🥧 This week’s newsletter was produced in holiday-week mode, so it’s in roundup form. Hopefully, it complements your hangover or food coma. Happy holidays and safe travels.
📰 Is a Colorado newspaper a “citizen?” The Colorado Supreme Court is looking into it. At issue is whether the Aurora Sentinel weekly newspaper is entitled to attorney’s fees after winning an open-records lawsuit against the Aurora City Council. “If the Sentinel is a ‘citizen’ for purposes of bringing litigation to enforce the law, ‘it should also be a ‘citizen’ for purposes of fee recovery provided for in the very same section of the Law,’” wrote First Amendment attorneys Rachael Johnson and Steve Zansberg, according to Jeff Roberts of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. “News organizations regularly stand in the shoes of the public and provide a check on government institutions; Colorado sunshine laws are crucial to this effort,” their brief to the state’s highest court read. “With local news organizations across Colorado and the country facing ever-increasing financial barriers to taking on public records and open meetings litigation, news organizations like The Sentinel must be able to rely on the availability of fee recovery when deciding to pursue an open meetings violation in court.”
📺 ✂️ Layoffs are lashing the parent company that owns 9NEWS in Denver as it moves to centralize its marketing team, multiple media outlets reported. Tegna-owned stations from Sacramento to San Antonio experienced cuts, according to local reporting. Asked via email about the impacts of the layoffs at 9NEWS, Tegna spokesperson Anne Bentley wouldn’t say. The company hasn’t “shared these specifics by station or across the company,” she said.
🪦 Cynthia Hessin, an award-winning journalist who reported for Rocky Mountain PBS and Denver7, among other stations, died at 73 after a battle with cancer. “Those who remember Denver TV news in the 80s and 90s are probably familiar with Hessin’s distinctive voice and brand of hard-hitting journalism,” Robert Garrison wrote for Denver7, adding that Hessin was a former president of the Denver Press Club and was active in the Denver Women’s Press Club.
🏆 The Denver Press Club added four new caricature drawings of Colorado journalists to the wall. The latest were Gregory Moore, Carol McKinley, Kevin Vaughan, and Dan Petty.
🔎 Denver7 Investigates aired a 30-minute special this week that “showcases the journalism that has made a direct impact on Colorado’s communities.” The segment, which focuses on the work of journalist Jaclyn Allen, includes a clip of Weld County Deputy District Attorney Daniel Skelton during a sentencing hearing for a moving company scammer accused of holding the belongings of his victims hostage. “We have a news reporter who did not let up,” the prosecutor said. “Multiple victims from across Colorado reaching out to Denver7 news.”
📼 A judge in Larimer County has heard an open-meetings complaint filed by the Estes Valley Voice and has told the local fire district to turn over a recording to the court of a recent meeting. After listening to it, the judge will “determine what needs to be made public,” the Voice wrote in an un-bylined report this week. The Estes Valley Voice launched as a new locally owned digital public benefit corporation newsroom this summer. Three months after forming, the outlet filed its first lawsuit against a local government over transparency. At issue is whether the Estes Valley Fire Protection District Board of Directors violated Colorado’s open-government laws related to public meetings.
📌 Check out the Colorado News Mapping Project and fill out the form to add a source to the map or let us know if we should update something already on it.
🎧 “The newsrooms we work with here in Colorado — but it’s happening all over the country, too — are running up against this issue of being both fried and frozen,” said Laura Frank, who runs the Colorado News Collaborative, known as COLAB, on an episode of the Local News Matters podcast with Colorado Press Association CEO Tim Regan-Porter. “Fried because they’re overwhelmed, understaffed, underfunded; frozen because they’re not quite sure what they should do to fix their situation.” Frank added that “COLab is really shifting” this year toward how the nonprofit can help. “How can we get more feet on the ground with newsrooms holding more hands? How can we actually help them try some of the things that may make a difference in this fried and frozen situation that they’re in?”
💰 Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter, is offering a grant opportunity for its Spotlight: Colorado Fund to support smaller, Colorado-based local news organizations in producing high-quality, nonpartisan investigative or accountability journalism and/or in-depth reporting focused on a single topic. Applications for up to $10,000 are due by Dec. 2, for reporting projects that raise public awareness about critical issues facing our state and to catalyze positive change in our institutions and communities. Learn more here.
