𤺠Denver Gazette ATTACKS The Denver Post
Plus, CBS Colorado says Romi Bean is the āfirst female main sports anchorā in Denverās TV market, and more
In recent years, much of Coloradoās local media scene has embraced a new orthodoxy of collaboration over competition. But the stateās lone billionaire-owned news outlet is taking a different position ā and taking its gloves off.
The Denver Gazette, owned by the publicity-shy conservative tycoon Phil Anschutz, this week launched a series of digital attack ads against The Denver Post. The move takes the outletās effort to lure away subscribers from the Alden Global Capital hedge-fund controlled newspaper to a new (and more personal) level.
āLeave the Post in the Past,ā reads one ad featuring an image of a crumpled-up print newspaper. āLooking for reliable local news? Click here for news you can trust. Weāre NOT The Denver Post,ā reads another. āThe Denver Gazette is different from the predictable, partisan news that pushes a political agenda,ā reads a third. āRead news that covers issues that matter.ā Search āDenver Gazetteā on Google, and you might be served a āLeave the Post in the Pastā ad along with this text: āFinally, a news source that delivers what itās supposed to: news. Ditch news outlets that only push agendas and partisan politics. Denver news. Responsible coverage.ā
Thatās not all. As part of its ad blitz, The Denver Gazette employed the phrase āNews Matters,ā which is a slogan of The Denver Postās labor union, serves as the hashtag Post employees rally around and wear on their T-shirts, and was the headline of a 2018 Denver Post editorial that railed against the newspaperās own hedge-fund owner after another demoralizing round of newsroom layoffs.
Vince Bzdek, editor of The Denver Gazette and its sister paper in Colorado Springs, says the ad campaign has his full support. The campaignās messaging is meant āto distinguish ourselves, and communicate that Denver has an alternative news source,ā he said via email. āWe talk to and understand our subscribers, and many are former and disenfranchised Post readers. So it stands to reason that, with part of our overall campaign, we would compare and contrast ourselves to them and let the reader decide for themselves.ā About using the āNews Mattersā line, he said itās a small part of the messaging, ābut when we use it, we mean it literally ā what we all do is important and makes a difference. It has nothing to do with someone elseās āsloganā.ā He added that these digital ads are part of a broader upcoming multimedia campaign to attract readers. So look out for that.
Three years ago, Anschutzās Clarity Media launched The Denver Gazette as a digital sister paper to its print broadsheet in Colorado Springs to plant a flag in the stateās capital city. (Seven years ago, Clarity created Colorado Politics as a statewide subscription-based outlet, buying and absorbing The Colorado Statesman newspaper in an effort to establish primacy in Colorado political journalism.)
At the time of The Denver Gazetteās launch, I described the development as āhalf a newspaper warā because the Gazette wasnāt using a printing press, opting instead for an online product that it called an āinteractive newspaper.ā Itās no secret Anschutz wanted to buy the Post ā but the Post wouldnāt sell. My sense has been the approach has pivoted to: if you canāt buy āem, beat āem. Hence a campaign to actively siphon off Post subscribers. Not on the grounds of price, mind you, but rather on content.
Alongside these recent jabs from The Denver Gazetteās digital advertising side, the paperās editor, Bzdek, who is a veteran of The Washington Post, has sought to cast other outlets in Denver as biased. In September, he penned an editorial in The Gazette vaguely accusing The Denver Post, The Colorado Sun, Westword, and Colorado Public Radio as producing journalism that was somehow different than The Gazetteās. In an interview at the time, he declined to offer examples of news coverage he felt backed up the assessment, but said he feels the outlets he name-checked lean liberal in their coverage.
Since it launched, The Denver Gazette has built a solid news team that has produced accountability journalism and has likely moved the needle on public affairs. The outlet comes with an opinion section that is likely to appeal to a segment of Coloradoās population that watches Fox News and the constellation of conservative channels and sites that orbit it. The Denver Gazette and its mothership in the Springs have lured reporters from The Denver Post and elsewhere to join it, and have also seen its reporters defect to the Post, The Sun, or elsewhere in recent years.
