The publisher of a weekly newspaper in a rural Colorado county has sued another newspaper in hopes of getting legal clarity about an obscure but important aspect of the local print news business.

At issue is what specifically it takes to become a county’s official “newspaper of record.”

The 10-page lawsuit asks a Gilpin County judge to decide whether the Mountain-Ear newspaper must have a U.S. postal permit in Gilpin County in order for the county’s commissioners to bestow the paper a coveted status within the printing industry.

Being a “newspaper of record” allows a paper to sell advertising space to the local government so it can publish required legal and public notices like tax delinquencies, foreclosures, and impending legal action.

The Weekly Register-Call newspaper and its publisher Bob Sweeney contend that the Mountain-Ear, a rival, doesn’t have the proper paperwork to deserve such a distinction. Both papers have offices and circulate in Gilpin, a small mountainous county of about 6,000 just east of the Continental Divide that includes Black Hawk and Central City.

But Sweeney argues that the Mountain-Ear has a main office in Nederland, which is in Boulder County where it also has a postal permit to operate. And while it leases office space in Gilpin and distributes some papers there, Sweeney’s suit argues it does not have a postal permit in that county. Sweeney says his newspaper does and therefore the Register-Call should be the only publication the county can call its “newspaper of record.”

When a county bestows a “newspaper of record” status on a local publication, it is no small thing.

Doing so, which takes a majority vote by a county commission, means the county will pay that newspaper with public funds to publish required legal and public notices that are intended to keep residents abreast of county business. That means the newspaper gets a steady stream of reliable local advertising revenue from the government. Being a county’s newspaper of record also can give it some gravitas in a community.

In a phone conversation in April, about two months before he filed suit, Sweeney said that while the issue is related to his newspaper and the county where he publishes it, the legal implications could have a broader impact depending on the outcome.

“You’d have chaos — chaos going on — if counties could run legal ads in other counties, and even in cities,” he said. “You have to run the legal notices in the county where they are. That’s the purpose of public notices — to let the local citizens know what’s going on.”

Sweeney suggested a hypothetical about someone going into bankruptcy and choosing to publicize the embarrassing but important information in a newspaper as far away as possible where locals might not see it. As a newspaper publisher, he said he has left money on the table over the years by turning down invitations from municipalities to become a “newspaper of record” in counties where he does not have a postal permit.

Something I wonder about: As the print newspaper business has contracted, owners have closed and consolidated offices around the state. A small newspaper company might run multiple county papers out of one office hub. Do they actually have postal permits in each county they serve — sometimes as the only paper there? If not, and Sweeney wins, what happens?

This potentially novel newspaper dispute over public notices in Gilpin also comes with some local drama.

The court action stems from a decision two years ago by two out of the three Gilpin County commissioners who had voted to revoke the Weekly Register-Call’s distinction as their county’s “newspaper of record.” The county used to split the notices between the two papers, but the commissioners decided they would give the coveted title only to the Mountain-Ear.

At the time, the commissioners passed a resolution that explained their reasoning for cutting the Register-Call loose, and it came with some harsh words for the paper.

They accused the Register-Call of being sloppy in its responsibility of publishing notices on behalf of the county. Commissioners accused the paper of failing to publish some notices, and introducing errors and typos into ones it did.

Back then, Sweeney had told this newsletter that he believed the decision was political. Though the paper is old, its owner is new, and he described the Register-Call as “the newcomer conservative paper in town.” (The two commissioners who took his paper’s title away were Democrats; his newspaper had endorsed a Republican for county commission.)

Over the past two years, when discussing the possibility of this lawsuit, Sweeney said multiple times that he did not want to sue Gilpin County. In the end, he didn’t — he wound up suing the Mountain-Ear newspaper instead.

Asked why, he offered a one-word answer: simplicity.

Here’s an excerpt from the Register-Call’s lawsuit, filed June 5 referencing Colorado’s state law about being a “newspaper of record”:

While C.R.S. § 24-70-103 is limited and does not expand on the adequacy of a newspaper’s retention of an office in the county in which it meets the definition to qualify as a legal newspaper or newspaper of record, reading the USPS regulations in conjunction with C.R.S. § 24-70-103 requires a finding that the Colorado legislature did not intend for newspapers to pick and choose which county they wish to serve by merely leasing an office to meet the legal requirement of “published.” The legislature intended that newspapers may only be “published” in one county.