⚖️ “A Denver Gazette reporter is not entitled to inspect the disciplinary records of Denver school administrators because a state statute protects the confidentiality of educator evaluations and all documents ‘used in preparing’ those reports,” the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled this week, according to Jeff Roberts of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. The reason: “A state statute protects the confidentiality of educator evaluations and all documents ‘used in preparing’ those reports,” he wrote. The ruling “carves out a major exception to existing case law regarding the disclosure of public employees’ disciplinary files,” Roberts added. In the ruling, Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov wrote: “If the Gazette believes that CLPPEA prevents members of the public from accessing an excessive number of documents that are matters of public interest, its remedy lies in the legislative, not the judicial, branch of our state government.”
🔔 Venu, a company owned by JW Roth, one of the new co-owners of the Colorado Springs Independent bi-weekly newspaper, went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, Nov. 27. “The company, which developed the 8,000-seat outdoor Ford Amphitheater on the north side of the city, began offering 1.2 million shares of its common stock for an initial offering of $10 per share, for gross proceeds of about $12 million,” Breeanna Jent reported for the Gazette. “I would say 30% of our shareholders became millionaires today. Or, at least, their value went up by over $1 million,” Roth told the Gazette. “In 2023, Roth and his company signed a 10-year deal with global concert promoter AEG Presents, which books shows and operates the amphitheater,” the reporter wrote. (The “A” in AEG stands for Anschutz — the last name of the owner of the Gazette.)
📡 The grassroots Rocky Mountain Community Radio coalition recently passed its largest budget in its 40-year history and is “the most robust it’s ever been.” Read more about why the community radio network known as RMCR — or “rim core” — is on the rise here.
🦅 🗞 The monthly nonprofit Crestone Eagle newspaper that serves one of Colorado’s quirkiest oddball small rural towns published a November-December print issue after earlier telling its readers the paper was on the brink of financial collapse. A new unpaid board of directors issued a statement on page three, that reads in part: “Prior budgetary projections for The Crestone Eagle relied heavily on big donors and large grants, which were not always reliable. In 2025, we plan to keep our revenue expectations conservative.” Also in the statement: “There was very little fundraising in recent years, which was a missed opportunity within a community so eager to support The Eagle.” The paper, located in rural Saguache County, stated its projected yearly operating budget for 2025 will be $166,476. “As the fate of the paper hangs in the balance, so does a Colorado College internship opportunity for students pursuing a journalism minor,” reported Sydney McGarr for the Catalyst student newspaper at Colorado College.
👀 “Weird” press restrictions by a new Colorado congressman on the Western Slope were “absolutely not” normal, according to one of Colorado’s longest-serving political reporters.
❌ Three’s a trend. (In this case, a bad one.) Last week’s newsletter incorrectly attributed a quote from Aurora Sentinel Editor Dave Perry about Trump to Westword Editor Patty Calhoun. It was Perry, not Calhoun, who had written “Tragically, the news media must not only take on the Herculean task of shining a bright and antiseptic light on Trump’s presidency, it must do so hobbled by incessant propaganda purposely targeting media credibility.” The same newsletter also incorrectly identified Rocky Mountain Community Radio President Breeze Richardson as “Bree” in the first reference. I also incomprehensibly misidentified Erin McIntyre of the Ouray County Plaindealer. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called Eric before,” she told me. “But no worries, I’ve been called worse.” (My apologies to all, and a reminder of a best practice: cut and paste names from online bios instead of writing them freehand from memory. Also, everyone needs an editor — and AI copy editors won’t save you.)
🔗 From Spanish-language publications, Asian magazines, and what one Nigerian-American publisher likens to a “community center in print,” some of the state’s ethnic media outlets are banding together.
🤔 Cory Gaines, a writer for Complete Colorado, the news and commentary arm of the nonprofit libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, believes one way to “easily identify a left-leaning news source” is if its writers use “person centered language.” (The Gazette in Colorado Springs and Colorado Politics might be surprised to learn some might view them as “progressive” news outlets since their reporters have used the phrase “people experiencing homelessness” and “individuals experiencing homelessness” in news coverage.)
