A Colorado TV reporter is on paid leave while his accused attacker is out of jail and citing mental health issues
The news behind the news in Colorado
A year to the month after landing his first job out of college, Ja’Ronn Alex says he is on paid leave from his reporting position at a Western Slope TV station.
The 22-year-old journalist hasn’t returned to work since he says a man driving a taxi followed him for roughly an hour on Dec. 18 while he was in a news work vehicle — and then physically attacked him outside of the TV station.
During the incident, part of which was apparently caught on a security camera, Alex said the man tackled him and tried to suffocate him until co-workers pulled him off and held him until police arrived.
News of the incident gained international attention, particularly because it happened to a reporter. It also went viral because Alex, who is of Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander descent, said the man questioned his citizenship and said something to the effect of “This is Trump’s America” before and around the time of the reported assault.
Police charged the man, Patrick Egan, 39, with bias-motivated crimes, second-degree assault, and harassment, according to media.
During a much-publicized Jan. 2 court hearing, Colorado Public Radio reported that “no one contested the prosecution’s account of the attack.”
In court last week, Egan’s attorney, who didn’t return a voicemail, said her client has a history with mental health issues, according to media accounts.
Media reported the judge in the case, who declined to lower the bond and said she had considered increasing it, noted Egan had a criminal record in California.
In a phone conversation Friday, Alex said he has experienced moments of panic while driving in the past few weeks and said he tries not to go out alone.
“I was devastated. It took me a while to wrap my head around the reality that it had happened,” he said in his first public comments since his name became widely publicized. (This newsletter didn’t publish his name in its initial coverage.)
Alex said he has been proud of his work at KKCO/KJCT in Grand Junction since he became a reporter there last January after earning an English degree from Clemson University in South Carolina where he took broadcasting classes.
Asked how he felt about being a journalist at the moment, he said he likely needs more time from the incident before he could really say.
“In all honesty, from what I gather from the past two court hearings, it seems to be that I was a victim of one of his mental episodes,” he said about Egan, who is out on bail, according to media reports, and is expected in court again next week. “My hope is that in whatever way, shape or form, he gets that treatment he needs.”
Alex added that he is skeptical about the extent to which that might happen given what he heard in court about his accused assailant’s past attempts at treatment.
For his part, the young journalist noted that he isn’t used to being on “this side” of the news.
In our conversation, we talked about that — and also about what he thought of some of the media coverage so far, including mine. Some of it, he said, felt over-politicized.
“In my own personal style of journalism, I would mention that the statement was made — ‘this is Trump’s America’ — but it would never make it to my headline,” he said. “It’s one of the things I’ve disagreed with in the reporting on this.”
Alex, who described himself as pretty apolitical, said he has many Trump-supporting friends and family.
“From being the victim and experiencing it and seeing what the guy was all about, I think it’s more a mental health thing than anything,” he said.
Alex, who has lived in multiple states, said he has endured racism all his life — but never anything physical until last month.
“In all reality, nothing this guy said is different from what I’ve experienced ever,” he said. “I’m used to people saying that stuff. This is nothing new. This is inherent to the experience I have had as an American.”
Below is a roundup from local and national media about the incident and court hearing:
Writing in The Washington Post, María Luisa Paúl reported on Egan’s military history, which I haven’t seen anywhere else and might or might not be important: “Egan served in the Marine Corps from 2005 to 2007 as a mortarman, said Marine spokeswoman Yvonne Carlock. He was assigned to a reserve unit in New Hampshire but never deployed, records shared by Carlock show.”
She also reported this: “Donald Trump’s communication director said the alleged attack has ‘nothing to do with’ the president-elect.”
And this: “The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) … condemned the attack … — noting that it occurred amid a rise in attacks against Asian Americans, which have heightened fears within Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the nation.”
“One associate of Egan … said he’s received harassment on Facebook for standing by his friend’s side,” Courthouse News reported. “‘Patrick has been like a brother to me for the last five years,’ [he] told the court. ‘When I got the news of what happened, that’s not Patrick. I’ve seen him get sick before, I’ve helped him in the past and he’s helped me.’”
