A newly elected US Representative out of Colorado has given himself and hometown bloggers credit for killing local newspaper Rocky Mountain News, which stopped its presses last Friday.

Rep. Jared Polis (CO-D) likely stunned the Netroots Nation in Your Neighborhood event with this quip:

I have to say, that when we say, ‘Who killed the Rocky Mountain News,’ we’re all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it’s mostly for the better… The media is dead, and long live the new media, which is all of us.”

Rocky Mountain News, owned by E.W. Scripps, didn’t take kindly to those remarks and said Polis’ words reflected his poor judgment. Likely they viewed it as salt in the wounds as well. The paper asserted itself as a pioneer in citizen journalism and noted it was an award winning Internet newspaper as well.

The congressman issued an apology.

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic doubts many agree the death of a newspaper is a good thing, and offers this succinct response: "All of us" are the new media? I’d like to read the investigations of government corruption produced by "all of us."