Neither the Denver Postās editor and or a newsroom labor union rep wanted to weigh in for this item. Reacting to this recent anti-Post ad campaign, one former Denver Post journalist said he believed The Gazette is āthirsty for a rivalry that doesnāt exist.ā A current Denver Post reporter said he believed such messaging from The Gazette āmay have a small audienceā but it āwouldāve had a much larger one if it were 2009 or 2010 and the Rocky had just closed.ā Back in the days of a great real newspaper war in Denver, The Rocky Mountain News ran TV commercials that attacked the Post as a lesser newspaper ā including one that used a bird cage as a prop. (Interestingly, Anschutz quietly bought the rights to the Rockyās name, URL, and other intellectual property when it closed in 2009; in 2014 his company floated the idea of reviving it.)
Instead, in 2020, what burst on the scene was The Denver Gazette. Billboards for it started popping up across the city. They did not mention The Denver Post, but simply read āBetter. Balanced. Denver.ā Now it is naming its mark explicitly.
As The Denver Gazette runs its latest advertising blitz against The Denver Post, including posturing that The Gazette is somehow a higher form of news than its competition, I wonder if Iām blowing it out of proportion when I mention a particular vulnerability Iāve raised before. Last year, The Denver Post, along with multiple other news outlets in Colorado, reported on a tax lawsuit Anschutz and his wife filed against the state of Colorado that seeks to gain them a roughly $8 million refund. (The couple initially tried to keep that figure secret.) A judge has rejected the lawsuit, and the couple has tried to revive it through an appeal. The Colorado Sun reported the tax lawsuit, if successful, could have ābig financial consequences for the state.ā
The Denver Gazette, along with Anschutzās other news outlets in Colorado, conspicuously did not report on it. Itās just one thing of course, but whether such news judgement is in line with The Gazetteās marketing (and journalistic) message of covering the āissues that matterā is something audiences might consider as they assess the ways different outletās approach the news. (Gazette Editor Bzdek said last fall, āour owner does not control or engage with us in news coverage at all,ā when I asked about it, which makes me wonder if an owner might not always have to.)
And while thatās something you are not likely to see on a billboard or in a digital ad campaign, it does speak to a message about the importance of having multiple alternatives in the Denver market. Whatever they are.
šæĀ This weekās newsletter is proudly supported in part byĀ Grasslands, Denverās Indigenous-owned PR, marketing, and ad agency that is thankful for the tireless work reporters do to bring our communities the stories that matter. Founded by veteran Denver Post journalist Ricardo Baca, Grasslands ā the recipient of a 2020 Denver Business Journal Small Business Award ā is a Journalism-Minded Agencyā¢Ā working with brands in highly regulated industries including cannabis, technology, and real estate. Operating from its new offices in Denverās Art District on Santa Fe, the firmās 20-person team of communications professionals is focused on a single mission: āWe tell stories, build brands and amplify value.ā EmailĀ hello@mygrasslands.comĀ to see how Grasslands can supercharge your brandās marketing program (and read some of ourĀ cannabis journalist Q&As here).Ā Ā šæ
CBS Colorado says Romi Bean is āfirst female main sports anchorā in Denverās TV market
CBS Colorado announced this week that it has named Romi Bean as KCNCās sports anchor for the 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. broadcasts.
āRomi is the first female main sports anchor in the Denver television market,ā CBS Colorado Vice President and News Director Kristine Strain said in a statement. āShe knows Colorado sports and fans love her.ā
More from the announcement:
Unlike most in the business, Romi did not go to school for communications or journalism. She graduated from the University of Colorado -- Leeds School of Business, but writing andĀ journalism have always been her passion.
The move comes after anchor Jim Benemann announced his retirement, and main sports anchor Michael Spencer slid in to take his place. āThat of course meant we had to find someone to replace me,ā Spencer said on air this week in announcing his own replacement. āRomi is breaking barriers in this process,ā Spencer went on, saying, āwe believe this will make her the first woman to serve as the main sports anchor here in Denver.ā
āMost of the people you see anchoring sportscasts, covering sports stories and announcing sporting events are men,ā CBS Colorado general manager Tim Wieland said, according to TVSpy.
Bean thanked CBS Colorado management for encouraging her to ābreak barriers and giving me the opportunity to show young women and girls that sports are for everyone.ā
Denver TV stations handle story of DIA human trafficking claim quite differently
When an Ohio woman named Madison Herman told Denver TV stations she believes she was drugged at the Denver airport and nearly kidnapped in a human trafficking plot, the stations placed the story into two widely different contexts.
