In Denver, they are re-staging the drama that cost Albuquerque the Tribune. Once again, Scripps Howard has put a newspaper (the Rocky Mountain News) on the market, warning that it will be shuttered if not sold by mid-January. The Rocky has been in a joint operating agreement with the Denver Post (owned by MediaNews Group) since 2001.

Familiar, yes, but with variations — the Rocky is losing money and some Rocky staffers have created a web site (iwantmyrocky.com) to rouse reader support.

Where they’re not dying, many American newspapers are retrenching. Even as I was noodling this comment, there came breaking news -– the Washington Post will share content with its nearby competitor, the Baltimore Sun, owned by the bankrupt Tribune Company. (Tribune is teetering partly because real estate magnate Sam Zell bought it with little cash and big debt.)

Readership is down as young people gravitate to the Internet (where they often read newspapers or opinion based on papers). Newspaper advertising revenue was eroding even before the financial crisis; now it’s plunging. Newspapers’ old business strategies are dying; new rationales are unborn or infantile.

To prolong life, some newspapers mutilate themselves. In Silicon Valley, the Mercury News cut news staff from 400-plus to below 150, dropped its movie reviews, science and book sections and chopped two-thirds of its business section.

It’s in that context that I read and evaluate the Albuquerque Journal. I have no reason to believe it’s in imminent danger, but the local economy is slowing. Mervyn’s and Linens ’n Things are leaving town. American Furniture will close all but one Albuquerque location. Jackalope just vacated its Old Town outlet. And rumors say the Journal contemplates layoffs.

I would be devastated were the Journal to falter, relying as I do on Roll Call (how our Senators and Representatives voted), the New York Times crossword, comics (thanks, Dan Herrera, for Frazz’s sweetness and Non Sequitur’s cynicism), David Steinberg’s Stakhanovite labor on books and music, Dan Mayfield’s tracking of Tortillawood, the frustrating Trivia feature, editorials (so reasonable most days in contrast to adjacent Op-Ed ravings); reviews of plays, music, dance and art; Gene Grant’s complexity, gardening advice and more.

This doesn’t mean the Journal should be forgiven its Op-Ed narrowness or Republican partisanship. Nor its sloppy editing –- there’s no need, really, to attribute the morning sunrise. It’s “fewer” drunk drivers, not “less,” even in New Mexico.

And there’s no excuse for what looks like bias. The headline on an AP report on the VP debate (October 4, page A4) provides a not- isolated example. The lead of the five-paragraph piece said John McCain and Sarah Palin “played up” her performance as polls showed voters judged Biden the winner. The headline ignored both those ideas. It read, “Polling: Winner Biden less likeable.” Finding Palin’s likeability edge required going to the last graph, three lines from the bottom. Sad.

Thanks to recent outbursts of energy, the Journal is a better newspaper overall than it was, say, two years ago. But, as noted above, it’s still hobbled by old, complacent habits.

That’s why, mindful that newspapers are an endangered species, we owe Journal management the gift of criticism, positive and adverse. Here’s to their choosing excellence as part of a strategy for prosperity in the New Year and beyond.