➡️ As a new board member of the Society of Professional Journalists Colorado Pro chapter, I’d like to invite you to join the nation’s foremost organization for journalists. SPJ is a fierce national advocate for First Amendment rights, journalistic ethics, and other values important to a free and vital press. The Colorado Pro chapter offers professional training programs and events, including the four-state Top of the Rockies competition, the region’s broadest platform for honoring journalism excellence. We’re making plans for a regional conference next spring. And each year, the chapter provides thousands of dollars in scholarships to the young journalists of tomorrow. At a time when journalists are under fire from all sides, joining SPJ is your chance to make a stand for journalism. Learn more about the chapter here, and find out how to join here. ⬅️
📻 📉 In the last two years, local public radio news stations have encountered what several people described to Gabe Bullard for Nieman Reports as a “perfect storm” of “technological disruption, news fatigue, and the pandemic, which led to a drop in ratings.” The big story notes recent cuts at public radio stations across the country, including Colorado Public Radio. (CPR didn’t get much play otherwise in the story.)
📡 Speaking of … Colorado Public Radio released its 2024 annual report this week. In it, CPR said its website gets about 800,000 readers a month. CPR News has about 280,000 weekly statewide listeners, and 47,000 subscribers to its Lookout email newsletter. Its hyperlocal digital news site Denverite gets about 330,000 monthly visitors, and has 27,000 newsletter subscribers. The full report is packed with other stats, figures, and accolades that showcase the station’s clear statewide value and impact.
🏈 “Not a single CU defender was made available to the media” after a recent college football game loss, wrote Denver Gazette sportswriter Mark Kiszla, who said he believes “athletes should not be coddled.”
🦠 Writing in the Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs, reporter Brennen Kauffman cited an item in the Daily Wire about the city’s mayor, Yemi Mobolade, that included an alleged “interview with an anonymous FBI agent.” Kauffman described the Daily Wire as a “conservative-leaning publication that has been criticized by factcheckers for sometimes publishing unverified accounts.” The Gazette story indicates the item in the Wire has had impact within city and county government as multiple public officials have relied on it to criticize the mayor. For his part, Mobolade said in the story: “It is unfortunately not a new trend that politically motivated websites will weigh in with no regard for accuracy or truth, and interest only in sensationalism and scandal.”
💸 Reporter Marshall Zelinger of 9NEWS in Denver said on Threads that he had to pay for an open records request by check “because the agency won’t accept” another form of payment. “This, despite Colorado law allowing me to pay electronically,” he said. “The staffer taking my payment has no idea what they’re supposed to do with it.” (This is one way governments can try to stymie access to public information if they choose.)
💰 One week after news that $900,000 in Press Forward grant money will flow to nine Colorado newsrooms across the state, the nonprofit Colorado Sun announced it’s hauling in $1.4 million from a different funder.
🗣 The Denver Post published a guest column by Sachin Hansen, a senior at George Washington High School in Denver, who is the son of departing Democratic State Sen. Chris Hansen. In it, Sachin criticized 9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark’s on-air commentary about the politician, accusing Clark of “reducing a man who has spent a decade in public service to a caricature of a power-hungry politician.” Rather than “celebrating his years of service and often unrecognized achievements, he was met with a scathing, unprofessional news segment that was more character assassination than responsible journalism,” wrote the senator’s son.
📡 DirecTV’s attempt to buy Englewood-based Dish Network “fell apart” this week “following bondholders’ rejection of a debt swap that the deal depended upon,” Tim Baysinger reported for Axios. The reporter added that “a merger between the two struggling satellite TV providers was seen as essential to the survival of both.”
💵 A cluster of Colorado news organizations are launching a new collaborative local reporting effort backed by nearly $400,000 in grant money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Behold the Capitol News Alliance. “The growth of local journalism is essential to the civic health of our nation,” Corporation for Public Broadcasting President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement about the award.
📺 Over roughly the past year, Denver7 has drawn three journalists away from its competitor 9NEWS and into larger roles at the Scripps ABC affiliate also known as KMGH.
💰 Find out what Colorado newsrooms are paying journalists in 2024.
🍕 Polly Panasenko, a first-year Colorado College student, is bringing food-insecurity awareness to campus with a newsletter called The Meal Plan Guard, wrote Elle Bond in the Peak campus publication this week. The project “began as an assignment for her Block 3 class, Inbox Journalism: Writing for Newsletters,” she wrote, adding, “The course, taught by Professor Corey Hutchins, covered the history and recent popularity of newsletter journalism, how to write for the medium, and how to find success in the field of inbox journalism.”
I’m Corey Hutchins, manager of the Colorado College Journalism Institute and a board member of the state Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For nearly a decade I’ve reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations. Colorado Media Project is underwriting this newsletter, and my “Inside the News” column appears at COLab. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter hit me up.) Follow me on Bluesky, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.