Colorado newspapers are 'citizens,' my friend

The news behind the news in Colorado

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Speaking into a microphone with one leg propped on a hay bale at the Iowa State Fair in 2011, Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate for president against Barack Obama, was getting heckled.

The issue was taxes, and he had vowed not to raise them on people. A heckler implored him to increase taxes on corporations instead.

“Corporations are people, my friend,” a frustrated Romney said — and the remark launched a string of headlines about his “gaffe” that never really subsided.

The idea of corporate personhood has been around for more than a century, but following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which ruled that corporate spending cannot be restricted under the First Amendment, it became more of a thing.

In 2011, the comedian Stephen Colbert tried to get a question on the ballot in South Carolina that would have asked voters to decide whether “corporations are people” or “only people are people.”

A couple years later, a California man sought to get pulled over and ticketed so he could force a judge to declare that the articles of incorporation he had on his passenger seat did not allow him to drive in the HOV lane.

And now, here we are in 2025 where the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled — just this week — that our state’s newspapers are citizens because they are also corporations.

“The supreme court determines that The Sentinel Colorado newspaper, as a corporation, is a ‘citizen’ under the Colorado Open Meetings Law,” the High Court wrote in its Oct. 7 opinion.

At issue was the weekly newspaper in Aurora, which had won a public records lawsuit against the city, seeking to recover attorney fees and court costs.

Here’s how Justice Melissa Hart, writing for the majority, broke it down in the opinion:

A Colorado “citizen” who proves a violation of Colorado’s Open Meetings Law (“COML”) may recoup attorney fees from the local public body that violated the law. § 24-6-402(9)(b), C.R.S. (2025) (“subsection (9)(b)”). One of the questions we confront here is whether The Sentinel Colorado (“The Sentinel”) newspaper, as a corporation, is a “citizen” entitled to recover fees under the COML after its successful challenge to an improperly convened executive session of the Aurora City Council …

Considering the statutory scheme of the COML as a whole, we hold that the word “citizen” includes corporations in section 24-6-402(9). Accordingly, we conclude that The Sentinel may recover attorney fees under the COML if it is the prevailing party in litigation.

The High Court reversed a division of the State Court of Appeals that had earlier ruled that the Sentinel was not a citizen based on the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of the term.

The Sentinel newspaper asked the state’s highest court to weigh in, and it did, reversing the Appeals Court decision on the matter.

Here’s the Supreme Court with its analysis:

…the issue before us is a narrow one: Whether The Sentinel, having brought a COML claim challenging a violation of the law, may collect attorney fees under the statute if it ultimately prevails in this case.

The Sentinel argues that it should be entitled to recoup fees if it is a prevailing party in COML litigation. We agree for two reasons.

First, any other conclusion would exclude certain members of the public — media corporations like The Sentinel — from the ability to protect public interests in open meetings and collect attorney fees for successful litigation. This is illogical and even absurd. Second, the division concluded, without analysis, that The Sentinel could not be a “citizen” by relying on a single dictionary definition of citizen. … This was error.

Even a statutory interpretation analysis that stops at what it describes as the “plain meaning” of a word must still examine that word in the context of its statute or relevant statutory provision. … Both the statutory and legislative history of this provision further support the conclusion that “citizen,” as used in section 24-6-402(9) includes media organizations like The Sentinel.

But the Colorado Supreme Court was not unanimous in its determination.

Chief Justice Monica Márquez wrote a dissent that attacked the very issue of corporations and people and the extent to which they are synonymous.

“I cannot agree with the majority that the General Assembly intended for corporations to be able to obtain fee awards under the COML,” she wrote. The newspaper “lacks standing to sue,” she added in a footnote, “because the plain and ordinary meaning of ‘person’ excludes corporations.”

For more information about the background of this case, read a write-up about it from Jeff Roberts at the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. In a report about the case in the Sentinel, Roberts called the ruling “an important win for the public’s right to know.”

In an email, Rachael Johnson, a lawyer for the Local Legal Initiative at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press who argued the case for the Sentinel, called the decision an important win for news organizations in Colorado.

“The court broadly defined citizen … to include newspapers, and essentially encompass any party who has standing to pursue litigation under the COML,” she said.

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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. Watch this space for more information on that effort.

Now, with Election Day fast approaching, check out The Colorado Health Foundation’s 2025 Local Ballot Measure Tracker. Your civic participation matters, so make sure you’re registered to vote and that your information is current at GoVoteColorado.com.

• Review our current funding opportunities to see if any align with your organization’s work.

Curious about the perspectives of adults from across the state on issues from affordable housing and hunger to mental health and child care? View the latest results of The Colorado Health Foundation’s annual Pulse poll here. ⬅️

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Readers spend more time on Colorado newspaper’s stories that use AI summaries

The Coloradoan newspaper in Fort Collins has been adding AI-assisted summaries at the top of stories as part of a companywide implementation.

