DENVER—Former Rocky Mountain News Editor John Temple says he won’t stay on with The E.W. Scripps Co., which closed down the nearly 150-year-old newspaper last week.
Temple said Monday his parting is amicable and that Scripps “treated me unbelievably well.”
“I have tremendous respect for Scripps and appreciation for the people I’ve worked for and with,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s just that this opportunity is over and my role in Scripps was based on my role in Denver.”
A spokesman for Scripps didn’t immediately return a call.
The News published its last edition Friday. Scripps said the newspaper had lost $16 million last year and no viable buyer could be found.
The demise of the News leaves The Denver Post as the only major daily newspaper in Denver. On Sunday, a crane removed the Rocky Mountain News sign from the building it shared with The Post under a joint operating agreement.
Temple said he hasn’t decided what he will do next but that he will stay in journalism.
He said his next job could be a leadership role in print, online or broadcast journalism, or he could teach, or he could get involved in content origination.
“I always started out dreaming of being a reporter. I never had any aspirations of being an editor. It just happened,” said Temple, who also held the titles of publisher and president of the News.
Temple said he doesn’t know yet whether he’s absorbed the emotional impact of the closure.
“It’s gut-wrenching, there’s no question, it is really gut-wrenching,” he said.
He said federal law required him to send letters about the closure to government officials, unions and non-union employees—including himself. His copy arrived Friday.
“I haven’t opened it yet,” he said. I figure I know what’s in it.”