With the Colorado reporter now talking and another court hearing scheduled in the coming days, we can probably expect another round of stories about all this next week.
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As potential TikTok ban looms, the Sun checked in with two Colorado content creators
This Friday, Jan. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments about a potential ban on the social media platform TikTok because of fears about its Chinese parent company.
In the lead-up to it, Colorado Sun reporter Parker Yamasaki caught up with a pair of Coloradans who are making waves on the platform as content creators.
From the piece, for the uninitiated:
TikTok’s influence has grown massively over the past four years while the federal government kicks around the platform’s fate. TikTok has seen the sharpest rise in regular users between 2021 and 2024 among all social media platforms, growing from about 21% of Americans to 33%. For comparison, YouTube and Facebook, the most widely used social media sites, grew by 4 percentage points and 1 percentage point, respectively.
TikTok is the new mall, the new Billboard top chart, the new travel agency. More than half of the platform’s users, or the equivalent of 17% of all American adults, say they regularly get their news from TikTok. Both President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris joined the platform during their presidential campaigns as a way to reach younger voters. It’s also a place where conspiracy theories spread without consequence.
You read that right: 17% of American adults say they “get their news” from TikTok, according to the Sun.
That’s why two of the creators mentioned in the Sun story, Teal Lehto (a.k.a @westernwatergirl) and Jonathan Stalls (@pedestriandignity), appear as sources of news and information at the Colorado News Mapping Project.
In the Sun story, Yamasaki highlights the impact TikTokers like Lehto and Stalls can have in an era where governments might find themselves pushed to respond to a TikTok post just as easily as a local newspaper’s editorial board.
Consider this excerpt:
In 2021, Stalls hopped on his @pedestriandignity account to post a 57-second clip while he walked down the sidewalk near Sheridan Boulevard and West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood. He’d journeyed roughly two blocks from the bus stop to the grocery store when, in the middle of the block, the sidewalk ran straight into a fence, forcing whoever was walking into traffic. A small block of text appeared at the top of the screen:
“Send this to your State Transportation Department (In Colorado? Send this to CDOT)”
Stalls warned his audience to be safe when filming their experiences, then stepped into the four lanes of traffic speeding along Sheridan.
“The day after I posted that video I got an email from the state department,” Stalls said. “They were like, we just got 120 form submissions with your video. Want to go for a walk?”
In November, the Denver Regional Council of Governments launched a corridor safety study to examine the section of road Stalls posted from. (The study is open for submissions until April.) Stalls knows the study isn’t the direct result of his video, but he likes to think that kind of attention impacts municipal priorities.
And if it goes away? Another excerpt:
About a year and a half ago, Lehto realized TikTok was a great wave to ride, but one that eventually … would peter out. She’s spent time developing an audience on other platforms, like Instagram, and continues to find ways to partner with organizations that are important to her.
Ultimately, what worries Lehto about a potential ban doesn’t have to do with her own profile, but the way people will splinter to find the next best thing.
“It’s going to be a fight to the death to be the new app,” Lehto said. “We’re just going to see more of this shattering of the media landscape, where people are siloed into platforms that agree with them. What I’m scared about is the echo chambers that happen when you break up these big platforms.”
Read the whole very in-depth story at the link above.
Tina Griego leaves COLab position to become a senior editor at ProPublica
Tina Griego, co-founder of the Colorado News Collaborative — and my former editor — has a big new gig: Senior editor of ProPublica, the powerhouse nonprofit investigative newsroom.
“But don’t worry, Tina is not leaving Colorado, nor is she leaving COLab entirely,” COLab’s executive director, Laura Frank, wrote in an announcement this week. “She will continue to shape collaborative journalism as a newly elected member of the COLab board of directors.”
More from the bulletin:
COLab remains deeply committed to fostering collaborative reporting in Colorado, as well as engagement and financial sustainability for our 180+ news partners. We are grateful for Tina’s guiding hand as managing editor, and the vision she helped set for how COLab moves forward with collaborative reporting informed by community.
