Earlier this month, a mysterious billowy object similar in size and shape to a paper IKEA floor lamp floated over a chain link fence and exploded near downtown Colorado Springs. Nearly two weeks later, police arrested a 69-year-old man with a history of blowing things up, though he denied involvement.
For several days, though, the bizarre incident confounded those who heard it — and reporters who covered it. One news anchor said the loud boom was “heard for miles.” Users of the popular neighborhood platform Nextdoor had “reported experiencing similar incidents in the area for months,” the Gazette wrote in an un-bylined story.
Some nearby residents and business owners captured on surveillance systems and doorbell security cams spooky nighttime footage of the floating object and its subsequent fiery blast.
Adding to the mystery was what happened when the local CBS station, KKTV, obtained some of that footage. After posting a video online with a brief story, police reached out to the newsroom and asked its journalists to remove parts of it. The station complied.
News of that development came on Jan. 18 in the form of an unusual disclosure in a story headlined “CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Explosion near downtown Colorado Springs Friday night.” From that report:
EDITOR’S NOTE: KKTV 11 News has removed the original video in this article. The Colorado Springs Police Department contacted us requesting we take parts of the video down. The new video at the top of this article shows an edited version, per the request of police.
The online item, authored by KKTV’s digital content manager, Tony Keith, didn’t offer context about why a news organization would let a government agency it purports to independently cover decide what it could and couldn’t air.
Kieth said via email the decision came from a news director. The station takes all requests by law enforcement and other agencies into consideration, he added, and each situation and story is different. (I didn’t get a chance to connect with the station’s news director about the specifics, but a police spokesperson did weigh in about the department’s perspective.)
KKTV reporter and anchor Melissa Henry, however, did share part of the reason. “Colorado Springs police have actually asked us not to show the surveillance video in full because they say they’re still investigating,” she said in a separate Jan. 18 broadcast.
She added, though, that she had seen the full video, obtained from a private business nearby, and described to viewers what she saw: A “tall, balloon-like object that appears to be lit up with some source of light” looking almost like a lantern, floating between two buildings, landing on a fence, and then exploding. The blast blew out multiple windows and peppered a building with shrapnel, a business owner said.
Were the station’s disclosures about deleting previously published footage at the request of police enough? Lynn Walsh and Mollie Muchna at Trusting News, a group that seeks to help journalists maintain trust with their audiences, weighed in when asked:
Sharing information about these decisions, especially when it directly impacts what a viewer is seeing or not seeing is extremely important and directly related to trust.
If you don’t explain why you made a decision, people jump to conclusions and generally those conclusions are negative. When people don’t understand the reasoning behind a newsroom’s coverage decisions, they’ll fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. In this case, someone could assume that the station is letting police dictate their coverage (not just the editing of the video but all their coverage).
This most likely isn’t true, so the station should explain: 1. They edited the video at the request of police 2. Why they agreed to the edit 3. Their agreement to police demands ends with that edit (assuming this is true). (We also have a guide on how newsrooms can explain their coverage decisions.)
The station did a good job letting their audience know — both online and on-air — that they adjusted the video. To improve the note, they could include why they agreed and how it impacts their other coverage of this story and other crime coverage.
This week, following the arrest of a man police said lives near the explosion site and previously served time in prison for explosives-related crimes, the station aired more parts of the footage it had initially obtained.
Over email, Ira Cronin, a spokesperson for the police department who formerly worked as a reporter and anchor for KOAA TV in the Springs, said the department asked KKTV to take down the video because it “showed footage of evidence that we were actively going to be looking for while executing a search warrant” the following day.
“They kindly agreed to honor our request,” Cronin said about the station. “This was a simple ask, not a demand, and we know that it is always the news agency’s prerogative to use the footage if they feel they need to. We’re thankful they were willing to help us in the investigation in this way.”
Once police acted on the warrant, conducted a search, and arrested a suspect, the department told KKTV that publicizing the full video would no longer harm their investigation. (For what it’s worth, KKTV interviewed the suspect after police raided his home, but before authorities publicized his arrest; he said he didn’t do it. Media reported he has bonded out of jail.)
