A Colorado newspaper publisher 'got obliterated' on Election Night

The news behind the news in Colorado

Smashed. Hammered. Completely wrecked.

That was the state in which the publisher of a small rural newspaper found himself by 11 p.m. on Election Night — in full view of thousands of people.

But, no, it wasn’t the effects of boozy beverages for Jordan Hedberg, 37, who owns and runs the weekly Wet Mountain Tribune in the small southern Colorado town of Westcliffe.

“I did not just lose this election,” he said on social media shortly before midnight on Tuesday. “I got obliterated against a candidate who ran no campaign other than being GOP.”

Indeed, Hedberg got shellacked. Pounded. Totally tanked. At least at the polls, anyway.

Turns out, the local newspaper publisher had made an unconventional decision to run for the board of Custer County commission. And as an unaffiliated candidate, no less.

The whole idea was an “experiment,” Hedberg said over the phone Wednesday.

West of Pueblo and shaped like the tip of a house key, Custer County, with a population of about 5,500, encompasses the towns of Westcliffe and Silver Cliff. It’s in an area of southern Colorado known as the Wet Mountain Valley and has been served by the Wet Mountain Tribune newspaper since 1883. 

After months of covering wacky county politics and election-denying antics there, Hedberg, who grew up in the valley, said he had reached his wit’s end. And, notably, he felt he might have experienced the limits of local journalism since he purchased the paper in 2018.

For years, Hedberg said he has used his newspaper as a vehicle to try and get at the truth. (He made headlines in the swing of the COVID-19 pandemic for muckraking he did about the qualifications of his county’s health director — against whom he had also filed an ethics complaint). He has also used the court system by suing a rival newspaper publisher for defamation and getting involved in court actions with the county sheriff and district attorney.

This time, he chose politics as a method. “I didn’t ever really want to do it,” he told me. “I like being the newspaper guy.”

But the publisher, who also manages grass-fed beef cattle, wanted to see what might happen if he ran what he described as a low-key campaign as an unaffiliated candidate with nuanced positions. He didn’t accept campaign contributions, and for campaign material he published an eight-page public policy proposal centered on growth and local commerce. He pledged not to use his newspaper as a political platform during the campaign, or if he won.

“Neither one of us was doing a big rah-rah campaign,” Hedberg said.

His opponent was a 48-year-old Custer County transplant named Lucas Epp who has run for board of commissioners as a Republican before.

In a phone conversation this week, Epp acknowledged that neither candidate had run a highly publicized race. And he told me he thinks Hedberg is probably right about many voters simply casting a ballot “down on Republican lines.” He even said the two of them agree on a lot of things.

“I thought it would be closer actually,” Epp said about the lopsided results. (Donald Trump carried Custer County with about 67% of the vote — about the same percentage that Epp beat Hedberg.)

Whatever the result, there was also some local context and history at play.

Hedberg has been involved in a longstanding newspaper feud with the rival right-wing Sangre de Cristo Sentinel, an activist-run partisan weekly print publication that sports a “Trump Won” sign on the lawn of its downtown Westcliffe office in reference to the 2020 election.

Hedberg has said publicly he voted twice for Trump and has called himself a conservative, but the Sentinel has painted him as a liberal and the Tribune as reflecting that sentiment.

Earlier this year, when the publishers of the two papers settled a defamation lawsuit after Hedberg sued the Sentinel publisher for libel, the Denver Post wondered if there might be a “truce” in the newspaper war. (This newsletter reported we’d “believe it when we see it.”) Hedberg said last week he has filed another similar lawsuit against the Sentinel’s publisher.

• 📚 A quick aside: If you’re interested in the political winds of Westcliffe, including the local newspaper war, you might consider reading a compelling and well-written three-volume modern history of the area by Kevin Rhodes called “12 Years in the Valley.” I just started reading the third volume, titled “The Reality Divide,” which Rhodes recently sent me, and I’m hooked.

