Colorado newspaper asks local government for $350K to publish 'good news'

The news behind the news in Colorado

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Should a county government pay upwards of $350,000 to a local newspaper publisher to help the county spread “good news?”

That’s a question commissioners in conservative Douglas County just south of Denver were set to debate on Tuesday. They had received a proposal about it from Castle Pines Connection Publisher Terri Wiebold.

But at the last minute, the county leaders decided not to discuss it.

The decision followed local Colorado Community Media newspaper reporter Haley Lena “submitting several questions about the proposal,” Lena wrote this week. She added that a former commissioner, Lora Thomas, had also criticized the proposal in an online newsletter.

The development is notable because it involves public money intersecting with local journalism in an unusual way. And Wiebold, the newspaper publisher, told me over email this week that it was the county that actually came to her with the idea.

“When they approached me about potentially sharing our brand of good news and making a positive impact on more residents in Douglas County, I put together some ideas and numbers to explore those potentials,” she said.

There is some precedent for newspapers accepting money from local governments to operate. A decade ago, a City Hall in Wisconsin bailed out a flagging local newspaper and brought it back to life. A city council in North Carolina once moved to financially support a local paper in its community, too.

Here in Colorado in 2019, a group of locals unsuccessfully sought to create a “tax-funded, library-governed local news operation” in Longmont. And there is an ongoing push by Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter, to explore options for more public support for local news across the state.

One important element of journalism that sets it apart from other forms of communication, like public relations and advertising, is independence. How news organizations might retain editorial guardrails when they rely on public funding — or any funding — is a serious question they ought to consider and be transparent about.

At issue for this particular paper in Douglas County was a move that would likely be, shall we say, controversial in some journalism circles.

Here’s part of the official proposal the local newspaper publisher sent the county:

The Connection proposes a partnership with Douglas County to enhance the reach of County communications through our established legacy print publication with reliable and proven relationships and networks. The goal is to impact lives in positive and meaningful ways, building a stronger, happier and more informed and engaged Douglas County.

This partnership offers the County a cost-effective path to amplify County messaging and engage beyond digital and social media platforms without the need for additional County-operated staffing and distribution infrastructure. It also co-brands the County alongside compelling human-interest storytelling and quality journalism––all while fostering a sense of trust and belonging, improving mental health through community connection and a little good news.

The proposal dinged the county’s current communications strategy for not serving all communities, and Wiebold said the print medium is a particular limitation. The proposal boasts that the government could use the newspaper in part because “our longevity isn’t just about news—it’s about trust.”

For this “partnership,” the county would pay the newspaper between $175,000 to $350,000, Wiebold said. (She said a figure of $489,000 that appeared in the proposal was a calculation error.)

Here’s more about the proposal from CCM reporter Lena in the Castle Rock News-Press:

The proposal also outlines how the publication and the county would move forward if the commissioners approved the partnership.

This includes a promise that the publication would dedicate an editor to work with county communications staff on story creation ideas, feature three to five human-interest stories a month, “call out” one or two Older Adult Resource Guide services, and have a “Doers of Douglas County” column that would highlight a county employee, service or department.

The proposal said the Connection reassures readers that “Douglas County is good.”

In an email, Wiebold said she appreciates a distinction between journalism, public relations and advertising and “couldn’t agree more” about the importance of independence.

She said the paper’s focus has always been on its readers and not those who financially support it, and editorial guardrails are important regardless of funding. She added that she thought about that as she considered any kind of partnership with the county.

“There are news organizations serving Douglas County that excel in ‘investigative reporting,’ while The Connection’s nearly two decades of reader loyalty supports our belief that people like to receive good news — and sharing that positive news with integrity and independence from outside influence has been paramount to our longevity and success,” the publisher said.

To what extent that would be the case when directly funded by the county government is an open question. Whether it will eventually happen is another.

Asked when commissioners might take up the idea again following their canceled discussion, county spokesperson Caroline Frizell told me in an email, “I’m not sure if or when they will for this specific proposal.”

Regardless, Wiebold said it’s her hope that she has started a conversation “about the important role print publications play in connecting with all residents in Douglas County.”