“This is not something we request often; it is only for the sake of investigation integrity and safety of the community,” Cronin said about the police asking KKTV to edit a published video. “At the end of the day, law enforcement and journalism have similar goals — bettering our community. We’re thankful to have great media partners in town that we can work together with to achieve that goal.”
Would your outlet have done the same?
Man who says he stole Ouray newspapers is not associated with suspects or police
Last week, the subject this newsletter led with (about stolen newspapers in Ouray County following a front-page story about rape allegations against teenagers at the home of a police chief) went viral.
From the New York Times to ABC News, outlets far and wide reported the story in the context of efforts to silence the press. The news even reached the U.K. This newsletter was careful last week not to state that the stolen newspapers were related to that particular story. But it wasn’t a stretch to wonder if whoever did it might have been associated with the suspects or police.
Days later, Paul Choate, a 41-year-old Ridgway restaurant owner who admitted to stealing them, said it was indeed the story in the Ouray County Plaindealer that included graphic details of an alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl that led him to take the papers. But there was a twist: he wanted to make clear he was not associated with any of the suspects or with law enforcement.
In a statement to 9NEWS, he said, in part:
My motivation behind this is to bring to light that no details in any victims statements and interviews should be posted without their consent. Specifically, I was appalled by the graphic details reported; I would never want this information to come out about someone I cherish. It was irresponsible to publish this without the consent of the victim and without links to resources.
The Plaindealer’s two owners, Erin McIntyre and Mike Wiggins, released their own statement this week. Here’s part of it:
We need you to know that, prior to publishing the stories on the alleged rape case, we communicated with a person who has been supporting the victim. She agreed to speak with the victim and provide a copy of the affidavit we received to her, and review the details so the victim would not be surprised by what was coming in the paper. We did this before the story was published. We did not hear anything from the victim before the story was published.
They also said Choate has been a frequent critic of the newspaper’s accountability coverage in the past, saying, “Simply put, Paul Choate had a grudge against the Plaindealer before we wrote this story.” Choate himself told Reuben M. Schafir of the Durango Herald that “he has lived in Ouray County since 2001 and has disagreed with several choices made by the paper’s publishers.”
More from the Plaindealer statement:
Paul Choate’s decision to steal the newspapers created a situation where he has caused more harm. As a result, the story he didn’t want people to read in a county of 5,000 has reached a national audience. And the Plaindealer has been dragged into a story it would much rather cover than be a part of.
The publicity brought in at least $6,000 in donations to the Plaindealer from at least 135 people within a matter of days as the story spread nationally, according to the newspaper’s partner Report for America.
On Thursday, the Plaindealer published a column with more transparency about their process for reporting the news — and becoming the news. On the front page, below the fold and under a headline “The local news minefield: tough decisions, lessons learned,” they acknowledged some things they could have done differently.
From the column:
We apologize to the victim in this case for any harm that came from our reporting. We tried to give her advance notice – and gave a copy of the affidavit to a liaison who agreed to share the public document with the victim, so she could be prepared for details to be published in the story before it was printed. We now know that did not happen prior to publication.
From now on, we commit to communicating directly with the victim, to notify her before additional articles are published as we cover this important case. We did not intend to blindside her. We are sorry. In retrospect, we also wish we had provided information on resources and assistance for anyone who may have needed it, and an editor’s note notifying readers that the story contained disturbing details of an alleged sexual assault.
We have also consulted with resources on reporting these kinds of stories from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, and continue to learn more. These are all best practices we are adopting for future stories. We heard you, and we are committed to improving our reporting with greater awareness of the impact descriptions can have, particularly on those who have been victimized.
But they also stuck to their guns about the importance of publishing the story, writing, among other things, “we will not shy away from reporting these difficult, disturbing stories. If they get swept under the rug, nothing ever changes.” Their job, they said, “is to reflect the community. But when we don’t like what we see in the mirror, it’s important to change that reflection. We do that through full and honest reporting, so the community can start to address the real problem.”
On Thursday, I spoke on the radio with KUNC’s Erin O’Toole and Robyn Vincent about a broader context for this story involving small-town journalism. Listen here.
Gorsuch’s ties to a Colorado newspaper owner are under scrutiny amid ‘Chevron’ case
Lately, through investigative reporting, the American public has learned more and more about the ways in which wealthy individuals shower hospitality on some U.S. Supreme Court justices.