As for Hedberg’s doomed political experiment and what his newspaper readers might think now that he has dabbled in the role of a local politician, he said he hopes they understand his motives. He doesn’t believe journalists should be activists, he said, and he doesn’t really see himself as one despite his name being on the ballot this week.

His role, he said, continues to be: “How do I get at the truth?”

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Come hear Colorado journalists talk in public about covering the 2024 statewide election

Ten years ago this week, I wrote a story for Columbia Journalism Review about what Colorado political reporters learned from the 2014 Midterm elections.

The piece focused on a panel of five journalists and what they told an audience after Election Day at the University of Colorado in Denver.

Reading it today is quite something. Some of the reporters from the panel are long gone — either from Colorado or from journalism altogether. And the lede describes Colorado as “America’s favorite swing state.” Remember when, right?

What strikes me about it now is how frank the journalists were — about their frustrations with the modern political campaign style and about the limitations or failures of their own reporting.

I was an audience member and chronicler of that decade-old post-election journalist discussion, but this week I get to moderate one on behalf of the Society of Professional Journalists Colorado Pro chapter.

From the announcement:

What: A diverse panel of reporters or editors specifically from newsrooms who participated in the statewide Voter Voices initiative offering a sense-making autopsy, lessons learned, behind-the-scenes notebook dumps, and more.

Come watch and participate on Thursday, Nov. 14 at the COLab space in the Buell Public Media Center at 6 p.m. in downtown Denver. There will be time for an audience Q-and-A, of course. (Usually the best part.)

On the panel will be COLab’s Tina Griego, Michael De Yoanna (formerly of Colorado Community Media, now the Mountain West News Bureau managing editor), Quentin Young, editor of the digital nonprofit Colorado Newsline, and Elliott Wenzler (she covers a string of mountain towns for the Swift newspaper brand).

We’ll talk about how this campaign season’s unprecedented Voter Voices initiative panned out, lessons learned from it, campaign trail coverage war stories, and some forward-looking expectations about future coverage.

New Estes Valley Voice startup sues local fire district over Sunshine Laws

Roughly three months after launching as a new digital startup newsroom, the Estes Valley Voice is taking on a local government in court.

At issue is whether the Estes Valley Fire Protection District Board of Directors violated Colorado’s open-government laws related to public meetings.

From the Voice:

At the heart of the lawsuit is the Voice’s claim that the board’s decision to hire Fire Chief Paul Capo was made in a closed session, violating Colorado’s Open Records Act and Open Meetings Law – laws designed to ensure government transparency and accountability. The Voice filed the lawsuit in Larimer County District Court to enforce open-government practices in the EVFPD’s decision-making.

The EVFPD, a special district under Colorado law, provides fire protection and emergency services to Estes Park and surrounding unincorporated areas. Governed by a board responsible for significant policy decisions, including the selection of a fire chief, the EVFPD relies on local taxes for its funding. The Estes Valley Voice claims the board breached both CORA and COML by finalizing Capo’s hiring in an executive session on Oct. 9 without public involvement. …

The Voice’s lawsuit hinges on a set of statutes known as Colorado’s Sunshine Laws, which aim to prevent public bodies from [making] policy decisions in private. Over the years, the Colorado Supreme Court has held that these laws require public entities to set public policy, including personnel decisions with broad impact, in open sessions.

“This isn’t about who was chosen,” Voice Editor and Publisher Patti Brown said in a statement. “The Estes Valley Voice believes the public’s business needs to be done in public. That’s why we have the Colorado Open Records Act, to protect the public’s business.”

Renowned Colorado First Amendment Attorney Steve Zansberg is representing the Voice.

“The public has a statutory right to review the portions of an executive session recording during which a public body discussed matters or made decisions that they are prohibited from doing,” he said in a statement.

‘We need to stop fighting each other’: What a new Capitol News Alliance will do with CPB money

You read in this newsletter a few weeks ago how nearly $400,000 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is going to help a collaboration among KUNC, Rocky Mountain Community Radio, Colorado Sun, Rocky Mountain PBS, and Colorado Public Radio to form a “Colorado Capitol News Alliance.”

