AINN to continue operating Colorado, Florida, Texas Independent websites

The Colorado Independent, an online-only investigative news organization that began as Colorado Confidential in 2006, will continue operating with its current three-person staff for the foreseeable future, according to officials at its parent nonprofit corporation.

The board of the 501(c)3 American Independent News Network on Wednesday announced it will shut down several of its websites on Friday, deciding “to shift publication of its news into a single site, the American Independent at Americanindependent.com.”

On Thursday, however, AINN officials announced the organization will continue to operate as an independent online news organization, maintaining sites in Colorado, Florida and Texas, as well as the American Independent site.

For funding reasons, AINN is shutting down websites in New Mexico, Minnesota and Michigan.

“There’s very good reason to believe the moves being made now by our parent organization, some of them certainly painful, will better fuel the mission of the Colorado Independent, allowing it to deliver even more of the robust brand of new-media journalism the site pioneered in the state and that it has continued to develop and deliver for years,” editor Scot Kersgaard said.

“We look forward to saying more about the organization’s plans in the near future. The main thing is that the independent, insightful and credible brand of journalism offered at TCI will continue into a very critical election year.”

The Colorado Independent was the first site to open among the organization’s network sites and has enjoyed consistent readership and fundraising support over the years.