Here’s how they look if you haven’t seen one yet:

The Pueblo Chieftain, also owned by Gannett, is doing the same thing.

You might think that instead of reading the whole story, readers might just scan the AI’s TL;DR and bounce off to something else.

But in an email, David Dishman, the editor of the Coloradoan, said that he has noticed “slightly longer engagement times” on stories that carry the summaries than those that don’t.

Humans are still involved in the process, he added, and can edit what the machine comes up with. But so far, it’s been saving time from journalists having to write the summaries themselves. Humans also get the final say on the summaries before they go online.

“I think they’ve been a tremendous help in putting some time back in staff pockets,” he said. “I think all of us in the industry grow weary of trying to keep up with the seemingly endless SEO plays, headline needs for different platforms, URL endings and more.”

The time a reporter might save using the tool, Dishman said, means more time reinvested back into reporting and “doing the tasks a computer most certainly can’t do.”

So, in that regard, he said, “I’ve really enjoyed the assistance it’s provided.”

Eastern Plains agricultural reporter ‘canceled’?

A recently laid-off journalist who covered agriculture on the Eastern Plains says he has now lost a freelance gig writing for the Fence Post.

“Apparently, the publisher received complaints from readers and decided that my ‘views’ didn’t align with the Fence Post’s values,” Jeff Rice said.

Rice was among a spate of quiet layoffs this year at Prairie Mountain Media, a brand of Colorado newspapers financially controlled by the Alden Global Capital hedge fund. This summer, he had started writing for the Fence Post, a Greeley-based paper that calls itself “Your Trusted Source for Ag News & Information.”

The gig lasted about two months.

Rice, a longtime journalist, Army vet, and Christian, said he believes his “cancellation,” as he called it, stems from readers who were perhaps offended by Facebook posts he has made. “I get pretty blunt about Trumpers,” he said. He also sported a “Proud Liberal” bumper sticker on his pickup truck.

The development is notable as some call for more ideological diversity in newsrooms, though in Colorado such calls tend to come from the other direction.

The paper’s publisher, Sabrina “Bree” Poppe, said over the phone this week that parting ways with the freelancer wasn’t personal. She acknowledged that the Fence Post has a conservative readership and said Rice had established a reputation for himself that wasn’t a good fit for the paper.

Despite his politics, Rice said he has a reputation as a stalwart advocate for U.S. agriculture. “Some of the most conservative people I know understand that I’m a card-carrying member of the ACLU but they tolerate it because I love agriculture,” he said.

He vowed to “continue to support agriculture and its people as best I can.”

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👋 Hey, thanks for reading this far. I’m Corey Hutchins, a journalist and educator, and you’re reading “Inside the News in Colorado,” a weekly inbox newsletter. Learn more about it here. This newsletter turned (*checks notes*) 10 years old last month.

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U.S. Supreme Court hears Colorado ‘free speech’ case

The nation’s highest court this week heard arguments from an Evangelical Christian therapist in Colorado Springs who believes a state law infringes on her free speech rights.

Here’s how NPR’s Nina Totenberg described it:

The case involves a new wrinkle on an old therapy. Specifically, something called “conversion therapy.” It’s generally defined as a treatment used to change a person’s attraction for same-sex individuals and to similarly cure gender dysphoria. In whatever form, the therapy has been forcefully repudiated by every major medical organization in the country on the grounds that it doesn’t work and often leads to depression and suicidal thoughts in minors.

The Colorado talk therapist’s attorney argued that the law limits her right to free speech based on her viewpoint, something that is called viewpoint discrimination. Colorado’s Solicitor General argued that because the state licenses talk therapy counselors, the justices should consider them like they would other forms of medical care.

Colorado Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is running for governor, posted a video on social media Tuesday, calling so-called conversion therapy a “harmful procedure.” He said professionals have an obligation to provide “standard care, not substandard care.”

Weiser said the state was defending the law “because we believe in protecting people and making sure that Colorado’s the place where everyone, whoever you are, can be your best authentic self.” (The post appeared on Weiser’s gubernatorial campaign account, not his official attorney general account.)

From Colorado Public Radio’s Caitlyn Kim:

When Colorado passed its law six years ago, more than a dozen states already had similar bans on their books. Today that number has grown to nearly half of states, including some relatively conservative ones. Two years ago, Republican lawmakers in Utah voted unanimously to codify a conversion therapy ban.

However, with more younger people identifying as trans, the debate over conversion therapy has shifted, with supporters of the practice arguing therapists should have the right to counsel minors to accept the sex they were assigned at birth.