In his lawsuit, Sweeney, who publishes multiple small newspapers around the state and has served on the state press association’s legal and legislative committees, continues:

“As a public policy consideration, it is vital that legal notices find a large audience and perform their intended purpose. Thus, if newspapers are permitted to lease an office in a county where it does not have its primary office for USPS purposes, mailing address, interests, or residents consuming its content, this purpose is frustrated or nullified,” the lawsuit states.

And then there’s this warning:

There would be nothing to stop a larger newspaper of general circulation to overcome rural county publications and serve as THE newspaper of record for the entire state.

It might be interesting to know what county commissioners who make decisions in their own communities might have to say about that.

Sweeney and his Register-Call want a judge to issue what’s called a “declaratory judgment” that states the Mountain-Ear does not meet the requirements to serve as the legal paper of Gilpin County. If that happens, it is not a stretch to assume that Sweeney believes the county could give that distinction to him and hitch his Register-Call back onto the local gravy train.

The Mountain-Ear’s editor, Barbara Hardt, declined to comment on the lawsuit beyond saying her newspaper planned to file its own legal response before the deadline for it to do so.

Earlier this year, the Mountain-Ear published an editorial taking issue with the Register-Call’s position in its own editorial on the matter. The Mountain-Ear called such an argument “absurd” and stated, “Because The Mountain-Ear maintains offices in Gilpin County and Boulder County, it is ‘published’ in both counties under Colorado law.” Now it seems, a judge might decide.

In recent years, Colorado has become a hotbed of public notice disputes.

In 2021, after the small Ouray County Plaindealer called out the county for a government transparency issue, the county decided to stop publishing its meeting agendas in the newspaper, something it paid about $200 a week to do and had done for the past decade.

In 2022, members of the Pitkin County Commission yanked advertising from The Aspen Times and made its rival, The Aspen Daily News, that county’s paper of record. (At one point prior to a vote, a commissioner said the goal was to punish the newspaper’s owner, Ogden Newspapers of West Virginia.)

Last year, the rural Wet Mountain Tribune newspaper won a settlement after its publisher filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Custer County Board of Commissioners when they revoked its paper-of-record status and gave it to the Tribune’s partisan rival in what the Tribune publisher called an act of retaliation.

Back in Gilpin County, Sweeney, the Weekly Register-Call publisher, said before he filed his lawsuit that if he lost, it could have “dramatic” impact elsewhere. “You could just run these legal notices anywhere you wanted,” he said. “The law is to protect that from happening.”

Judge rules for Springs TV station in open records fight with state mental hospital

A months-long tug-of-war between a TV news station and the State Mental Hospital in Pueblo over access to documents KOAA requested under Colorado’s open-records laws has come to an end.

In writing about it, reporter and anchor Alasyn Zimmerman dropped the standard third-person news writing device and published a first-person column about the dispute.

From KOAA:

Sources told us several employees were being placed on administrative leave, sometimes for months at a time.

We first requested documentation of employees placed on investigatory administrative leave for more than 20 consecutive days, which must be tracked and documented for the state. The request was made to the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) which is the state agency over the hospital.

When I received the documentation, all employee names were redacted.

So then I requested employment applications of anyone placed on administrative leave, [and] state law says those records do not fall under “personnel files” and are public under the Colorado Open Records Act. The department said it would release those records, but when I asked if the information, such as employee names, would be redacted they said yes.

I asked why they would be able to redact the information and CDHS cited a state statute “24-72-204(2(a) (Ix)(A)-(B), (3)(a)(IV)” saying it would identify employees on leave related to a civil investigation. That’s when we got the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition involved.

First Amendment attorney Steve Zansberg, who represents media outlets in Colorado, wrote a letter on the TV station’s behalf seeking to get the matter resolved out of court. But the Colorado Department of Human Services sued KOAA.

“News5 learned over the weekend the judge sided with KOAA saying the department’s denial was not proper and they did not act in good faith by filing in court first,” Zimmerman wrote this week. “When it comes to taking a state agency to court, we believe this information should be public and in the public’s interest. As journalists, it’s our job to fight for transparency when state agencies are not giving us the information we need.”