When I reached out this week to Frizell about the proposal, she passed along a quote from the county commission’s chairman, Abe Laydon.

The county commissioner said he feels making decisions these days is not the greatest challenge when it comes to public service, but rather it’s “making sure the truth about those decisions actually reaches the people we serve.”

The public official bemoaned what he called a “rise of sensationalism and activist-driven reporting” that has distorted truth. He said the county would continue to support all journalism that “operates with integrity and respect for the truth,” regardless of ideology.

“We believe our residents deserve accurate, fact-based information—not tabloid-style clickbait or political vendettas dressed up as journalism,” Laydon, who is an attorney from Lone Tree, said. “That’s why we’ve been exploring ways to improve how we communicate directly with our citizens, transparently and without spin.”

It should go without saying that a local government is likely not always going to provide information to the public without spin.

That’s precisely why local independent professional news outlets are so important in the first place.

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How a Springs TV station is using AI to convert on-air stories for the Web

Readers of the Scripps-owned KOAA News5 TV station in Colorado Springs have started seeing this disclosure at the end of some stories posted online:

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

This newsletter has been seeking to keep track of the ways Colorado news organizations are using artificial intelligence. In that spirit, I reached out to KOAA’s general manager, Ross White, about how this works.

The company Scripps, which owns KOAA, has a dedicated internal team responsible for developing and managing its AI tools, Ross said. He added that its newsrooms use AI “strictly to assist and enhance our journalistic workflow.”

Converting broadcasts to a digital story is one way. An AI tool, part of a platform called Engine Room, converts a story originally written and scripted for air to the Web for readability using “a pre-prompted internal application.”

The tool is designed to strip out TV production cues, check for grammar, and optimize readability, White said, without adding any new facts beyond what was originally reported by the journalist for air.

“More broadly, we also use AI to assist with versioning content between digital and broadcast formats, generating metadata, providing initial compliance reviews, supporting story ideation and pitch refinement, and summarizing documents,” he added.

One best practice for newsroom AI use is that humans must have final review before publication.

“All AI-generated outputs are subject to human review, fact-checking, and verification before publication,” White, who described his newsroom’s approach to AI as “deliberate and thoughtful,” said. “We are committed to full disclosure in all public-facing AI applications, ensuring our audiences are informed whenever AI has played a role in our content creation process.”

One local TV reporter told me that writing styles for local broadcast and for Web articles are, or should be, different.

The reporter’s advice to journalists whose work is going through AI conversions like KOAA’s is to make sure they are personally comfortable with the outcome. They should be prepared to re-write an online story if the conversion doesn’t fit their standards — especially if an AI disclosure will appear under their byline.

Denver Post faces backlash for unmasking anonymous DoBetterDNVR contributors

The Denver Post this week is getting pushback from some online, in print, and on conservative talk radio for a story that has made waves.

Reporter Shelly Bradbury published on Aug. 1 a piece headlined “Who is DoBetterDNVR? Meet 3 women feeding information to Denver’s loudest social media critic.”

Despite sometimes posting in the first person, the anonymously run DoBetterDNVR account on Twitter/X and Instagram refers to itself as a “collective” and a “citizen journalist” with thousands of contributors.

If you’re not familiar with it, here’s how Bradbury described DoBetterDNVR in her story:

Critics say it relied on shock and conspiracy to steadily build its platform to more than 144,000 followers across Instagram and X.

There’s a video of a man with his pants around his knees, twerking in his underwear at a bus stop. People who appear to be homeless sitting by a fire. Needles. Blood on the pavement. Fistfights. Surveillance footage with the sound of gunshots. A man holding a cardboard sign. A rat running down the street. People who appear to be high, or unconscious, or overdosing.

The content, which DoBetterDNVR says is crowdsourced, is often set to music and accompanied by the account’s commentary.

And here’s why the newspaper sought to find out who is behind it:

DoBetterDNVR is a household name in some Denver circles and has grown to a point where it impacts city politics, drawing the attention of Denver officials and prompting at least one city investigation. The posts are often inflammatory, and the information presented is sometimes false, with tidbits of fact mixed with rumor, speculation and misinformation, The Denver Post found.