In the first story, KMGH Denver7 and its journalist reported the story without skepticism and the anchor-desk lead-in to it framed the broadcast in the broader context of increasing complaints by Denver women who say they are being drugged at area watering holes. Here was a line from the Denver 7 story: āAlthough there are still many questions about what happened, Herman is sharing her experience to help others.ā
In the second story, KUSA 9News and its journalist offered skepticism of details about the womanās claims and framed it in a broader context of how anti-trafficking advocates say such crimes typically occur. Here are excerpts from from the 9News story:
Herman said she believes she was drugged on Jan. 6 by a bartender at the airport who was working with a woman and at least three men. Herman said the men determined which flight she was on, purchased tickets, and sat around her in first class. Herman said she believes a flight attendant may also have been involved in the human trafficking ring. ā¦
Herman told 9NEWS she believes she was targeted because she uses crutches. Herman said she was injured by the COVID vaccine in 2022. In a May 2022 video posted to Facebook, Hermanās legs shake in a similar manner to videos posted on social media with the hashtag #ThanksPfizer. ⦠In her online post, Herman is wearing a shirt with the logo of the controversial anti-sex trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad. The group, known for its undercover stings, has faced years of scrutiny for its methods and claims.
Several anti-trafficking experts in Colorado, speaking about the topic generally and not this specific claim, said that stranger abductions are rarely seen in human trafficking and that sensationalized stories complicate their work. āI think it does fuel misconceptions about human trafficking and make it more difficult for people to understand what human trafficking does really look like,ā said Maria Trujillo, head of Coloradoās Human Trafficking Program.
Trujillo said advocates are frequently batting down myths and online rumors about strangers abducting people from parking lots to force them into servitude or people being trafficked in bizarre schemes, like the conspiracy theory that people were being moved around in furniture sold by an online retailer.
The difference in the reporting process here on local TV in Denver is an example of how framing stories and putting them in a certain context can provide audiences with a very different understanding about a story that includes the same set of facts.
$350K will flow to advance āequity and inclusion in local newsroomsā in Colorado
Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter, has announced it will give $352,640 in 27 separate grants that will āsupport Colorado newsrooms, journalists, and media entrepreneurs in launching new projects and strengthening existing efforts to build a more inclusive local news ecosystem that reflects and serves Coloradoās diverse communities.ā
From the announcement:
Recipients of Colorado Media Projectās 2023 Advancing Equity in Local News grants will address three overarching priorities identified by community members and journalists of color through the Voices Initiative, led by Colorado News Collaborative with support from Colorado Media Project since 2020:
Support internal efforts to strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in Colorado newsrooms;
Strengthen connections and build trust between Colorado newsrooms and the diverse communities they serve; and/or
Support more diverse and inclusive civic news leadership, entrepreneurship, ownership and narratives.
ā2023 is the second year of CMPās three-year Advancing Equity in Local News grant program, which in 2022 awarded a total of $277,150 to 19 projects,ā CMP states. āThis yearās grantees were selected from a competitive pool of 42 applicants requesting a total of $970,990 for projects dedicated to the fundās three priorities - indicating a broad commitment from Colorado newsrooms to build a more inclusive media ecosystem statewide. At least one more round of funding will be made available for new or continuing work, with applications opening in Fall 2023.ā
Find out where specifically the money is going and to what newsrooms and projects at the link above.
Michael Roberts is āstepping away from journalismā after 30 years at Westword
āThe decision was mine, the timing seems right, and I feel very grateful,ā wrote Westword staff writer Michael Roberts who has written for the Denver alternative weekly in multiple roles for 32 years.
In one of those roles, Roberts covered Denverās media landscape as a columnist. From his first-person piece this week:
Change came in 1999, when I was asked to shift my focus. I could still contribute to the music and news sections (and I did on a weekly basis for many years), but my main charge would be a media column in which I would chronicle and explore the local broadcast and print industries. At the time, both the Denver PostĀ and the Rocky Mountain NewsĀ ran media columns, but their content was generally quite polite, in part because most area publications, radio and TV stations and so on had interlocking allegiances. Since WestwordĀ wasn't part of conflicting business relationships like these, I was under no such restrictions[.]
