Supporting local journalism is about supporting your neighbors. I know Fort Collins can do it well.

On Monday, Coloradoan sports reporter Kevin Lytle let his loyal band of Twitter followers know that he'd be unavailable for the coming week while taking an unpaid furlough brought on by another tough financial quarter for our parent company, Gannett.

You've heard this story before. The tumbling fall of the traditional advertising-based funding model for journalism dashed off another rock this year as recessionary fears prompted businesses to tighten their purse strings. Need proof? Think back to the Thanksgiving edition of most newspapers delivered in the U.S. this year. Those that I saw felt more like the Sunday editions of yesteryear than the advertising-laden behemoths of Thanksgivings past.

Our company's $54.1 million net loss in the third quarter of 2022 preceded another round of cost-cutting moves that included staff reductions in newsrooms across the company and the December furloughs that will thin available staff in the coming weeks.

Companies that lose money don't get to do so for long, and we all understand that. But the loss of colleagues and resources is another blow in a decades-long barrage endured by U.S. journalists and the communities we serve.

Which brings me back to Lytle's tweet. Former Denver Post sports reporter Terry Frei, also an alumnus himself of the famously shuttered Rocky Mountain News, in reply asked, "So is it still credible to plead, 'Support local journalism?'"

Yes, Terry, it is.

Listen, we can wring our hands over ownership models or wish for a billionaire benefactor to fund a nonprofit newsroom free of financial constraints, but the simple fact is that Fort Collins would be without its largest source of local news without the Coloradoan and Gannett's continued backing of our journalists.

I've been blessed to help lead the Coloradoan for a decade now. Eight of my 12 newsroom colleagues have served Fort Collins for a decade or longer. I could write a book about the personal sacrifices I've seen each make to keep Northern Colorado informed through fires, floods and life's other storms.

It's credible to ask you to support Pat Ferrier, who told her neighbors' stories while she was displaced from her own home by the High Park Fire.

It's credible to ask you to support my fellow editors Sarah Kyle and Rebecca Powell, who have interrupted countless family obligations over the years to edit an urgent story or write one themselves in the absence of an available reporter.

It's credible to ask for your support of Miles Blumhardt, who has run head-first into every storm to provide you with the latest public safety and travel information, sometimes despite my concerns about his own safety.

And it's credible to seek your support of Kelly Lyell, who this week transitioned from a decades-long sportswriting career to focus on coverage of Colorado State University and Poudre School District after we had to make difficult choices about our reporting resources.

These aren't the sacrifices of an uncaring corporate machine, as some would like to paint us in overly broad strokes. They are the acts of your neighbors, church parishioners, volunteers at your children's schools, and they're replicated daily in newsrooms across the nation.

Supporting local journalism means supporting local journalists, whoever they may work for. They're toiling daily on democracy's last line of defense.

Yes, the local news industry has its warts. Trust in our work is lower than in the past, and resources to rebuild that trust are stretched thin. Delivery of the printed newspaper has been plagued by increasing inconsistency amid a growing labor shortage. The shift in focus to digital delivery of news has interrupted long-enjoyed rituals of loyal print readers.

But if you can get past the noise of this changing landscape, I hope you can recognize the constant in the efforts of those bylines that keep bringing you informative and enlightening local news you can't get anywhere else.

Sady Swanson. Erin Udell. Molly Bohannon. Holly Engelman. Chris Abshire.

It's my incredible honor to support the work of these dedicated journalists and their aforementioned colleagues every day I come to work. If you're a Coloradoan subscriber, I thank you and hope you'll join me in your continued support of their work to keep Northern Colorado connected and informed. If you're new to the Coloradoan, I hope you'll join the thousands of your neighbors who support us with a digital subscription by visiting coloradoan.com/subscribe today.

Thanks for your support and for reading the Coloradoan.

A note on Coloradoan Conversations

The Coloradoan newsroom will operate with a staff of six or seven journalists during the final two weeks of December, meaning you'll likely see a reduction in locally produced content. During that time, Coloradoan Conversations will go on hiatus to give us maximum staffing flexibility, but we'll return to regular publication of this growing community conversation of important topics during the first weeks of January.

Eric Larsen is editor of the Coloradoan. Reach him at 970-224-7745 or ericlarsen@coloradoan.com.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Supporting Fort Collins news is about supporting your neighbors