The Post investigated the people behind the account because of its growing influence and the misinformation it spreads.

To offer a sense of DoBetterDNVR’s tone, here’s another excerpt from the story:

In a March post with more than 10,000 views, DoBetterDNVR compared a photo of Courtney Johnston, the mayor’s wife, to a picture of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional character Gollum, with the comment that she was “lookin’ a lil rough today.”

Courtney Johnston is a chief deputy district attorney in the Denver DA’s office.

The Denver Post story might not have fully answered the question of “Who is DoBetterDNVR?” The identity of the person who actually administers the account might still be a mystery.

The well-trafficked and polarizing account has become a cause célèbre for some conservatives and a thorn in the side of the city’s liberal mayor, Mike Johnston.

The Post was, however, able to tie three women to previous posts. One is a local teacher, another now lives in Arizona, and the other is a former Colorado Coalition for the Homeless employee who currently lives in New Mexico.

The Denver Post reporter linked the women to the site by learning they had used their real names to file open records requests with city agencies. One of the women’s first names is Jill, and another is Alexandra.

The newspaper’s reporting is not the first time someone has linked DoBetterDNVR to people with those names.

Notably, last July, Courtney Johnston, the mayor’s wife, had publicly tangled on Twitter/X with DoBetterDNVR over one of its posts about a suspect in an alleged arson and why he was out on bond. In response to a DoBetterDNVR post about a court hearing, Johnston wrote, “if you have the stones Jill/Alex, then go ahead and request the transcript or court minutes.” DoBetterDNVR replied, “are you now trying to dox me?”

While the Denver Post linked to that exchange, the paper didn’t make a point that Johnston had publicly tied a Jill and Alex to the site a year before the paper identified people with those names as having an affiliation with it. (The Post used their full names in the story.)

Days after the story came out, of the women publicly responded on social media with her side of the story and shared an email she sent to the newspaper’s editor prior to publication.

‘Partial public figures’ and a ‘doxing’ debate

Even before the story came out, the Post’s reporting drew swift and potent backlash.

The account posted about the upcoming coverage and accused the paper of preparing to “dox” some contributors linked to the account. That’s a term with a definition that has expanded for some, including Elon Musk who has used it to describe critical reporting about government employees.

One of the women Bradbury planned to unmask also told the reporter that she felt doing so constituted doxing. She and another of the three said threats to DoBetterDNVR were a reason why the paper shouldn’t publish their names.

Here’s an excerpt of the Post story that examines that and cites Pat Ferrucci, who is chair of the Department of Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Ferrucci, the journalism professor, dismissed both criticisms. DoBetterDNVR’s actions have turned the people behind it into partial public figures, he said, and receiving threats is an expected part of being a journalist. (He once received a dead bird in the mail, he said.)

“You are putting yourself out there,” he said. “This is what journalists do every day.”

Bradbury reported that the three women “stand out” because of their involvement in the account since its early days in 2023, “their connections to each other, and because they did not just send a single video or photo to the account but pursued information through open records requests.”

All three of them went on record with the newspaper.

“In response to inquiries from the Post, the three women each insisted they were not the main administrator of DoBetterDNVR and acknowledged only that they contributed information to the account,” Bradbury reported.

A local LibsOfTikTok

This local reporting and its backlash echo a national story in 2022.

Taylor Lorenz, then a Washington Post tech and culture columnist, unmasked the identity of the woman behind a Twitter account called LibsOfTikTok that was popular with conservatives and hosts of the FOX cable TV channel.

In her piece, Lorenz described the then-anonymous account as a “steady stream of TikTok videos and social media posts, primarily from LGBTQ+ people, often including incendiary framing designed to generate outrage.” She wrote that the account was “directly impacting legislation.”

Following the story, the account and its supporters, including high-profile politicians, accused Lorenz of doxing the creator.

As Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote for the Atlantic magazine in 2022, the term “comes out of early-internet hacker circles and generally refers to the uncovering and deliberate weaponization of private, personal information.” But now, the term “expresses an emotion” and has essentially morphed into meaning “whatever you want it to.”

