Local government accountability

The Ouray County Plaindealer is a weekly newspaper. It’s been operating since 1877, since miners and other settlers came to this mountainous area of Colorado to seek their fortunes and make a living. Today, the Plaindealer’s readership includes locals whose families have been in the area for just as long as the newspaper, as well as newcomers who have moved to Ouray County after retiring or to work in the tourism industry. One of the notable things about the Plaindealer’s circulation is we deliver to 41 states—and are discovering that many of these subscribers are part-time residents or folks who wish to move here someday. The Plaindealer is the paper of record for Ouray County, and it’s what people rely on to know what happened at city and town council meetings, who said what at the school board retreat, and what happened to that bear that was wandering around town breaking into people’s houses. The goal is to provide The Plaindealer’s publishers, a couple who bought the newspaper in April 2019, are longtime Colorado journalists who left the largest newspaper in the western half of the state to purchase the weekly and bring quality journalism to the publication. They believe that even small, rural places deserve good journalism.