September marks two years since we began publishing The Colorado Sun. This anniversary is an opportunity to look back and celebrate all that’s happened since 2018 and to express gratitude to all of you who help us do this important work. Your encouragement, your feedback and your financial support have made it all possible.
It’s also a chance to look ahead.
Today, The Sun begins a new chapter on a new (for us) platform: podcasting. A while back we conducted our first readership survey, and many of you said you want to hear our journalism as well as read it.
The Daily Sun-Up offers a quick take on our top stories, brings you up to date on the latest news and explores what it means to live, work and play in Colorado. It will be available at 6 a.m. Monday through Friday on all of the usual podcasting platforms, as well as on our new Sun podcast and audio page.
We’re excited about exploring this form of storytelling with you, and we’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions. Please feel free to email me at larry@coloradosun.com.
Thanks to readers (and now listeners!) like you, we’re able to produce the in-depth, high-quality and always non-partisan journalism that Colorado needs and deserves. As we head toward the November election, our mission is to keep you well-informed, hold the powerful accountable and help us all understand complicated issues better.
I’m so proud today to also announce that more than 100,000 people now subscribe to Colorado Sun newsletters. That’s a phenomenal accomplishment in just two years, and it’s gratifying to see so many of you place your trust in us to deliver news you can count on.
We also have made incredible progress in developing a community of individual supporters. Today, there are more than 11,000 paying members helping to fund our journalism. That’s nearly double the number we had last year at this time, and we hope more Coloradans will join us in the coming days and weeks so that we can expand our coverage throughout the state.
We share our journalism with Colorado readers for free, but it’s certainly not free to produce. We’re grateful to those of you who have joined with us and provide most of our funding. If you haven’t already, please consider joining at coloradosun.com/membership.
Memberships start at just $5 a month, and a Newsletters-plus membership, at $20 a month, gives you exclusive newsletters and other perks.
I know we’re all busy these days, so I want to give you a quick update on a few things as we approach our Sept. 10 anniversary:
- Please join The Sun staff for a virtual party on the night of Thursday, Sept. 10. You’ll see and hear insights on our coverage of politics, the coronavirus pandemic, schools, the outdoors, employment and the economy. Sign up for free here.
- We are updating The Sun’s ethics policy, which you can see at https://coloradosun.com/ethics/. There are a few housekeeping matters relating to the unfortunate demise of our initial backers, Civil, but we also want to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Contact johningold@coloradosun.com.
- We won a pile of awards over the past year, including first-place public service awards, which we’re particularly proud of as a Public Benefit Corporation.
- We’re experimenting with pop-up newsletters keyed to critical and persistent issues, starting with What’s Working by Tamara Chuang, who explores the employment challenges so many Coloradans are experiencing today. Sign up here.
We’ve had an amazing run over the past two years — actually, the past six months of non-stop news feel like two years. The Sun is still owned and operated by its 10 founding Colorado journalists, but we’re really working for you, Colorado. It’s an honor and a privilege to continue this journey with you.
Thanks again.
Larry
Larry Ryckman is editor and co-founder of The Colorado Sun.