Similar to the Lorenz-LibsOfTikTok story, fans of DoBetterDNVR have focused more on the account contributors’ rights to privacy rather than on those featured in the account’s photos and videos.

Bradbury even found a woman whom the account had featured who said she was later recognized at a grocery store. The Post story ends with the woman saying about those behind the account, “Don’t dish out what you can’t take.”

For her part, Bradbury of the Denver Post, who has been there since 2019, has found herself on the end of her own uncomfortable messages. By Friday, a Twitter/X post she linked to her story had nearly 800 comments, the vast majority of them negative or unkind.

One of them read: “Does your job offer security detail or is that just a risk you take?”

Coverage highlights difference between Denver Post and Gazette

Controversy around the DoBetterDNVR account also illuminated the different ways in which the Denver Post and the Gazette handled the unfolding story.

Beyond the Post’s news reporting, the paper’s resident conservative opinion columnist, Krista Kafer, wrote, “rather than criticize a journalist for doing her job, DoBetterDNVR needs to do better.” This “isn’t doxing and DoBetterDNVR and its backers know it,” she added.

While the Denver Post drew ire from DoBetterDNVR and its supporters, its rival, which launched the digital Denver Gazette as a direct competitor to the Post, was more sympathetic. The outlet likely seeks to court conservative audiences around the city.

Following the Post’s reporting, the Gazette’s executive editor, Vince Bzdek, wrote a Sunday column about what he called the “DoBetterDNVR dustup.”

From the column:

There is inevitably a political component to this. The platform sharply criticizes Denver’s Democratic political leaders for not doing more to eliminate homelessness and crime, and its contributors tend to lean right.

A commentator on the progressive-leaning City Cast Denver podcast described DoBetterDNVR this way: “The voice of the conservative suburbs. The id of the conservative suburbs.” Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl is a big supporter, as are other high-profile conservatives.

I would argue that is not a bad thing in a town and a state led almost exclusively by liberals. Counter voices of accountability and skepticism are as necessary to the functioning of a Republic as fresh gusts of air are to lungs.

Bzdek said he’d like to see the account admit when it gets things wrong and said he believes the account, despite its anonymity, was taking “a solid first step towards ethical standards” with a statement it released this week about its goals.

“What would be really cool is if DoBetterDVR morphed itself into a professional journalism site, I think, maybe even adding some editors,” Bzdek concluded. “The immediacy and real-time reporting of what they do is a welcome addition to the current conversation on homelessness and crime in our state, and such sites might be able to fill in the gaps where professional journalism has been cut back.”

The Denver Post and Gazette also differed starkly in how they chose to handle an interview offered by someone who says they run the DoBetterDNVR account.

The Post declined an interview offer and explained why this way in the Bradbury story:

The Post on Monday spoke to an anonymous caller who claimed to be the administrator of the DoBetterDNVR accounts, but the person refused to identify themselves. The Post was unable to confirm the caller’s claimed role in the account.

The Post’s policy on using anonymous sources requires the reporter to know the person’s identity even if the person’s name is not published. Additionally, The Post declined to grant anonymity to the caller, who then refused to do an interview in which they would be named.

The Gazette chose a completely different route.

On Wednesday, the paper published an interview with someone who said she is the administrator of DoBetterDNVR.

The interview didn’t come from the paper’s news section, but rather from a regular opinion columnist named Jimmy Sengenberger.

From the column:

The admin, who shared her identity with me, requested anonymity for fear of professional reprisals and personal safety. Posting publicly available criminal records and spotlighting gangs like Tren de Aragua has brought her death threats — sometimes from criminals or their families. I’m respecting the request. The Denver Post didn’t.

The alleged account runner, who Sengenberger described as “a Denver resident with a different paid job,” told him she is trying to tell a story about the “decay” of Denver through photos and videos sent by contributors.

Sengenberger said on a conservative radio show that he was able to confirm her identity as someone who has run the account for the past two years. (Readers and viewers might wonder what that paid job is, among other aspects of her identity, to weigh credibility, motivations, or other factors.)

