First, the good news: The Denver Post is now the 11th largest newspaper in the U.S., thanks to Scripps’ decision to shutter the Rocky (and the JOA’s ability to automatically switch Rocky subscribers to the Post). The bad news? The Post is already down 17.4 percent compared total Rocky/Post subscribers, making it tough for the Post to maintain its goal of keeping 80 percent of Rocky subscribers.
Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal and Michael Roberts at Westword have examined the numbers and what they mean.
Denver Public Relations Blog 
Is it genetically impossible for Denver reporters to do a story on the Post that quotes *anybody* in addition to Jim Nolan to put perspective on the circ figures? The Post’s own “Post pleased at the figures” article today was bad enough, but not unexpected; to have the DBJ do an equally poor piece of journalism on the topic shows how badly this town needs news competition.
Shouldn’t some DBJ editor have asked the writer to speak with someone who might have raised the fact that the Philadelphia Inquirer is literally bankrupt (it went Chapter 11 on Feb. 23)? Or that the San Francisco Chronicle’s owner Hearst (a major bankroller of MediaNews, owner of the Post) has threatened to close the newspaper? Or that the Boston Globe is slated to shut down *this Friday*?
In other words the DBJ compared the Post’s circulation with the circs of newspapers that literally are failing. Kinda important context to leave out, don’t you think?
No wonder people (including advertisers) are deserting the “traditional media” in droves for other sources of information that frequently are more accurate and credible.