The latest media scrutiny is on Justice Neil Gorsuch of Colorado and his ties to Philip Anschutz who owns the Gazette in Colorado Springs and Denver along with the Colorado Politics news organization. The connection comes as the justices take up a case that could involve a longstanding legal doctrine known as “Chevron.” The doctrine essentially means courts should defer to the ways U.S. government agencies reasonably interpret ambiguous statutes.
The Guardian recently reported that the wealthy Colorado newspaper owner has hosted Gorsuch “at a mountain resort called Eagles Nest for weekends of dove shooting” and that Anschutz “stands to benefit from the ruling at hand.”
From the Guardian last week:
Like Gorsuch, 56, Anschutz, 84, is from Colorado. Anschutz has interests in energy, railroads, telecoms, real estate and entertainment, owning the Los Angeles Kings in the NHL, a stake in the Los Angeles Galaxy of MLS and the Coachella music festival. Forbes magazine pegs his fortune at $14.9bn, quoting him thus: “When you see what can be done, the possibilities, you want to be involved in something. You want to own it.”
Anschutz’s ties to Gorsuch are a matter of public record.
In March 2017, as Gorsuch prepared to become the first of three rightwingers installed on the supreme court by Donald Trump, the New York Times ran a report under the headline, Neil Gorsuch Has Web of Ties to Secretive Billionaire.
For 10 years from 1995, Gorsuch worked at a Washington law firm that represented Anschutz. In 2006, a lawyer at another firm wrote to Harriet Myers, White House counsel under George W Bush, to recommend Gorsuch for the 10th circuit court of appeals.
“I am writing at the request of Philip F Anschutz,” the lawyer wrote, adding: “Mr Anschutz spoke with Senator [Wayne] Allard [a Republican senator from Colorado] about Neil Gorsuch, and Senator Allard suggested we pass along Mr Gorsuch’s resume to you.”
In 2017, when reporters for the New York Times documented Gorsuch’s ties to the secretive newspaper owner, they included this line in their story: “When a reporter called Mr. Anschutz’s company and asked for a press officer, a woman who answered said, ‘We do not respond to media requests.’”
Since the Supreme Court now includes three justices appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump it has flexed its ability to reverse longstanding precedents and so-called “settled law” like the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision.
After the investigative journalism powerhouse ProPublica launched a series called “Friends of the Court,” which spotlighted how conservative justice Clarence Thomas and others benefit from the largesse of wealthy benefactors, NPR reported “polls show that Americans of all political stripes are increasingly troubled by the lack of a code of ethics for the high court.”
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
- Denver Post reporter Meg Wingerter published a four-part series that took six months to produce that revealed “alcohol kills nearly as many Coloradans as drug overdoses and that “when counting deaths from chronic conditions caused and worsened by alcohol, drinking’s toll far exceeds that of illicit drugs.” Meanwhile, “Deaths from drinking shot up since 2018, but during that time, Colorado didn’t take steps designed to change that trajectory, like raising alcohol taxes,” she found. “The only major changes in liquor laws during that time expanded where residents could buy alcohol.”
- Denver Gazette reporter David Migoya reported Colorado’s judicial discipline commission has “told legislators it is actively investigating more than 70 cases, in which judges allegedly violated state law by not filing personal financial disclosure documents for public review.” Last year, a Denver Gazette investigation “found one in six sitting judges in Colorado had not filed the disclosures, some of them for several years. It is a misdemeanor to knowingly not file the documents.”
- Alasyn Zimmerman at KOAA in Colorado Springs reported that News5 “is going to court over public records to try and learn more about employees placed on administrative leave at the Colorado Mental Health Hospital in Pueblo.”
- 9NEWS journalists Chris Vanderveen and Chris Hansen investigated the term “excited delirium” and “how some people die while in police custody.” Colorado’s coroners “appear ready to ditch use of a controversial term after one of the leading societies in the field of death investigations ditched use of the term itself,” Vanderveen reported, but it “still remains in past cases.”