Montrose Mirror updates its guidelines for letters to the editor

A recent edition of the weekly digital publication that states it serves more than 20,000 readers on the Western Slope came with a note to its audience this week.

“We appreciate your letters!” wrote editor Caitlin Switzer. “We like reading and hearing opinions from all perspectives. We are sharing herewith our updated guidelines: In the past we have had one rule, to be implemented at the editor’s discretion. We are now including two more suggested ‘Rules’ for letter writers.

Here they are, from the Mirror:

RULE 1. The Dead Horse Rule has been in place from the start of the Mirror. This is somewhat selfexplanatory, but there are times when something has been said so many times it can run afoul of the “Dead Horse Rule,” in which case we will inform the writer.

RULE 2. While there are always exceptions, a letter can often say what needs to be said in one page or less. Our pages are 8.5 X 11, we use a 10 pt Calibri font; letters that are roughly 800 words fit well within this suggested guideline.

RULE 3. Please limit repetitive mud-slinging to avoid bumping up against Rule 1.

Also, in the case of those writing to intentionally discredit a public official or candidate for public office, please provide a link to the source of your allegation if possible. Unsourced, unproven allegations are not credible, and could in fact be untruths.

As one reader of this newsletter pointed out, the rules “read like an attempt to teach readers about the basics of journalism: say something new, say it briefly and say it truthfully.”

🔎 Sponsored | Spotlight: Colorado | Colorado Media Project 🔍

Colorado Media Project believes our democracy works best when the public has transparency into powerful institutions. That’s why accountability journalism is so important to our civic infrastructure. We chose to sponsor this section of Corey’s newsletter to showcase some of the important watchdog work Colorado journalists and their news organizations have been producing recently. Corey chose which ones to spotlight.

Recent Colorado accountability coverage

• Underscoring the clear impact that watchdog reporting can have, Gov. Jared Polis this week signed a new law that will bar hospitals from suing patients under the names of their debt collectors, “following a lengthy investigation” by Chris Vanderveen of 9NEWS along with John Ingold of the Colorado Sun in collaboration with COLab and KFF Health News. As lawmakers considered legislation to mitigate the practice following the news reports, Democratic State Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis said on the Senate floor, “I want to give a shoutout to several investigative reporters who have been following this for years.” The new law “is now the 3rd piece of legislation that came about in 2024 that’s directly tied to a 9News Investigates project,” Vanderveen reported.
• Lizzie Mulvey examined air pollution in Commerce City related to the Canadian-owned Suncor Energy petroleum refinery for Rocky Mountain PBS, illuminating how private air quality assessments went “beyond what the state had done” in a suburb of Denver where “many Black and brown residents call home.”
• “Soldiers exposed to thousands of low-level blasts from firing weapons like mortars say that they wind up with debilitating symptoms of traumatic brain injury — but no diagnosis,” reported Colorado-based New York Times reporter Dave Philipps. The reporter appeared on an episode of The Daily to talk about how he has been “investigating the idea that soldiers could be injured just by firing their own weapons” and how analyzing the case of a mass shooter who killed 18 at a Maine bowling alley could “change our understanding of the effects of modern warfare on the human brain.” Ryan Warner of Colorado Matters at Colorado Public Radio interviewed Philipps about his reporting.
• Joe Rubino of the Denver Post checked up on the status of multiple city services initiatives voters and city council passed during the previous mayoral administration and found that “nearly two years later, city officials have implemented none of those three undertakings fully. Instead, the two voter initiatives are on pause while task forces and administrators figure out how they will work — while the rollout of the city’s expanded composting service has hit bumps and delays.”

To submit a local accountability story for consideration in the future, send me an email. If you or your organization would like to sponsor a recurring newsletter section like this, hit me up.

More Colorado media odds & ends

🌅 This newsletter is in out-of-the-country mode, meaning content might be lighter than usual and I might not be as quick to respond to emails, voicemails, or DMs.

📺 This week marked 40 years from when neo-Nazis murdered legendary Denver Jewish talk-radio host Alan Berg. To commemorate it, 9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark said on air that while Berg’s killers might all now be dead the “hate they carried in their hearts” lives on. Chillingly, Clark spotlighted that an account using the name of a former Republican candidate for state office who the Denver Post once reported had ties to white supremacy movements, chose this week to refer to Clark as “alanberg2point0.” Clark said the reference is “not subtle” — and “it won’t stop our journalism.”