The Gazette columnist defended the anonymous account against the Denver Post’s coverage. He opined that he believed it “isn’t straight-news journalism,” but a “witch hunt — a pre-baked narrative, bolstered by handpicked journalism ‘experts,’ to justify the article itself.” He wrote that he believed the paper did dox the account’s contributors.

About one line in the Gazette piece, Colorado Newsline reporter Chase Woodruff wrote on social media that the columnist was “just straight-up lying about what this account does and the Post’s reporting.”

Last February, the alternative weekly Westword also granted anonymity to someone who said in phone calls and emails with reporter Chris Perez that she was the founder of DoBetterDNVR.

“Not many people know I run this account,” the purported founder, “a self-proclaimed ‘Denver girl’ and lifelong Coloradan,” said at the time about the Instagram account, adding that her close friend handled the account on Twitter/X.

The alleged founder said she wanted to remain anonymous because of threats the account has received.

‘More than flesh and blood’

In the book “The United States of Anonymous: How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech,” author Jeff Kosseff lays out six motivations for someone to remain anonymous when publishing.

There’s a legal motivation (where exposure could lead to legal liability), a safety motivation (self-explanatory), an economic motivation (where unmasking could lead to loss of a job or income), a privacy motivation (wanting to remain unreachable), a speech motivation (where public identity might distract from the message), and a power motivation.

It’s the last one that City Cast Denver host Paul Karolyi raised in a recent podcast segment about the DoBetterDNVR controversy. “I think they know … as soon as there’s a face on it, it feels, like, smaller,” he said of the account.

Karolyi noted what happened prior to the publication of the Denver Post story when DoBetterDNVR announced the paper was about to identify three people connected to it.

“There was an enormous outpouring of support for DoBetterDNVR from conservatives on X,” he said.

Karolyi added that some supporters were saying publicly “I am DoBetterDNVR” like in the iconic scene from Spartacus. “This is the power of this movement,” Karolyi said. “And this is why it’s transcended this week into something bigger — into a real, serious political movement for conservatives. It has become more than flesh and blood; it’s a symbol.”

Colorado Dem AG and gov candidate Phil Weiser to talk about local journalism

One of the two Democratic candidates for governor will get an audience in front of many of the state’s influential reporters, editors, and publishers next week.

Attorney General Phil Weiser is slated to speak Thursday, Aug. 14, at the Colorado Press Association’s annual conference in Denver just prior to the opening reception.

The “wide-ranging conversation will explore the challenges and opportunities facing local journalism today,” a CPA announcement read.

On tap for the discussion, per the email, are threats to journalists and news outlets, transparency and access, newspaper public notices, and the sustainability and civic role of local news.

The Local News Solutions 2025 conference, which I plan to speak at and attend, is at the Delta Hotel in Thornton from Thursday to Saturday.

More Colorado media odds & ends

🤖 Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is calling the legislature into a special session in part to deal with its $1 billion budget shortfall — but also something else. “We also will be giving the legislature a chance to address the artificial intelligence issue,” Polis said. A first-in-the-nation AI law “is set to take effect in February, much to the chagrin of the tech industry, which warns the policy will stifle innovation and hit their bottom-line,” Jesse Paul reported for the Colorado Sun. (The AI law requires businesses to say when they are using AI systems to make consequential decisions around things like housing, loans, or employment.)

📡 KSUT tribal radio’s ability to broadcast emergency alerts is “threatened” as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting closes,” Spencer Soicher reported for 9NEWS in Denver.

💰 Colorado public media “remains on the local taxpayer dole,” despite losing funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Joshua Sharf wrote in Complete Colorado, the news and commentary arm of the libertarian-leaning nonprofit Independence Institute.

Sponsored…

Details and registration for the annual Colorado Press Association conference next month here.

👀 The county government in conservative Teller County is trying to get the Loop family to stop growing food in a greenhouse on their residential property. The family, who has hired a lawyer, might go to court. In the meantime, their lawyer says the local government “offered to pause enforcement if the Loops would stop trying to get media attention,” reported Jennifer Brown for the Colorado Sun.

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. 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 at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.