Stepping in will be Stephanie Rivera, digital team editor at Colorado Public Radio, who COLab will contract with as a project manager. Rivera will stay on at CPR.
“I am truly thrilled that Steph is going to pick up where we left off. She gets it – the need for collaboration, its potential, the payoff and the challenges,” Griego, who is based in Fort Collins, said in a statement. “Even greater, Steph is creative, a problem solver, and she knows in her bones what it means to work with the communities we serve to provide the coverage they deserve.”
Griego, whose career includes being among a reporting team for the Pulitzer Prize, was in recent years managing editor at the Colorado Independent, and just finished teaching an introduction to journalism class at Colorado College. She is headed to ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network.
There, she said, “I will be launching its new sustainability desk – building a structure that will allow ongoing collaboration with its past local newsroom partners.”
As for COLab, the Denver-based nonprofit journalism support organization will be bringing on “additional editors and project managers in the coming year to support the evolving needs of our partners,” Frank said.
Griego will start the new job on Jan. 14.
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Colorado’s Democratic lawmakers roasted for secrecy
Several months after lawmakers exempted themselves from Colorado’s Open Meetings Law, press advocacy groups and members of the public showed up to a Dec. 30 public meeting and asked them to re-think it.
Some of those present suggested that if they don’t, groups including the League of Women Voters and the libertarian Independence Institute might seek to put a ballot measure before voters about legislative transparency.
From Sandra Fish at the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition:
Lawmakers effectively exempted themselves from portions of the state’s open meetings law earlier this year. The bill passed and was signed by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in March during Sunshine Week, an annual national celebration of open records and open meetings laws.
In August, House and Senate Democrats excluded reporters and the public from caucus meetings preceding a special session on property taxes.
Fish reported that Tim Regan-Porter, CEO of the Colorado Press Association, mentioned at the meeting that the Colorado Open Records Act doesn’t have retention requirements for government communications such as email or text messages.
“It really does concern me that the public is going to view this as their legislators and their government trying to hide things from them,” he said.
In her report, Fish also aptly noted how the six-member executive committee “held the public hearing on the last day possible under the law, during a time when many Coloradans are vacationing or celebrating the holidays with family.”
Writing in Complete Colorado, the news and commentary arm of the Independence Institute, Sherrie Peif reported this week that “Republicans, who voted unanimously against the open meetings exceptions, have said their caucus meetings will remain open to the public in both the House and the Senate.” (Media had reported last year that Democrats kept journalists out of some of their meetings after exempting themselves from the Open Meetings Law.)
Following the Dec. 30 public committee meeting, Jon Caldara, who leads the Independence Institute, said Democratic lawmakers had given a “middle finger to their constituents.”
In a column, he wrote, that “something positive” did come out of the majority Democratic legislature’s turn against transparency in 2024. “It spurred the Independence Institute, which I run, to bring together the most interesting coalition I’ve ever seen, ‘Team Transparency’ if you will.
More from the column:
When I say odd bedfellows, I’m not kidding. The Colorado league of Women Voters has almost religiously taken the opposite side of Independence Institute on issues. But they are active in this effort.
The Colorado Press Association is at the same table hosted by one of their biggest critics, me. The Colorado Broadcaster Association, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, alternative news outlets, citizen activists, civil rights attorneys and industry groups are making one of the most diverse and powerful coalitions for open government perhaps in the state’s history.
Our collectively decided mission is difficult but simple. To pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that Colorado governments conduct their business in full sunshine.
“So, thank you Colorado lawmakers for your offensive overreach to hide public business from the public,” he added. “Your arrogance was the spark that ignited this effort.”
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More Colorado media odds & ends
📰 The excellent New Yorker staff writer (and Ridgway, Colorado resident) Peter Hessler has a deeply reported longform story about Lauren Boebert and Colorado politics in this week’s copy of the magazine. Two local news outlets his reporting relied on were the nonprofit Colorado Sun and the nonprofit Aspen Journalism. He also name-checked the now-defunct Pulp news magazine in Pueblo when quoting its founder.
