Editorial —
Increasingly progressive Westword recently declared “good riddance” to Colorado’s largest company (based on market capitalization), Palantir Technologies, after announcing it was moving to Miami. The data-processing giant moved to Denver in 2020 from Silicon Valley in California.
With the company and its highly paid employees — including co-founder Alex Karp — leaving town for the Sunshine State, Westword informs us that “we” won’t miss them. Why? Apparently because the company does work for the federal “military-industrial complex,” including the hated ICE and Department of Homeland Security.
By similar logic, “we” are lucky that the relatively recently formed federal Space Force was moved by Trump from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. In the same vein, hopefully any remaining mining and oil and gas operations in Colorado can be quashed in the name of saving the planet from climate change.
It is not clear whether or not Westword is equally happy about Trump shutting down and dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, with the likely loss of 800 well-paying jobs. NCAR is part of the now-hated federal government under Trump but is not, per se, part of the military-industrial complex.
Exactly what jobs in Colorado Westword does deem acceptable is also unclear, but it is no secret that Westword itself is up for sale, with titular head Patty Calhoun leaving a post she has occupied since 1978.
Westword has its share of challenges, like most print publications in Colorado. The staff, however, is being proactive in ensuring that the publication does not go to the wrong kind of person. It recently featured an article by Hanna Metzger with the headline “Racist, Abusive Son of Former Broncos Owner Offers to Buy Westword.”
It is assumed that John Bowlen was being facetious about an offer, but the publication went out of its way to delineate all of Bowlen’s many faults and failures, with the article’s writer declaring at the end that “Westword is not interested.”
Of course, that leaves open whether someone with the right pedigree is willing to buy the publication and keep the staff employed. Westword, like most publications, is largely dependent on advertising revenue. That revenue is, in turn, dependent on successful private businesses looking for customers they hope ads in the publication will bring them.
Westword’s staffers may be “happy” that various companies are leaving Denver but may find, to their chagrin, that some of the departing jobs may include their own. In case they are not aware, good jobs in journalism these days are very scarce. Perhaps Westword will one day find that Colorado’s largest company leaving Denver was not necessarily a cause for “celebration.”
— Editorial Board
