Colorado journalists help push lawmakers to (finally) livestream legislative hearings

The news behind the news in Colorado

Photo by Siarhei Horbach on Unsplash

As lawmakers this week begin their latest legislative session under the gold dome of the Capitol in Denver, interested observers will have an easier way to follow along in real time.

That’s because an open-government group, journalists, and their advocates put pressure on the legislature to finally drag Colorado into the civic digital age. And they succeeded.

Earlier this month, a group of policymakers voted to take Colorado out of the doghouse column among the states when it comes to legislative transparency.

This is from a Jan. 3 story by reporter Marianne Goodland of Colorado Politics:

The executive committee of the legislative council — the six top leaders of the House and Senate — voted 5-1 … to make permanent the video livestreaming of committee hearings, starting in the 2026 legislative session, which begins Jan. 14. …

Colorado was the only state in the nation that didn’t livestream its state legislative committee hearings, according to the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, which has advocated for the change for the past 18 months.

Since then, journalists, news organizations, and others from across the political spectrum have cheered the move.

“The decision means people cannot only listen to the proceedings at the Capitol, as they’ve been able to do, but also watch them and see slide presentations at hearings — as well as human interactions,” wrote Jason Salzman of the nonprofit progressive Colorado Times Recorder digital news site.

The conservative editorial page of the Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs and Denver urged “Colorado’s taxpaying citizenry” to “utilize this long-overdue tool,” saying, “Not only will it shed light on government’s inner workings, it also will remind elected officials just whom they are accountable to.”

If you would like to do that, bookmark this page.

Coloradans have the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition to thank for this new update. The state’s preeminent open-government and transparency nonprofit organization had sent a letter last fall to the Legislative Council urging lawmakers to enable permanent live-streaming.

“Enabling video on the system that provides committee-meeting audio is a cost-efficient way to make the legislature more accessible and more accountable to Coloradans,” the letter read in part. More than two dozen groups, journalists, journalism advocates, and others had signed it.

Reporting about this new development, the CFOIC’s Jeff Roberts wrote that the new system will come with some limitations.

“Viewers should not expect a high-resolution experience with multiple camera angles,” he reported. “Those tuning in online during the pilot could see a wide shot of the committee as well as any slides referenced by speakers. But previously, you would see nothing but an illustration of the state Capitol building under the words ‘Audio Only.’”

Over the phone this week, Roberts said he, too, hopes the new development will get more people engaged in the legislative process.

“It was pretty obvious that the legislature wasn’t going to spend a lot of money on this because they don’t have a lot of money to spend right now, but turning on the cameras in the committee rooms, we think, is a low-cost way to provide the public with more transparency,” he said. “We’re just happy that they decided to do this, and my hope is that one day it could be better quality — more like what the coverage of the floor proceedings is like.”

Last year, as lawmakers considered the change, reporter Chase Woodruff of the nonprofit Colorado Newsline threw some shade at concerns that a video component might add storage costs.

“I don’t even see how that’s true,” he wrote, “since one of my favorite stupid only-in-government things is that the ‘audio-only’ recordings are already stored as enormous mp4 files (because the webcasting platform they use is designed for video).”

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➡️ This newsletter is proudly sponsored by The Colorado Health Foundation. As a proud funder of Colorado Media Project, the home of Press Forward Colorado, the CHF understands that healthy communities need a healthy news ecosystem.

This year, The Colorado Health Foundation will be working to combat disinformation and misinformation, and helping nonprofits build media literacy.

• Our grant funding deadline is Feb. 16. Learn more about our current funding opportunities and identify your interests.

Recently, the Colorado News Collaborative called our annual Pulse Poll a “trove of information useful to reporters.” The Colorado Health Foundation’s Katie Peshek talked to journalists across the state about the poll results, which you can watch here. We also have Pulse Poll slides here, showing how you can use what we found to guide your reporting on topics and bring facts and data to your stories. ⬅️

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‘I’m not going to give up on this newspaper,’ says Saguache Crescent owner

This week, a reporter from Germany was traveling across Colorado from the Eastern Plains to Lake City as he worked on a story about U.S. newspapers disappearing from small rural communities.

If he had taken a minor detour, he might have checked in on the Saguache Crescent, which is either the last or among the last in the world of newspapers produced on a Linotype machine.

