The Colorado Sun - American Journalism Project

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom on a mission to deliver insightful, interesting, important (and sometimes fun) reporting across Colorado. The newsroom uses deep reporting, careful writing and great photography to help Colorado better understand issues that shape its communities.

The Sun was launched in 2018 by 10 legacy newspaper reporters and editors certain they could fill gaps in political, environmental, health, business and equity reporting left by the contraction of other media. Six years later, it continues to serve a vast and diverse readership that ranges from small rural communities to the huge metro cities in Colorado.

With support from the American Journalism Project, The Sun will professionalize its business and philanthropic functions to become a truly sustainable, free news source for Colorado. This will include growing its journalism staff over the next three to five years to ensure the newsroom can center its coverage in communities rather than merely reporting on them.

Leaders

Larry Ryckman

Publisher

Co-founder and publisher Larry Ryckman oversees all operations with a particular emphasis on the business and nonprofit fundraising efforts to support The Sun’s mission. He previously was a news leader at The Denver Post, the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Greeley Tribune. He also spent 22 years at The Associated Press, serving as assistant managing editor of the world’s largest news-gathering organization, a national editor in New York and reporter and editor in San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego and Carson City, Nevada. He helped cover the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of a new Russia as a Moscow correspondent in the 1990s. He also directed AP’s coverage of the Columbine High School shooting, the presidential election recount in Florida in 2000 and countless other national and international news events.
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Dana Coffield

Editor

Co-founder and editor Dana Coffield has helped guide The Sun since its inception, including through the conversion to nonprofit, which called on entrepreneurial skills gained in editorial direction and management at publications ranging from her family-owned North 40 News in Wellington and The Lafayette News, to the start-up Northern Colorado Business Report. She also was an editor at the Daily Times-Call and The Rocky Mountain News, and for 17 years worked as an editor on the features, business and city desks at The Denver Post. Her special skills include beekeeping, which is surprisingly useful in journalism.
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Alyssa Pinkerton

Director of Development

Alyssa Pinkerton has been fundraising for nonprofit news and media in the West for the last 15 years. She served as the director of development for High Country News, based out of Paonia, Colorado, and supported philanthropic projects as a contract and volunteer fundraiser. She loves building relationships with donors and funders, bringing their passions and resources to match the mission of The Colorado Sun's journalism: to produce the highest-quality journalism so that all of Coloradans can be more engaged and informed.
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Danika Worthington

Membership Manager

Danika Worthington is the Membership Manager at The Colorado Sun. Prior, she was The Sun's Social and Presentation Editor where she managed audience engagement, social media, newsletters, graphics and design. Previously, she was a digital strategist at The Know for The Denver Post, and a breaking and general assignment reporter before that. She is attempting to set a record for the most plants crammed into a small apartment, a pursuit her wife supports with some reservations.
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