On the news that the Albuquerque Tribune is on the chopping block up for sale, Jim Baca noted:

“It is the trend for PM Newspapers across the country for years now. The last nail in the coffin was the Internet. All those people that used to wait for the afternoon delivery just switched over to blogs and Internet news services.

Silver City is in almost exactly the same situation: it has an afternoon newspaper and a morning paper as well. One of the two flipsides to the Albuquerque situation is circulation: right now, the Silver City Daily Press (the PM paper) has the Silver City Sun-News beat as far as subscribers go. In addition, the Daily Press circulation numbers have been going up (or, at least that’s what my employer told us before I left the newspaper).

Still, the Daily Press can’t become complacent.  More and more residents of Grant and Catron counties will get access to the Internet (and more of those users will have access to broadband) and the Daily Press is going to find itself competing with more and more competitors.

It’s going to be interesting to watch what happens with the Daily Press. I’d love to see a more active Web site for the paper. Their online edition is a unique approach, but I think they’ll eventually find they need more interactivity (i.e. comments sections for articles), a better archive system and more free content.

I’d also pitch making the Daily Press Web site the Internet resource for residents, and for those planning to visit and/or move to the area. The Silver City-Grant County Chamber of Commerce fills part of that role, but I think the Daily Press could find a niche if it invested the time and energy into making it intuitive and useful.

Still, the newspaper business in Silver City should make for exciting speculation and viewing in the coming years, as more and more people get their news and information from non-traditional sources, like blogs, Digg, and podcasts.