As word spreads throughout the community that Key West the Newspaper has published it’s last print edition, let us use the comment section below to offer our thoughts, and reflect on what a tremendous asset the publication (along with it’s editor Dennis Reeves Cooper) has been to our small island community.
The desire to retire, along with the costs and pressures of publishing a weekly Newspaper have finally taken their toll as the good doctor heads off to new adventures in Brazil to catch up on some well deserved R&R. While we will try to keep the spirit alive at www.nakedconch.com, nothing will ever come close to the asset that Key West the Newspaper has been to all of us.
With this news the Keys have lost a tremendous voice with a perspective that is not offered in any other media source available in our small island chain. We will miss Dr. Cooper, and Key West the Newspaper.
Fare thee well, and thank you.
- Matt Gardi
Sorry to see this, thanks for all of your efforts.
It was a long, great run, Dennis. We shall never see your like again. Local First Amendment journalism is now an extinct species in the United States. KWTN was the last surviving member of its kind. I’ve sought out local “Blue Papers” in all my travels over the last 15 years, and everywhere there are only memories of papers like KWTN. The spirit of vigilant journalism weeps.
A shame that a paper that built it’s reputation trying to expose corruption and incompetence closes when it’s needed the most. Forget a job fix for the former mayor or whatever misgivings you may have about certain police officers, what’s happening on Virginia St – and quietly elsewhere around town – is bigger than all of that. The city isn’t just ignoring the will of it’s constituents, it’s breaking it’s own laws and ordinances while directly disrupting the lives of residents! All so Charlie Toppino and Sons can have some federal money. I wonder how the bidding process for this (illegal) job went? This is the sort of thing that KWTN was made for…and now when it’s advocate voice is needed more than ever, it’s owner/publisher has decided to flee the country rather than continue to fight the good fight. It’s truly a sad day.
Bless The Courageous Dr. Dennis Cooper
and his fearless journalist cohorts who
without doubt made Monroe County and Key
West a better, more fair place to live
the last 17 years.
I remember the great Kirk Zuelch “child kidnap”
battle of 10 years ago; probably a high water
mark of KWTN’s knock-’em-down power when
it came to CRIMINAL THUGS IN PUBLIC OFFICE.
I found bales of KWTN in a dumpster behind
the courthouse on Key West at 5am one morning
during that debacle. Obviously someone picked
the papers up and trashed them. I’m talking
HUNDREDS of papers!
I had my bike with 3 baskets so I fished the
papers out the trash and delivered ‘em all
over the island. I will always be glad I got
that chance to “do my part”. Now that the
grand KWTN has finished everyone involved can
be proud of the vital role the paper played
in bringing justice and fairness to the people.
Good luck, Dr. Cooper! A friend of mine had
moved to Ecuador a few years ago, liked it at
first but found there are just as nasty THUGS
in backward South American countries as there
are here. He’s back living in Texas now.
Don’t ever forget your friends who love and
respect you, Dennis, and if you decide to return
and start up another paper BRAVO!
Your public will welcome you with open arms.
I will miss this paper! It was one of the few out-of-state papers that I read with regularity.
A well deserved rest awaits you Dennis. I was always impressed with you and your staff unflinching courage when set upon by the hound of hell that rose up from the murky mangroves around the power structures and families in Key West. You showed true patriotism in your inability to stand idle when a bully thought they would brutalize with impunity. You were always standing there to punch them back. That will be sorely missed in Key West. Godspeed Dennis. You can walk from the field of battle bloodied but unbending.
Its sad but I do think that long term this is the way things are going, I am not sure how much space their will be for a newspaper in five years time with everything going online.
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We cannot do anything with it! It’s your decision, just wishing you good luck and I hope you could come back soon.
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It’s all going online. Far better for exposing the crooks. And it’s two-way communication!
It is sad to know about that West Newspaper will close, anyway it is definitely their decisions and we have nothing to do about it.
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The FKCC BOT just got made a fool of by a smooth talking Washington inside the beltway bureaucrat,
not a DC educator
But then the BOT has never been to bright.
How do you know the man? I’ve heard nothing but praise about how likable he is, and how well received he was by everyone on campus. I’m told he is a gentle type. Can’t imagine him being a beltway politician.
If he’s a smooth talking politician and/or a gentle type, bubbas will prevail. The inmates will continue to be in charge of the asylum and the only direction is down. I guess 20% enrollment loss is not enough, can we shoot for 30%?
There are some dumb one’s on the BOT, we have no students in Marathon because no one will come to the campus which is in a High School and in the back of the building.
But FKCC pays $1000 a month for space in Marathon???