🆕 Por Jaijongkit, a recent graduate of CU Boulder’s journalism master’s program, has joined Boulder Reporting Lab as a summer reporting fellow.

➡️ Colorado Media Project is hosting a webinar on June 27 at 10 a.m. MT, for its third Press Forward Colorado 2024 Learning Series titled “How Colorado Newsrooms are Reaching and Serving Diverse Audiences.” “In Colorado, a vibrant ecosystem of local news outlets serve our state’s communities of color, immigrants, non-English speakers and other diverse groups,” CMP, which underwrites this newsletter, states. “Community newspapers, monthly magazines, podcasts, and radio all provide vital information for and about their communities in multiple languages. These newsrooms tend to have exceptionally strong relationships with the national, ethnic, and language-based communities that they serve — as well as a history of receiving fewer resources and less recognition, in spite of their quality coverage and the trusted roles they play in their communities.” RSVP for the June 27 10 a.m. call here.

💨 Desiree Mathurin said she has written one of her “last stories with Denverite” before she moves on to North Carolina. For it, a Denverite reader taught her how to ride a bike at City Park.

⚖️ Colorado’s second-highest court this week “concluded 9News can be held liable for the actions of a security guard who accompanied a producer during an October 2020 rally in downtown Denver and ended up fatally shooting a man after a brief confrontation,” Michael Karlik reported for Colorado Politics. He added that the allegations, however, “do not establish a reasonable probability that [the security guard’s] actions were within 9News’ control on the day of the events,” wrote Judge Daniel M. Taubman in the June 13 opinion.

🤖 The Rocky Mountain AI Interest Group is a “community of both non-technical and technical members who are passionate and enthusiastic about the recent advancements in generative AI tools,” reads a description of the group. “This group is focused on exploring and discussing the latest developments in AI, particularly tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, Microsoft’s Copilot, and Google’s Gemini.”

🆕 Linda Shapley, publisher of Colorado Community Media, introduced herself to readers of the Denver North Star and G.E.S. Gazette newspapers after CCM bought them. Being new owners “won’t change the way we operate,” she said.

❌ Last week’s newsletter misspelled the last name of a Northeastern Junior College math and physics instructor. It is Cory Gaines with an “e.”

⚖️ “Citing the First Amendment right to ‘engage in political speech,’ a judge has ruled that Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado cannot dodge a defamation lawsuit filed against her by political activists critical of her during her 2022 reelection run,” Brandi Buchman reported for Law and Crime. “The 55-page ruling handed down by U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathryn Starnella on June 9 breathed new life into a civil case first brought against the lawmaker by plaintiffs David Wheeler, a political activist, and the political action committee he co-founded, American Muckrakers PAC.”

📚 The bookselling behemoth Barnes & Noble is “set to become the next owner of longstanding Denver bookstore Tattered Cover, marking the end of its 53-year run as an independent business,” Paolo Zialcita reported for Denverite. The price tag? $1.83 million.

🤖 Patrick Ferrucci, a former reporter and current chair of the journalism department at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information, weighed in about the financial and licensing deals some news organizations are making with artificial intelligence companies. “There are companies that can do investigative journalism because it doesn’t matter if you sue them,” he said. “And there are others who essentially self-censor because the threat of a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, could destroy the business. If you show these news companies some money, I don’t think all of them can afford to look away.”

🗳 Amanda Pampuro of Courthouse News in Colorado was one of 34 journalists “selected for the National Press Foundation’s 2024 Elections Journalism Fellowship.”

📱 “Days before the U.S. Surgeon General urged Congress to require warning labels for kids on social media platforms, Colorado signed a first-of-its-kind-law,” Hannah Metzger reported for Westword. It turns out Colorado lawmakers have a history of “support for protections for youth on social media,” Shaun Boyd of CBS Colorado reported.

🆕 Lauren Brand has joined KOAA News5 in Colorado Springs as a meteorologist.

I’m Corey Hutchins, co-director of Colorado College’s Journalism Institute. 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, both of which I sometimes write about here. Follow me on Threads, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.