⭐️ Kevin Loker at the American Press Institute this week highlighted five “bright spots” in the nation where journalists are collaborating with researchers “with an eye toward depolarization” and found one in Colorado. “For the past year, the Center for Public Deliberation has partnered with Rocky Mountain Public Media, the Colorado Press Association, the Colorado Media Project, and a cohort of over 40 newsrooms to launch Above the Noise, a statewide project focused on helping local newsrooms build civic capacity and engage their communities more productively,” he wrote.
🆕 Elliott Wenzler has left as a politics reporter for the Ogden/Swift mountain town papers to join the Denver Post to cover City Hall.
🎙 Aurora Sentinel Editor Dave Perry appeared on the liberal Get More Smarter podcast recently and talked through what’s going on in the city for which Trump named his national deportation plan. “It’s been really difficult to get a straight story from any of the sources and takes a lot of digging,” he said of the ongoing narrative about the extent to which Venezuelan gangs are active in Aurora and their relationship to a handful of apartment complexes.
🪣 Vicky Collins, who runs the local Denver news outlet Bucket List Community Café, wrote this week about the site’s new journalists and where its former apprentices are now. “Besides our primary mission of serving our community with free, hyperlocal neighborly news, we have pioneered an apprenticeship model that allows the next generation of journalists and journalism entrepreneurs to hone their skills before continuing on their career paths,” she wrote.
🎬 Colorado lawmakers are trying to lure the Sundance Film Festival away from Park City, Utah to Colorado with millions in tax incentives, Jason Blevins reported for the Colorado Sun. “I don’t think there’s any better way to help promote Colorado’s vibe with filmmakers than having them here for festivals,” said Democratic House Speaker Julie McCluskie.
💥 Writing for the progressive Colorado Times Reporter digital site about the Las Vegas Cybertruck bomber who was from Colorado, Logan M. Davis wondered why “the media” has been “suppressing an attacker’s manifesto.” He believes one reason might be because “the ideas expressed in those documents — the things a Green Beret listed among his reasons for perpetrating a bombing against a civilian target — are shockingly mainstream right-wing talking points.”
📺 Meanwhile, Denver’s 9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark, perhaps the most prominent local journalist in Colorado, said in a broadcast on his show “Next” that what the Cybertruck bomber wrote “has received relatively little attention with most media outlets focusing on investigators’ conclusion that the incident was not an act of terrorism.” Then Clark read the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism. The bomber’s writings, Clark said, “called for the military and military veterans to move on D.C. with the help of militias,” and added that the bomber wrote, “Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of fed government and military by any means necessary.”
🍾 The Colorado Sun published “The news behind the news in Colorado’s media world in 2024.”
🦠 “Not quitting Facebook but definitely pulling back this year as it joins X as a dangerous, right-wing disinformation incubator and regressive cultural trash bin that’s rolling over for Trump like a trained dog,” wrote Denver Post arts and culture reporter John Wenzel this week on Facebook. “Good luck to all who stay active. No judgment! I just can’t support this anymore.” He told his followers to find him on Bluesky. This newsletter has been keeping track of how Colorado journalists are engaging (or not) on social media as the platforms re-calibrate in the Trump era.
🏅 One of the people Democratic President Joe Biden gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to this week was Coloradan Tim Gill, who the Associated Press called a “Denver entrepreneur and Democratic megadonor” who is “heavily involved in LGBTQ+ advocacy.” Gill also “transformed the publishing industry,” per a 2019 Jay Bouchard profile in 5280.
🪦 A new clinic set up by a University of Colorado researcher “provides guidance and aid in handling digital accounts after someone passes away,” reported Ariel Lavery, Erin O’Toole, and Brad Turner for KUNC. Professor Jed Brubaker appeared on the show In the NoCo “to discuss the unusual task of managing our online accounts for after we’re gone. He said it’s a reflection of how we mourn in a more digital age.”
🍸🚬 A photo of a grizzled Charles Ashby sipping a martini with a smoldering cigarette at a desk in the Grand junction Sentinel newsroom accompanies the now-retired longtime reporter’s goodbye column headlined “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”
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, where I’m an advisor, 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.