This week, more information came in about what those outlets will specifically do with the money.

Austin Fuller at Current, a publication that covers public broadcasting, reported how news organizations across the country that earned CPB grants are planning to use them — and he checked in with the Colorado cohort.

From Current:

The $379,048 grant supports the costs of an editor/producer who will coordinate the alliance’s work, said Michael Arnold, chief audience and content officer at KUNC. CPB will fully fund the position in the first year and pay for half of it in the second year. 

The grant also covers half the costs of a Capitol reporter for the first year, Arnold said. 

The work of both journalists will be shared with the alliance, and KUNC will collaborate on coverage with the other members’ reporters, Arnold said.

CPB’s money also backs seven projects to be produced with Rocky Mountain PBS, such as coverage that could benefit from video storytelling, Arnold said. Ideas under discussion have included explainers that would help Colorado residents better understand state government. 

“KUNC and Rocky Mountain PBS have collaborated on smaller projects in the past and have long wanted to expand our partnership,” Arnold said. “With this grant, we finally have the resources to make that possible.”

In addition, Colorado Public Radio’s podcast on state government, Purplish, will expand production from periodic seasons to weekly, according to Kevin Dale, executive editor at CPR News. 

The podcast will hire a new producer and its episodes will be available to all the stations in the alliance. CPB will pay for half the costs of the new producer for two years. 

“We hope that the sharing of content and resources among the partner organizations will extend our collective reach and impact,” Dale said in an email. “We are looking forward to collaborating with other organizations to strengthen the overall coverage of the State Legislature. The combination of reporters and editors will allow us to get to more urgent stories while also growing our enterprise reporting.”

For Arnold, it’s also significant that the alliance brings together longtime competitors. Two decades ago, Colorado Public Radio attempted to buy KUNC, then a friends group raised $2 million to acquire the license itself. 

“It’s a great example of showing where public media needs to go,” KUNC’s Arnold said in the story. “We need to stop fighting each other.”

Nonprofit Crestone Eagle paper gets a new board, ‘may live to soar another day’

Two weeks after the Crestone Eagle monthly newspaper in the San Luis Valley announced it would cease operations “at least temporarily, perhaps for good,” it now says it “may live to soar another day.”

Following the resignation of Managing Editor Mathew Lit, the nonprofit Crestone Eagle Community Media has a new board of directors.

From the Eagle’s Nov. 5 announcement on Facebook:

An entirely new board has been appointed to guide Crestone Eagle Community Media (CECM). Kizzen Laki, Nick Nevares, Lilli Valdez, Christopher Ryan and Anya Kaats were appointed, Monday, Nov. 4, followed by the resignation of remaining members from the previous board.

Significant organizational restructuring will be required to get CECM back on its feet, but we are motivated to find solutions. We will be counting on support from our community.

The Eagle plans to have a new issue out before Thanksgiving.

That issue, the Facebook post read, “will include a comprehensive and transparent news story of where we are, how we got here and our plan for the future.”

Lit said via email that he’s been asked to come back as editor. “I want to see what plans the new board presents,” he said.

Denver Women’s Press Club home celebrates 100 years

Since 1924, journalists, writers, poets, and creators have gathered at a specific house in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Kirsten Dahl Collins wrote about the house’s 100-year anniversary and the Denver Women’s Press Club for the publication Life on Capitol Hill.

From the story:

No one’s sure if the Denver Woman’s Press Club (DWPC) in Capitol Hill is haunted. But if it is, the ghosts might include flamboyant reporter and gossip columnist Polly Pry, celebrated etching artist George Elbert Burr and various 1920s society women who loved to dress up as flamenco dancers, harem ladies and French monarchs. 

DWPC recently celebrated 100 years in its historic home, where journalists, novelists, playwrights and poets have been gathering since it was first purchased in 1924. Once a famous artist’s studio, the 1910 brick building now sits in a parking lot at 1325 Logan St. 