A few weeks ago, reporter Bruce Finley profiled the Crescent’s 73-year-old owner, Dean Coombs, for the Denver Post.

Saguache residents say they “couldn’t live without” the newspaper, Finley wrote, adding that Coombs, “who periodically doubles as a plumber for the people he serves, sees no reason to switch to modern digital production and electronic delivery to smartphones.”

More from the piece:

“It’s harder to change than to keep doing the work,” he said. His phone is a landline, upgraded a few years ago from rotary dial, and an old TV plays vintage game shows as he works, often until 9 p.m.

The Crescent remains the paper of record in 3,168-square-mile Saguache County, located in south-central Colorado at the northern end of the San Luis Valley.

It is enduring at a time when other news companies in the valley, and around the nation, are collapsing. Five weekly newspapers here that relied on more modern methods merged last summer into one, the San Luis Valley Journal.

Nationwide, the number of newspapers has decreased by 3,500 since 2005, leaving 5,419, according to the latest State of Local News survey conducted at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Many of the newspapers dying, at the rate of about two per week, are weeklies like the Crescent. The decline leaves one in seven Americans in “news deserts” with limited or no access to local news, typically in low-income rural areas like this. And in 212 U.S. counties, including five in Colorado (Cheyenne, Conejos, Dolores, Lincoln, and Mineral), there’s no local newspaper, the survey found.

• 📝A note on that last part: The Conejos County Citizen still has a website, but the print paper has been rolled up along with several other nearby papers into the Valley Journal. Same with the Mineral County Miner. The Dolores Gazette operates a Facebook page.

Some other nuggets from the Denver Post story:

• “The Crescent’s annual revenues, around $60,000, cannot sustain reporters to investigate murky matters or keep residents up on international news. Instead, Coombs publishes news written by unpaid contributors, along with government notices…”

• “Crescent contributors submit their news stories, sometimes handwritten, through a slot in the front of the building.”

• “Early typesetters worked letter-by-letter, using 15th-century Gutenberg technology. Coombs’ grandparents, Charles and Mary, bought the newspaper in 1917 and relied initially on her hand-setting skills. They bought one of German American inventor Ottmar Mergenthaler’s revolutionary linotype machines in 1920 to speed production. When Coombs was an infant, they tethered his cradle to an arm of the press, letting it rock him as they worked.”

• “Coombs says he’s no journalist. But he recognizes the role of a free press in democracy. ‘I got into this because my father died, not because I was sitting in my dorm room dreaming about Pulitzers,’ he said.”

• “The main costs include newsprint — $6,000 for 120,000 sheets every four years — and mail delivery to 340 subscribers. When the U.S. Postal Service ended its two-century practice of reducing rates for news publications, that weekly bill shot up from $8 to $188, he said. Revenues come from ads, $ 20-a-year subscriptions, single-copy sales (35 cents), and mostly the fees the government pays to publish required legal notices.”

• “I’m not going to give up on this newspaper. I don’t know why. I’m not a person of change.”

There’s so much more in the excellent story, which you can read at the link above.

SPJ Colorado’s 'Top of the Rockies’ award deadline is approaching

Newsrooms in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming should finish preparing applications for the annual Top of the Rockies awards. The contest recognizes some of the best journalism in the region across myriad categories.

Sponsored and managed by the Colorado chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, of which I’m a board member, the contest closes Jan. 26.

• 🏆 Click here for contest rules, categories, and information.

SPJ Colorado will announce the awards in April during the spring reception.

“Entries will be accepted from journalism organizations whose mission is independent coverage of news striving to be fair and balanced without a public relations or activist agenda,” SPJ Colorado Co-President Deborah Brobst said in an announcement. “Disputes about the nature of the organization that enters the contest will be decided by the Contest Committee.”

Colorado’s SPJ chapter is also seeking nominations for individual awards, like Journalist of the Year, Keeper of the Flame, and more.

West Slope district attorney weighs in on reporter attack mistrial clown show

The district attorney in the Grand Junction area offered some public comments after a judge declared a mistrial in the case of a man accused of following a nonwhite local TV reporter for miles in a taxi before tackling and choking him outside of a news station.

