The Sopris Sun is Carbondale, Colorado’s nonprofit weekly newspaper.  It was born from this community, it endeavors to reflect the diverse faces of Carbondale and the Roaring Fork Valley, and it depends on the greater community for content, advertising, and financial support.

History
The Sopris Sun was founded in early 2009 when the for-profit Valley Journal newspaper, a weekly that had served the Roaring Fork Valley for 34 years, ceased publication on Christmas Eve 2008. Recognizing that Carbondale needed a truly local paper during the hard economic times of the recession as much as ever (or perhaps more) a group of local citizens came together over beer and pizza to answer the question, “What can we do about this?”

Attending those early meetings were Valley residents Becky Young, Allyn Harvey, Colin Laird, Liz Phillips, Barbara New, Peggy DeVilbiss, Trina Ortega, Russ Criswell and others. From the vision, dedicated efforts and talent of those few (several of whom worked at the Valley Journal and other local papers), The Sopris Sun was born. The first issue, 20 proud pages long, hit the streets just in time for Valentine’s Day, 2009. You can still read that first issue here.

The Paper Today
The Sun is continues to shine in Carbondale. Each week, we distribute 3,500 copies to approximately 80 locations from Glenwood Springs to Woody Creek and Carbondale to Marble. Our office is in the Third Street Center, where life is bustling and good.

As a nonprofit weekly, The Sun takes an in-depth approach to stories and issues, through Carbondale’s eyes, considering and analyzing their impacts on this unique place and the people who live here. Editorially, we don’t take a position, but we offer you, our readers, many ways to respond to the news and to express your views and opinions. This truly is your paper.

Where We’re Headed
First and foremost, the board and staff of The Sun are committed to maintaining— and improving — the colorful, quality print newspaper our readers and advertisers have come to rely on. This redesigned website extends those capabilities online, and we are excited to bring you more photos, breaking news and features on the site each week — things we can’t fit into 16 or 20 print pages.

Editorial Independence Policy
We subscribe to standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.

We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.

Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.

Our organization will make public all donors who give each year. This list is published annually in our paper either in late January or Early February. Further more, in each issue we publish a list of donors who give more than $1,000 annually. We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards.

Republishing our Work
The Sopris Sun depends on a large pool of freelance contributors who license their work for one-time use. Because we value our creators and their creations, we cannot wholesale offer up the content we publish for reuse in other places. Please write to us at news@soprissun.com if you desire to republish an article, photograph or cartoon, and we will connect you with the creator of that content. Many are pleased to see their byline in other places and share their content for free. Others may ask for compensation. For some, it is situational. We thank you in advance for honoring this relationship.

Thank You!
The Sopris Sun survives due to the hard work of the staff, board, and volunteers too numerous to mention, the support of our advertisers, and the generous donations of individuals and businesses that recognize what a critical role The Sun plays in the life and health of this community. A huge “thank you” to all of you!