Tucson: 'The city will be far less rich for the loss'

Tucson Citizen columnist Anne T. Denogean writes for the Tuesday and Friday editions; the 139-year-old Gannett paper is now in what may be its final days of publication. I obtained the following from a Gannett Blog reader late last night, amid reports that a Denogean column got spiked this week when a Gannett Corporate employee objected to some of the text. I've made only minor editing changes.

John Travolta played the male equivalent of a dumb blond in the 1970s sitcom, Welcome Back, Kotter. As Vinnie Barbarino, his signature line, delivered with great angst whenever a situation became too convoluted, was: "I'm so confused!

That's the state of the Tucson Citizen survivors -- oops, staff -- at this point.

We thought we were running our last edition March 21. Potential buyers entered the picture at the last minute and Gannett corporate changed our status to day-to-day. Then, Gannett extended our reprieve to Friday. As I'm writing this column on Thursday afternoon, no one is committing to a Saturday paper, but the staff is writing stories on the assumption there is one.

As for what happens next week, well, that's confidential.

The details provided to staff have been skimpy. As a member of this staff and a lifelong resident of Tucson, of this much only am I certain.

This community is going to lose the Tucson Citizen as many know and love it and the city will be far less rich for the loss.

Look, the Citizen is either going to close the doors in the near future, or, based on the limited information being circulated in the newsroom, a new Citizen will emerge as a far different animal than what it is now.

Even my friends at the Arizona Daily Star, many of them former Tucson Citizen staffers, would agree this town deserves more than one major daily paper.

When it comes to reporting on a community, more is simply better. And you can't underestimate the importance of competition in the news business. Stories are broken and owned on both side of the Park Avenue complex that houses the Citizen and the Star.

The Star can toot its own horn.

When I first began at the Citizen 15 years ago, the paper looked very much alike on any given day, with the same stories. But as the Citizen's reporting staff shrunk over the years, and we decided we couldn't cover everything. we actually became free to do things differently. The focus switched from trying to beat other local media (although that never goes away entirely) to trying to do our thing.

As just one recent example, with her relentless reporting on the Lute Olson saga, Renne Schafer Horton tread where few sports reporters in this town dared to go. She asked tough questions and got answers.

Eric Sagara was reporting on the subprime mortgage crisis before almost anyone else in the nation.

Fernanda Echavarri, one of our youngest reporters, dug deep into a story that no other media was interested in. She uncovered the corruption of the top cop fired from South Tucson and delved deeply into the question of who knew what, when.

Susan Caroll, now at the Houston Chronicle, covered the border crossers, telling the stories behind the gruesome death, and explaining the reasons behind the mass exodus from Mexico.

Mary Bustamante and Larry Copenhaver, for years, conducted a high school student opinion poll that won national honors.

We at the Citizen have been far from perfect at what we do

But we've been pretty damn good at it and we'll miss doing it.

I will miss being a part of it.