- Boulder Reporting Lab produced “Hidden hazard: Boulder’s million-ton coal ash problem has no local watchdog” in which months of reporting into Xcel Energy’s Valmont coal ash site revealed “groundwater contamination with scant oversight from Boulder area officials.” Journalists Tyler Hickman, Gabe Allen, Alyssa Crume, Devin Farmiloe, Por Jaijongkit, and Audrey Wheeler contributed.
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
A plug for the new book “What Works in Community News” by Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy that describes this newsletter you’re reading as a “well-read weekly newsletter on the state’s media scene.”
➡️ The National Association of Black Journalists Region 4 conference will be in Denver April 13 at the Auraria Higher Education Center. The theme is Moving Mountains: Crafting Careers. Registration opens soon, so watch this space.
⌨️ Ryan Restivo, the founder of YESEO, a “free Slack app that saves journalists time and ensures their stories reach a broader audience” and has been installed in more than 350 newsrooms, is looking to connect with newsrooms in Colorado. (I recently met him in a national journalism Slack channel I’m part of.) “I’m offering a free training on Jan. 31 at 10:30 a.m. Mountain Time and people can sign up for that using this link,” he said.
Colorado First Amendment attorney Steve Zansberg, who represents news organizations when governments try to restrict their speech, has written a column arguing government should regulate harmful disinformation. “That’s right,” he said on LinkedIn, “I’m advocating that we punish speech.”
Student journalists at Rangeview High School “revealed a startling alleged social media nightmare that sparked an Aurora Police Department sextortion investigation,” Colette Bordelon reported for Denver7. (Here’s the article from the Rangeview Raider Review.)
Artificial intelligence “introduces new ethical issues to newsgathering,” reported Dan Grossman for Denver7 who spoke with CSU journalism professor Mike Humphrey for the piece.
Sophie Culpepper reported for Harvard’s Nieman Lab how the local news podcast network City Cast “is still expanding three years in.” Coloradans might remember how City Cast Denver was part of the network’s inaugural launch in 2021. Earlier this month, the network’s co-founder, David Plotz, wrote a piece headlined “How Diverse Were City Cast Denver’s Podcast Guests in 2023?” (Spoiler: “We had a higher percentage of Black and Native American guests than the city and metro area, and a slightly lower percentage of white guests than the community. But City Cast Denver had fewer Hispanic guests than you’d expect based on Denver’s population–only 17% compared to 29% for the city.”
❌ In last week’s newsletter I called Rob Reuteman “former editor of the Rocky Mountain News.” I should have written that he was “a” former editor. He served as city editor, business editor, national editor, and state-regional editor, but did not hold the top job.
“If there’s anything we can do to kind of keep the press out of this, that would be great,” (now former) House Minority Leader Mike Lynch said, according to footage obtained by the Colorado Sun from inside of a Colorado State Patrol vehicle during an arrest in September 2022. (Lynch stepped down as leader this week after further scrutiny following the Denver Post’s Nick Coltrain and Seth Klamaan breaking the news of Lynch’s arrest amid his bid for Congress.)
The Denver Gazette introduced its readers to the digital newsroom’s videographer Tom Hellauer for its occasional series, “Meet The Denver Gazette Newsroom.”
Larry Zimmer, the “longtime radio voice for University of Colorado football and basketball who also called Denver Broncos games,” has died at 88, the Associated Press reported. “His voice was synonymous with our athletic program and he was most beloved by our coaches, players and fans,” Colorado athletic director Rick George said in a statement. “He is truly a part of our overall athletic history.”
“After a long and illustrious career of serving the communities of Southern Colorado, Rob Quirk, a pillar of KOAA News5, will be signing off one last time Thursday evening as he heads to retirement from the broadcast news business,” wrote Aidan Hulting and James Gavato for KOAA in the Springs.
Writing in Complete Colorado, the news and commentary arm of the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, Ari Armstrong finds some Colorado journalists he believes “cheerlead government interference.”
Brett Forrest wrapped up his first week on air and first month as a senior reporter for KOAA TV in the Springs. “I’ll be focusing on economic issues for the most part,” he said.
Colorado Public Radio has launched a new segment “showcasing arts happenings in Colorado,” the station announced. Called “CO Arts Spotlight,” it airs three times on Thursdays “and features an accompanying web component. It is hosted by CPR News arts and culture reporter Eden Lane.”
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.