May 12, 2014 09:13 AM UTC

Another blow to Colorado political journalism

• 5 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

(No question about it – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

On Friday, Joe Hanel ended a nine-year run at the Durango Herald, leaving for a job at the Colorado Health Institute.

Hanel wrote a lot about politics, and he was clearly one of the best remaining political journalists in Colorado. His departure is yet another blow to Colorado journalism, as the number of political reporters with both experience and intelligence dwindles.

Hanel started at the Herald in 2004 as a freelancer and joined the newspaper's Denver-bureau staff in 2005. Prior to that, he worked as a presentation editor at the Rocky (2002-3), as a graphics and news editor at the Longmont Daily Times-Call (1996-2002), and a graphics editor at the Greeley Tribune (1995-6). He has a degree from CU-Boulder journalism school.

Last week, he answered a few of my questions via email:

Why are you leaving?
I'm going to be a writer and designer at the Colorado Health Institute, a data and number-crunching think tank. My reasons for leaving newspapers are purely economic. I turned 40 this year and I've had to admit to myself that there's no way I'll be able to retire from this industry. My job as the Durango Herald's Denver correspondent was secure for the foreseeable future, but there are just fewer and fewer places to go for new opportunities. People think of journalism as a calling or a cause, but in truth it's a job. I know some journalists sneer at colleagues who leave for better opportunities, as if we're somehow betraying the brotherhood, but I think my first responsibility is to provide a secure future for my family. And I'm sad to say that journalism isn't the place for that.

What are some of your favorite memories as a political reporter?
I've gotten to travel all over on someone else's dime. There are worse places to travel for business than Durango. I've gotten to help trap a bear, explore old uranium mines, ski Wolf Creek, cover the Club 20 debates in Grand Junction, see Mitt Romney in Craig and wonder what the hell he was doing in a little town that he was going to win by 25 points, and cover five national political conventions (which is enough for one lifetime).

And the press corps at the state Capitol is really a wonderful bunch of people. They act like cynical bastards, and it's OK if you hate them, but they are loyal and dedicated and true to their values and their friends.

What are your biggest concerns about Colorado journalism today?
I'm worried about the Denver Post. I can't overstate how much worse off our city is without the Rocky. It would be a damnable shame if the Post fought the Rocky to the death, only to commit assisted suicide with the help of their new hedge fund owners.

From a broader perspective, we still have not come anywhere close to finding a solution to our biggest problem as an industry – the failure of our economic model. I always hear from amateur media critics who think newspapers are failing because everything we write doesn't reinforce their partisan point of view. We're not failing because of the content. The news has never paid for itself. It was always subsidized by classified and display ads. We lost the classifieds to craigslist, and we can charge only pennies on the dollar for online ads compared to print ads. So we still make most of our money in print, but print is dying. That's the conundrum. Really smart people (and, I admit, lots of stupid ones, too) have tried to find a way out. And we're still looking.

Would you discourage a young person from going into journalism?
I think young people are in a pretty good position to at least have a chance to succeed in journalism. The industry needs energetic people with new ideas who will work for cheap. I can't lie and tell them that this is a promising business right now, but we aren't the only industry to have uncertain times. I've been very impressed with the young journalists and students I've met the last few years. A few come to mind: At the Denver Post, Kurtis Lee and Jordan Steffen kick butt on a fairly regular basis. At my own paper, we have Chase McCallister, who commands the English language like she's been doing it for 50 years. These people, if they can stick it out, soon will be veteran journalists. But there's a world of difference between your 20s and your early 40s, and I don't see the business turning around in time for a guy like me.

Other thoughts?
In rereading this, I think I sound defensive or sanctimonious. I know there's a lot I could have done better the past 20 years, and I know journalists make boneheaded decisions every day. I'm not excusing our mistakes. I just think, despite all our flaws, people will miss us when we're gone.

Last thing: I can't say enough positive things about the Ballantine family, who own the Durango Herald and Cortez Journal. They enjoy owning newspapers, they take pride in the quality of their product, and they work hard to be good publishers. I'm no longer on their payroll, so there's no point to me sucking up other than to say thanks to a generous family of serious journalists. This business needs a hundred more families like them.