realizing he had COVID and contaminated 4 others in the course of the “tremendous spreader” occasion. Then there was the story revealing that commissioners voted in March 2021 to finish all COVID restrictions, declaring the county was “going off the grid,” regardless of that state officers had not authorised the transfer.

Commissioners voted to make the Sentinel the official paper of document despite the fact that the Tribune’s bid, at 9 cents per printed line for authorized notices, was half the price. Clearly, Hedberg stated in his lawsuit, public officers have been retaliating in opposition to his small-town paper in violation of First Modification rights to a free press. 

The lawsuit was settled in December, with the Tribune retaining its decades-long standing because the paper of document — for at the very least the following 4 years. 

Since then, native politics and the newspaper struggle in Westcliffe haven’t calmed down. The only commissioner to vote in opposition to awarding the bid for authorized notices to the Sentinel was the one who was simply recalled. 

The contentiousness, and notably the way in which the opposite newspaper coated the pandemic and emboldened its readers to disregard security precautions, can get miserable, stated Hedberg, who grew up in Westcliffe. “I anticipated folks on this neighborhood to come back collectively and attempt to shield the weak and the aged, and as a substitute it changed into ‘I can get whoever I need sick. I can kill whoever I need. When you don’t prefer it, you may keep residence,’” he stated. 

Hedberg, 36, stated a couple of former subscribers obtained so nasty, calling him a communist, for instance, that he canceled their subscriptions. 

“I’m like, ‘Properly, it’s nice that you simply imagine that. You’re not welcome to subscribe to The Tribune,’” he stated. “Some persons are at all times going to hate you.” 

Hedberg doesn’t contemplate the Sentinel a legit newspaper, and the struggle between the 2 isn’t a conventional one based mostly on which paper will get essentially the most scoops. Throughout the first few years of its existence, the Sentinel didn’t cowl a lot native information, as a substitute operating reprints from different publications, together with gun magazines. It was throughout COVID, when Gramlich started writing columns, that the conservative paper began to realize a better following.

“I didn’t see them as rivals. I nonetheless sort of don’t,” Hedberg stated. “However, you recognize, I’ve obtained to take care of a full-on MAGA publication and we’re a two-paper city. Their most important enterprise, that they declare, is to place us out of enterprise.”

Hedberg, who purchased the Tribune in 2018, majored in historical past and wrote for his school newspaper for enjoyable. He labored as an funding dealer in Denver, drove a ski shuttle, and moved again to the nation to lift grass-fed beef and natural greens. Then he added a job as a reporter for the Tribune in 2015, making $11 per hour. 

When the long-time proprietor of the Tribune needed to retire, and didn’t wish to promote to a newspaper chain, he requested Hedberg if he would take over. Hedberg runs the newsroom whereas his spouse, Alyssa, handles the format and bookkeeping, and so they handle a workers of part-time workers and freelancers. 

The paper has nearly 2,000 print subscribers, plus 310 digital subscribers and 4,000 followers of its Fb web page. That’s in a county with 5,300 folks “on a very good day,” Hedberg stated. “Wintertime it will get fairly quiet, as a result of there’s no snowboarding, there’s no river,” he stated. “There’s plenty of wind.”

He sees himself as a curator of historical past, recording what’s vital now and for the longer term. His information tales are simple, itemizing who voted for what within the county commissioners assembly and what they stated. 

“You already know, I do have an agenda. It’s referred to as the reality,” Hedberg stated, “and I’m extraordinarily biased about it.” 

The Tribune picked up about 50 new subscribers because it reported on this summer season’s commissioner recall election as a result of it centered on fact-checking and protecting the problems — the alternative technique of the opposite paper, Hedberg stated. “You couldn’t actually inform what the reality was for those who have been studying them,” he stated. “Would you like the paper that actually insults folks on each web page in each version?”

Herberg feels a way of obligation to supply what he says is the one actual newspaper left in Custer County. When moved to Westcliffe as a child in 1999, locals may get The Denver Put up, Rocky Mountain Information, Pueblo Chieftain, Cañon Metropolis Each day Report and Wall Avenue Journal delivered to their doorways. Not anymore. 

It’s exhausting at occasions, and difficult writing essential items about folks he’s certain to run into on Primary Avenue, however Hedberg refuses to painting Westcliffe because the fictional Mayberry.

“You’re very cautious about the way you write issues. You’re going to see him on the road,” he stated, referring to a county commissioner or anybody else he writes about. “You may see him at church or the liquor retailer or no matter. However over time, folks begin to understand that they won’t agree with what we write, however they know that we did it as a result of it was the reality.”