Boulder Weekly is an alternative newsweekly that publishes every Thursday in Boulder, Colorado. The paper is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN)[1] and is owned and published by Stewart Sallo.[2]
Overview
After the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, Sallo left Santa Cruz, Calif., where he had ownership of two publications — Summer Santa Cruz and Student Guide.[3] By 1992, he had set his sights on Boulder, Colo. He moved to Boulder in 1993, and the first edition of Boulder Weekly hit the stands on Aug. 19 of that year. In the years since, Boulder Weekly has garnered numerous state journalism awards for opinion, news, features, and entertainment writing.
Between 1996 and 2000, Boulder Planet operated as a competing publication to the Weekly. The continued publication of the Weekly despite the competition has been a source of satisfaction for Sallo.[4] The paper is currently the only independent newspaper published in Boulder.
Initially, Sallo saw the paper as a business opportunity in a city lacking a weekly newspaper. However, an article by Joel Dyer in 1994 reshaped Sallo's view on the newspaper's potential impact ("Deadly ground: Beech Aircraft toxins poison open space," Sept. 14, 1994). As a result, Boulder Weekly's editorial direction shifted toward a more aggressive, alternative approach to news. Dyer later became editor of Boulder Weekly, eventually leaving the paper to write books and publish his own newsweekly, the Fort Collins Weekly, from 2002 to 2007.
Succeeding Dyer, Greg Campbell maintained the investigative editorial direction, publishing articles such as "Eternal flame: Think you've paid at the pump? Try paying with your life. Boulder Weekly visits Nigeria," April 19, 2001, which exposed the suffering of a Nigerian village at the hands of an Italian gas company. Campbell is the author of Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones.
Wayne Laugesen, following his tenure at Soldier of Fortune magazine, served as Boulder Weekly's editor. He is best known for his award-winning opinion column "Wayne's Word," and his byline has appeared in national magazines and nearly every major newspaper in the United States.
In 2003, Pamela White took on the role of editor, becoming the first woman to do so. With a notable background in journalism, White emphasized human-rights reporting, with a focus on prison issues, women's rights, and American Indian issues. She came to the Weekly after serving as editor of Colorado Daily, where she and her staff won the 2000 Roy W. Howard Award for Public Service (National Journalism Awards) and several other national awards for investigative journalism.
Joel Dyer returned to the Weekly as editor in November 2011.[5] He was last listed on the masthead as editor-at-large in the April 6, 2023 issue [6][7]
Shay Campbell was appointed the new (and current) editor on October 30, 2023.[8]
Recently, the paper employed 18 full-time staff members in addition to numerous freelance writers and circulation drivers. It publishes opinion, news, an outdoor recreation section, a food section, and an arts and entertainment section, as well as several special editions, notably The Best of Boulder County, tri-annual Boulderganic, Summer Scene, Student Guide, and VOTE, its annual election guide. Regular contributors to the paper include populist author and columnist Jim Hightower, astrologer Rob Brezsny author Ben Corbett, former Boulder mayor Paul Danish, and music critic David Kirby.
Awards
Among the Boulder Weekly's awards, in April 2023 it won seven awards in the Society of Professional Journalists' Top of the Rockies competition including two first prizes.[9] In April 2018, it won 27 awards in the 2017 Society of Professional Journalists' competition, including 10 first prizes.[10][11]