The weeklong aborted trial, described as “chaotic” by some local outlets, went entirely off the rails last Friday morning. The judge basically threw up her hands and put the kibosh on the whole thing after she noticed the 40-year-old defendant, Patrick Egan, began acting off in the courtroom. She said she didn’t think he was competent to proceed.

District Attorney Dan Rubinstein told local media he does not recall seeing a similar situation before in Mesa County.

“It is not uncommon for us to have situations where the competency of a defendant is challenged, which is essentially a question about whether or not they understand the nature of the proceedings against them and can assist in their own defense,” Rubinstein said. “I’m just not aware of a time previously where that wasn’t figured out before starting the trial.”

No kidding.

“The doctors are going to determine whether or not the defendant is competent to proceed. If he’s not, they will determine what level of restoration services to restore him to competency that need to be ordered,” KJCT News in Grand Junction reported Rubinstein saying. “If he is competent, they will advise the court that he is competent and able to understand what’s going on in his defense, at which point we will gather together to get the case back on track.”

The victim, a young reporter named Ja’Ronn Alex, whom his news station has referred to as its “former reporter,” said he does not plan to comment until this thing eventually comes to some sort of conclusion.

Upcoming panel discussion: ‘What happens when local news disappears?’

As Rick Goldsmith’s documentary “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink” airs on PBS, organizations in Colorado are hosting screenings and discussion panels. The film focuses a lot on Colorado.

Next week, the League of Women Voters of Colorado is doing one in Denver, in which I plan to participate. From the announcement:

The League of Women Voters of Colorado will host a virtual panel discussion, “Democracy on the Precipice: What Happens When Local News Disappears,” on Tuesday, Jan. 20 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. MT. The event will examine the future of local journalism and its essential role in a healthy democracy and follows the acclaimed documentary Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink.

Presented by the League’s News Access & Literacy Task Force, the panel discussion will serve as a follow-up to the film, which “explores the collapse of local newsrooms across the country and the consequences for civic life when journalism is treated as a financial asset rather than a public good,” the League stated in a news release.

Here’s more:

The panel will feature Colorado journalism leaders, including Corey Hutchins … of the Journalism Institute at Colorado College and author of the newsletter Inside the News in Colorado; Larry Ryckman, co-founder and editor of The Colorado Sun; and Jay Seaton, publisher of The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction and manager of a group of radio stations serving the Grand Valley. The discussion will be moderated by Kay Shaw of the League of Women Voters of Colorado.

The panel discussion is set to explore why local journalism matters to democracy, the risks facing undercovered communities in Colorado, how nonprofit and independent newsrooms are responding, how individuals can find credible, nonpartisan information, and what communities can do to support local news.

Register for it here.

Rural Western Slope town meetings reporter on covering three local governments

Since 2023, Marty Durlin has been covering the municipal governments in three towns on the Western Slope.

“Delta is the largest, at just under 10,000 people,” she wrote in a recent syndicated column for Writers on the Range. “Paonia has a population of 1,500 and Crawford only 400. For all three, the closest big city is Grand Junction, from 40 to 70 miles away.”

Here’s more from her column, which is headlined “What reporting on three city councils teaches me”:

When I first covered local government decades ago, I saw town councils as an opportunity for grandstanding but little else. The position of mayor didn’t seem to matter one way or the other.

But I’ve come to understand that the job of a council member is challenging and important. You don’t just waltz in to say yea or nay. The task demands attention to detail and a grasp of everything from high finance and road repair to solutions for the unhoused. It’s also time-consuming and basically unpaid.

In the column, Durlin reflected on the sometimes tedious nature of the job.

“I may grow impatient in the third hour of a tedious meeting—will it never end?—but the mayors, be it Christian mental health counselor Chris Johnson from Crawford or former environmental regulator Smith from Paonia, remain energized and determined,” she wrote.

Read the column for one reporter’s view on the importance of covering local government, no matter how small the community.

“The least I can do is cover it,” Durlin wrote.

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More Colorado media odds & ends

🆕 Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter, got a brand refresh that director Kimberly Spencer hopes will better distinguish its role in the state’s media ecosystem. “The new site serves the distinct needs of both our local ecosystem partners and our funding partners,” she wrote on LinkedIn.

