By Ron Goodman  

The Left Hand Valley Courier announced today that it had finalized the purchase of the Daily Camera.  “It was a natural extension of what we have been doing for the last three years,”  Managing Editor Wiff Sportsman announced to a room overflowing with three reporters.  

 “Financially speaking, the cash generated by the distribution of our free paper was what put us over the top.  It enabled the deal.” 

According to Bernie Sell Short of McDonald, Berger and Condiment, a Denver based Investment Banking firm that advised on the purchase, “This combination is the current paradigm in the world of business mergers.”    

Short cited yesterday’s news of the proposed merger of AOL-Time Warner.  “A perfect example of a four year old company without a bottom line and an insane PE ratio, purchasing an old line company with a real business.”  

The traditional bookmarks against which companies are valued are “out the window.” According to Short, "We use a new system now.  It is called  ‘metrics.’ In the case of the Courier,  metrics is the growth in the number of papers they give away each month.”

“We may be out in leftfield, but we are negotiating for the Times-Call too,” Sportsman commented, in response to a reporter’s question.  “We hope to make both newspapers as efficient as our operation, so they can also be free to the public. “

There are some changes planned by the Courier management.  “We plan to get them spell checkers,” Merry Lopitoff, Courier Editor commented, “We have a reputatian for an errer frea paper.  We want all of our products to reflect that ideel. This is not laughing matter.”  

“They don’t utilize a word budget,” said Sal Foyer, who does financial planning, sales and makes the morning coffee for the Courier.  “Just look how they throw around three syllable words. There are three or four in every paragraph.  Think of the additional space we can save,” Foyer continued, “when we get rid of those 72 point banner headlines.”

The Courier management gave the impression that perhaps the two daily papers published too often.  “After all,” commented Lopitoff, “how often do you have to change the paper in the bird cage?”

There are no plans to move the two newspapers to the Niwot/Gunbarrel area.   Foyer said, “There is a question out and about town concerning a possible real estate connection. Obviously Niwot is the natural center for publishing in the Boulder/Longmont area, but there isn’t a building in Niwot big enough to house the Camera’s printing press.”

“And between you and me, there aren’t enough bars to keep the reporting staffs lubricated in Niwot,” commented Courier reporter Kay Bronztown, as she popped another top. “Golf anyone?”

Photo provided by Anonymous Accidential Tourist

The staff of the Courier stands in front it its newly acquired camera.