During oral arguments, the justices sharply questioned Colorado’s law, and they appeared “skeptical” of it, according to Colorado Public Radio and Colorado Newsline. The majority are “prepared to rule against it,” according to CNN.

Here’s one thing the liberal justice Elena Kagan said:

“Let’s just assume that we’re in normal free-speech land rather than in this kind of doctor land. And if a doctor says I know you identify as gay, and I’m going to help you accept that, and another doctor says I know you identify as gay, and I’m going to help you change that, and one of those is permissible and the other is not, that seems like viewpoint discrimination.”

Lately, it seems more and more like a right to “free speech” for a lot people comes down to whether or not you agree with it.

In a new book called “What Is Free Speech? A History of a Dangerous Idea,” the Princeton historian Fara Dabhoiwala writes that speech has always been abused and is always subject to regulation.

“The difficulty is that there are basically only two models of free speech, and they both lead to serious problems of different kinds,” he said in a recent interview with Carolina Abbott Galvão of Columbia Journalism Review. “If you take the absolutist model seriously, you have to deny that speech causes real harm in the world. As people have known throughout history, speech is trivial, fleeting, and harmless most of the time. But it can also cause serious damage to the public good. Lies, truth, and defamation are real things.”

The other model is a balanced approach.

“But the problem with the balanced approach—one that proceeds from the realization that some forms of speech, especially by people with power, can be harmful to the reputations of individuals or the public good—is that, ultimately, these judgments are subjective,” Dabhoiwala said. “Making laws creates mechanisms that can later be weaponized and abused. And the ultimate difficulty, really, is that free speech is essentially an artificial ideal. You can’t theorize it in black-and-white.”

The AG Journal has ‘decided to cease publication’ in southern Colorado

The AG Journal, a newspaper based in southern Colorado’s La Junta, published its last issue on Sept. 28.

“We have decided to cease publication in both print and online for this product going forward,” the publication announced.

The newspaper, owned by CherryRoad Media, thanked its readership for their support and stated, “we… hope you will, in turn, support the La Junta Tribune-Democrat, which publishes five days a week.”

In 2021, CherryRoad bought the Ag Journal from Gannett in a sale that included the La Junta Tribune-Democrat, along with the Fowler Tribune and Bent County Democrat weeklies.

The development tracks with a recent accelerated trend this year of newspapers closing in rural parts of Colorado and others merging.

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More Colorado media odds & ends

☕ The Colorado Press Association has launched Morning Press Café where you can “join your colleagues across Colorado for a virtual coffee chat followed by co-working sprints.” At 9 a.m., there’s a check in where folks “share wins and talk through challenges.” At 9:30, “we’ll shift into focused work time: two productivity sprints with a short break in between.” Learn more here.

🤖 This note about AI use has started to appear on some stories on the website of a Colorado Springs TV station: “All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by FOX21. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by FOX21 staff before being published.” (This newsletter reported in August about how KOAA in the Springs was using an AI tool to convert on-air stories for the web.)

🟡 Yellow Scene Magazine is celebrating “25 years of independent journalism the best way we know how: with a dance party,” the publication reported. “The 25th Anniversary Fundraiser Gala will take place October 16 at The Louisville Underground, featuring Boulder’s own high-energy funk/soul band The Pamlico Sound.”

⚙️ The Colorado Broadcasters Association is hosting a virtual job fair Oct. 13 to Oct. 17.

🎒 For the nearly 1,300 student journalists who attended J-Day at CU Boulder’s College of Communication, Media, Design and Information this week, “the sweeping changes hitting the industry—from technology, to geopolitics, to economics—were impossible to ignore, especially as many of them consider majoring in journalism when they get to college,” wrote Iris Serrano for the school.

📖 Denver Post reporter Meg Wingerter has published her first novel, titled “The Silence That Remains,” which she began writing right out of college. “The story follows three intertwining lives: a World War I veteran whose trauma might run deeper than even he knows, a Bolshevik ballerina rapidly becoming disillusioned, and a young survivor of the famine that devastated Ukraine in the 1930s,” she wrote on LinkedIn. “Each one will face the question of what they’re willing to do to survive, and how they’ll hold onto themselves in Stalin’s Soviet Union, where only the most vicious win.”

📺 A saga last January that made global headlines when someone stole copies of the Ouray County Plaindealer from boxes around town following a sensitive front-page story has made it to TV. In episode three of season four of “The Morning Show,” a character says “A rape takes place at a Colorado police chief’s home and someone steals every copy of the newspaper that dared to report it.”

🎥 The Colorado News Collaborative reports that there’s still time to apply “to be one of up to 12 outlets to host or cohost community conversations over the coming year about the importance of local news, with support from COLab’s MATCH Lab.”

🔎 The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition has updated its online guide to our state’s open-records and open-meetings laws.

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.