The Aspen Times has always made its print and digital content free to the public. We’re a resort town with a global audience and the best way we can support our local business community is by making our news and advertising easily accessible to people around the world. In a community with only 6,000 year-around residents, we rely on a strong economy to drive marketing messages to visitors. COVID-19 changed our economy overnight. Public health officials not only shuttered businesses, but also ordered non-residents to return home and asked that second homeowners stay away until the pandemic is under control. The Governor ordered all Colorado ski resorts to close on March 14. Our town’s economy came to a standstill and so did our main revenue stream – small business advertising.

Our team of reporters and photographers are in our community every day, tracking down and verifying information about the disease and its impact on our valley; they are also telling the stories of frontline workers who are braving the elements every day; we are focused on the faces of unemployment and what this looks like in a town where the biggest industry (skiing) was closed, impacting nearly 4,000 employees; and we are dutifully connecting our readers to messages of positivity and hope. And they’re doing this in a time when we’ve asked them to take a reduction in hours and pay so we can keep our business afloat with advertising dollars at a near standstill. Our new financial challenge means finding new ways to provide news and information to our audiences, and our team is rising to the occasion.

We are asking our readers to consider making a tax-deductible donation earmarked for our coverage of this ongoing health crisis.

If you believe local, trusted information is critical, especially during these unsettling times, please donate to help keep us on the job. Contributions to this fund will help pay for news resources that cover the impact of the virus on our local communities, information on the trend in positive cases, testing sites, business closures (and, of course, re-openings) and the impact to our students during the state Stay-At-Home order.

Thank you for your support of The Aspen Times during this critical time!

Aspen Times - COVID-19 Local News Fund is a program administered by Local Media Foundation, tax ID #36‐4427750, a Section 501(c)(3) charitable trust affiliated with Local Media Association. LMF is raising funds for educational activities; specifically, to educate the public on COVID-19 issues. LMF is providing funds to this news organization and many others to support this important educational project. All money raised by this effort will go directly to support COVID-19 reporting, to make sure the public has essential facts on this important topic.