It dates from an era when female journalists had no place to meet. The Denver Press Club, founded in 1867, did not admit women until the mid-1960s. For years, DWPC meetings rotated among the homes of wealthy patrons.

Read plenty more entertaining details about it here.

Youth Documentary Academy holds World Premiere in Colorado Springs Nov. 16

From “immigration and body image, to faith and family, from homelessness and namesakes to memory and motherhood,” local student filmmakers will screen their documentaries next week.

The World Premiere of the impactful and important Youth Documentary Academy takes place Nov. 16 in downtown Colorado Springs.

Here’s more about what YDA does:

The Youth Documentary Academy provides intensive media and documentary film training to high school students in under-served  and under-represented communities of Colorado Springs. For ten weeks, students between the ages of 14 and 18 learn all aspects of documentary filmmaking from pre-production, shooting, editing and distribution.

Students also learn how to mentor younger students. In addition to developing technical proficiency in digital media through lectures, exercises and workshops, students also direct and produce their own documentaries, learning how to locate themes from their lived experiences and transpose those personal and family narratives into documentary films. Students spend an additional year learning how to distribute their films to local schools, libraries, film festivals, and public television. They also help organize community screenings and engage with the public through traditional and social media. 

Now you know why Youth Documentary Academy’s tagline is “Locally Produced. Nationally Acclaimed.”

This year, YDA will screen 13 new local-student-made films across two screening blocks. Watch more about this year’s program in the video below:

The event proudly counts the Colorado College Journalism Institute, which I oversee, as a sponsor. Tickets are on sale here.

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➡️ 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. ⬅️

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More Colorado media odds & ends

🔎 The deadline for a $10,000 grant to support an investigative or accountability project, offered by Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter, is approaching on Dec. 2. The purpose is 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.” Learn more here.

📍 Regardless of what you think of the results, we can be proud that a Colorado College grad helped create the Associated Press’s Election Results page as a data visualization engineer. Congrats Shelly Cheng.

📰 The nonprofit Pikes Peak Bulletin based in Manitou Springs will now start covering the downtown Colorado Springs area. “We see a thirst for a weekly community newspaper that covers Colorado Springs,” the paper’s publisher, Lyn Ettinger-Harwell, and editor, Heila Ershadi, wrote. Former Gazette reporter Abbey Soukup joined the Bulletin to help.

🥃 Hunter S. Thompson is still informing and framing coverage of Aspen-area issues 30 years later. And about growth and an airport, no less.

🤖 Ben Trollinger, editor of the Independent bi-weekly newspaper in Colorado Springs, wrote in a column that the publication “recently started using detection software” to determine if stories are generated by humans or by artificial intelligence. “In homage to Alan Turing’s famous thought experiment, I call it the Turd Test,” he wrote. “And, unfortunately, we’ve caught a few of them floating in our little journalism punch bowl. (I won’t go into details there, but we were recently able to prevent this kind of digital wastewater from weaseling its way into the paper.)”

📺 Brett Forrest of KOAA in Colorado Springs has switched from mornings to the weekend anchor shift. “It’s still the same job. Still the same title,” he said. “Just a different shift.”

👀 Vic Vela, who was messily fired from Colorado Public Radio, recently lost another job from New Mexico PBS following a drug relapse, he publicly said. This week, he said he is relaunching his award-winning recovery podcast “Back from Broken” and pledged to continue shining “a light on addiction and mental health issues, on the show and in speaking engagements.” He also said: “And then I’m gonna run for office— and I’m gonna win.”

🗣 “I dream of the day when news stations have a sizable minority of reporters who see the world along the liberty-versus-coercion spectrum,” Jon Caldara, president of the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, wrote in a column this week. He added: “Trust in media could be restored (I’m glad the Gazette is a leader in this restoration).”

⚙️ Eric Silva said he is leaving Colorado Public Radio as its student development program manager for Denver Health where he’ll do organizational development.

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, both of which I sometimes write about here. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter hit me up.) Reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.