The deep changes provoked by the Internet and the irruption of digital technologies is one of the three main causes that converge in the serious crisis that the conventional mass media is currently going through (Anderson, Bell & Shirky, 2015; Blumler & Kavannagh, 1999; Jarvis, 2014; Sunstein, 2002).
The other two, related to the first and also to each other, are the drop-in newspaper readership and income, as well as the progressive decline in mass media public confidence. Since then, there have been many attempts to find formulas to overcome the multidimensional crisis that questions an entire business model that worked seamlessly during the second half of the 20th century.
In this context, The Colorado Sun is a highly relevant example. This newspaper project is characterized by digital publication, a commitment to high-quality content, and a strong desire for community presence, which in this case is both the city of Denver and the U.S. state of Colorado. The Colorado Sun was founded in 2018 by journalists from the Denver Post and, from the beginning, opted for integration into the Civil media platform, which uses blockchain as a technological base.
Our research aims to analyse how and to what extent the Colorado Sun represents a significant and hopeful alternative to the crisis facing the conventional journalism model. The methodology is focused on the analysis of the mechanisms related to the quality and accountability of the digital newspaper, with attention also to its self-regulation and the relationship with its readers.
The preliminary results show that, in the case of The Colorado Sun, the use of blockchain is limited to the traceability of its content and to the integration of the newspaper into the Civil platform governance system, although blockchain allows for other functions related to journalism and communication (Al-Saqaf & Picha Edwardsson, 2019; Ivanksis, 2018).
Among other aspects, The Colorado Sun also stands out for the establishment of a double deontological parameter, as its journalists are subject to both their own ethical code and that of the so-called Civil Constitution. As for the business model, The Colorado Sun, which in its first year reached 2.7 million users (The Colorado Sun, 2019), avoids advertising for the moment and is in the process of building a sustainable model that respects independence thanks to the support of a growing subscriber base.