🎊 Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis “and the other living Colorado governors have selected Laura Frank, COLab’s founding executive director, to receive the Governor’s Citizenship Medal for Public Service — the state’s highest honor for civic leadership and service,” the Colorado News Collaborative announced this week. “The most exciting thing is they recognize journalism as a public service,” Frank said about the honor.

🤔 A Jan. 1 FCC filing appears to show KSUN community radio in Parachute applying for a cancellation with the federal broadcast regulator’s Licensing and Management System. (I reached out to the station last week, but haven’t heard back. I also haven’t seen any local coverage about it in case someone wants to follow up.)

🎙️ Tonight (Friday, Jan. 16) at 6:30 p.m. at the Denver Press Club, Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner will be doing a live interview of Colorado journalist and author Josiah Hesse about his new book “On Fire For God: Fear, Shame and Poverty In The Christian Right — A Personal History.” The interview will later air on Colorado Matters.

🆕 The Denver VOICE announced it has appointed David Giles Clasen as the organization’s new executive director. Founded in 1996, Denver VOICE is a nonprofit news source that serves “individuals experiencing housing or financial instability by providing low-barrier income opportunities. Since its inception, Denver VOICE has put more than 4,600 vendors to work selling the paper throughout the Denver metro area.”

🪴 This week, 9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark responded to one viewer’s feedback that his station “work on replacing commie Kyle Clark with a plastic ficus tree” by showing what that would look like if it actually happened.

👎 The Washington Post followed up this week on the excellent reporting by Elizabeth Hernandez for the Denver Post about the CU student newspaper getting taken over by “AI slop,” but sadly didn’t credit her or the Post. (The story also made NewsNation, which did credit the Post. NewsGuard’s Reality Check also flagged the Post story this week.)

🌈 The Holyoke Enterprise newspaper is now printing in full color for the first time. “This has been a long-time goal, and we’re proud to bring you brighter photos, more vibrant pages, and an even better way to tell the stories of our community,” the paper stated. “Thank you to our readers, advertisers, and supporters who make progress like this possible.”

📸 Gov. Jared Polis declared Jan. 7, 2025 “Tony Kovaleski Day” in honor of a retiring investigative journalist in Colorado. Polis ambushed the reporter on film and did a little skit as if he were a journalist seeking comment from an unwilling source.

🎙️ Andrea Chalfin of KRCC interviewed Matthew Schniper, the founder of the successful Substack newsletter “Side Dish With Schniper,” in what the station called an “introductory conversation” for what it pegged as a monthly installment. The development is an example of local legacy media partnering with a local independent journalist as some MSM outlets begin to understand the traction that entrepreneurial content creators are gaining with audiences in their communities.

📺 Drew Carney is the new anchor for 9NEWS Mornings in Denver. “Before moving to Colorado, Drew anchored the morning news for our sister station in Portland, Oregon,” the station stated. “Drew also earned a reputation as the area’s go-to event emcee, helping raise millions of dollars for local non-profits and Children’s Hospitals.” As an Eagles fan, he said on air that it might get weird for him if they wind up in the Super Bowl against the Broncos, but he’s “totally on board with this Broncos Crush.”

🔎 Pueblo Star Journal reporter Molly Cotner is one of two recipients of the 2025 Investigative and Reporters Freelance Fellowship. “Her current work includes an in-depth examination of the childcare crisis in the region, exploring how public policy decisions, labor conditions, and barriers to access intersect with Pueblo’s cultural attributes and ways of life.”

🎥 Tami Graham of KSUT spoke with Colorado-based filmmaker Brian Malone about his recent film, Truth Be Told, “a documentary that explores the vital role of local journalism in sustaining informed communities and a healthy democracy.”

🔓 SoCo Insider in Colorado Springs stated on social media that it has “begun the process of downloading and extracting ALL the digital archives” for the former Colorado Springs Indy alt-weekly and Colorado Springs Business Journal.

⚙️JOBS: The nonprofit Colorado Sun statewide digital newsroom is looking for a public policy editor and will pay $90,000 to $105,000 for the position. Aspen Public Radio wants a Women’s Desk Reporter and will pay $65,000.

I’m Corey Hutchins, manager of the Colorado College Journalism Institute, advisor to Colorado Media Project, and a board member of the state Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For nearly a decade, I reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations. Most recently, I’ve been contributing to Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab and The Conversation. The nonprofit 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.