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.
Colorado Media Project Support
Advancing Equity in Local News 2023, 2022; #newsCOneeds 2023
2023 Advancing Equity Award: $35,000 to support a coalition of 10 newsrooms in the Roaring Fork Valley, as they implement strategies for reaching Spanish-speaking audiences that were developed in the 2022 research and listening phase of their project, and launch El Sol del Valle, a collaborative, digital-first Spanish-language publication.
2023 Advancing Equity Update: The Sopris Sun has hired an editor for El Sol del Valle, the collaborative Spanish-language digital publication and print insert housed under the Sopris Sun and supported by a 10-newsroom regional collaboration. They hosted their first Spanish-language reporting and community engagement training for their contributors. They have received a CMS transition grant from CMP to support their development of their web platform, and implementation of Newspack as their CMS, with high hopes for the revenue-generating capacities it could unlock. As members of the collaborative have experienced some significant staff turnover, they are exploring options around shared staffing to address specific shared organizational needs.