Swift Communications has been noted for "being outside of the mainstream"[1] and "drawing national attention inside the industry"[2] for disabling commenting and implementing paywalls on most of its online newspaper's websites.
After dozens of acquisitions and mergers over the years, Swift amassed a large number of print publications and in 1991 the company began concentrating on the resort sector by launching Tahoe.com and Reno.com.
[6] In November 2009 Bob Berwyn, a journalist for the Summit Daily News, wrote a column which criticized the marketing practices of Vail Resorts, one of the paper's largest advertisers.
Editors with Swift felt the inability of their content management software to restrict comments they did not approve of was impacting newsroom productivity and civil community conversation.
[16] In late 2008, Colorado Mountain News Media, a subsidiary of Swift, reduced their staff by 20% through attrition, retirement & layoffs, shuttering numerous small town papers.