The journalist says he might still contribute to Westword, but wants to be more present with his family. āAt present, though,ā he wrote, āIām seeking work that is less likely to pile on the sort of baggage that tends to jolt me awake in the middle of the night.ā


More Colorado media odds & ends
ā I updated the published version of last weekās newsletter after I heard from a Denver Post reporter about her experience interviewing the governor after his State of the State address in the item about 9News saying there was a āprecondition.ā Like others quoted in the item, her version of events differed from the experience of 9News and how the station described the situation.
āļø āI think itās important for reporters to mention climate change when they write about extreme weather to give readers the context that these events are more likely to occur as the planet warms,ā Denver Post reporter Sam Tabachnik told The Colorado Times Recorder, which analyzed news coverage of a recent record-breaking cold snap in Denver. āThis is not a āboth sidesā topic.ā (Read the story to learn what a CU Boulder journalism professor had to say about incorporating climate change into extreme weather coverage.)
š Mother Jones is seeking an assistant copy editor it will pay $55,000 to $65,000 āto help with quality-control duties across our products.ā The position is remote.
š³ How about this line from a Durango Herald editorial about a lawyer and a potential lawsuit: āWe asked Roane for comment. In an email, he responded with, āIād like to tell you to f---- off.ā Roane did not file a lawsuit by press time.ā (Background on the local situation here. The actual email to the editorial page editor read āIād like to tell you to fuck off, Ms. Swan.ā)
š Aspen Daily News Editor Megan Tackett, who won the Colorado Press Associationās First Amendment Award in September, is leaving the paper for a job as operations director of a local development company. Current Managing Editor Andre Salvail will take over as editor-in-chief. āADN has brought on former Aspen Times arts editor Andrew Travers to be the contributing editor for the media companyās luxury and lifestyle magazine, Aspen Local,ā the paper reported.
š§ Department of analytics: I was checking out email trends of this newsletterās audience. Many of its more than 2,200 subscribers use their work or business email. For personal ones though, Gmail dominates at around 850. About 75 of you are using Yahoo accounts, about 50 use AOL, about 40 Hotmail, 30 MSN, around 20 use Me or Outlook, and about 15 are using an icloud email address.
š£ Veteran arts journalist John Moore, who writes for The Denver Gazette, interviewed his former Denver Post colleague, John Hendrickson, about Hendricksonās new book titled āLife on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter.ā (Hendrickson wrote the 2020 Atlantic magazine story about Joe Bidenās stutter.)
š āJohn Peelās new book, āThe Ballantines: Building Community Issue by Issue,ā reveals the āBallantinesā smoke-shrouded, alcohol-fueled backyard gatherings were a Durango institution that brought together business and community leaders with thinkers and the newspaper publishers to hammer out the issues of the day,ā reported Jonathan P. Thompson in a review in The Durango Herald.
š„ Julian Rubinstein, author of the book and documentary āThe Holly,ā told The Denver Gazette āhe will speak publicly for the first time about becoming what is believed to be the first journalist accepted into Coloradoās address confidentiality program because of ongoing threats against his lifeā at a special Saturday film screening sponsored by the NAACP at History Colorado.
šµ āFOX21 took home the trophy for the much-anticipated āMedia Brawl at WhirlyBall,ā on Sunday, Jan. 22, defeating X1039, all for a great cause,ā the Colorado Springs TV station reported. āAll proceeds of the event, which at last check were about $2,500, will go directly to supporting Inside Out Youth Services (IOYS) and its mission.ā
š Check out the Colorado News Mapping Project and fill out the form to add a source to the map or let us know if we should update something already on it.
āļø WestwordĀ is looking for a full-time staff writer it will pay $50,000 to continue its ārecord of hard-hitting reporting.ā Boulder Reporting Lab needs a newsroom editor āto help grow our editorial team and raise the level of impact at a critical and thrilling time for our new nonprofit newsroomā ($65,000 to $85,000). The Boulder Daily Camera will pay a police, courts, and breaking news reporter $20 an hour and an āexperienced features reporterā the same wage. The Durango Herald is looking for an āexperienced wire/copy editor and page designerā it will pay $42,000 to $48,000. The Telluride Daily Planet needs a general assignment reporter but isnāt listing a salary range despite a new state law that requires it.
Iām Corey Hutchins, co-directorĀ of Colorado CollegeāsĀ Journalism Institute. For nearly a decade Iāve reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and Iāve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations. TheĀ Colorado Media Project is underwriting this newsletter, and my āInside the Newsā column appears at COLab, both of which I sometimes write about here. (If youād like to underwrite this newsletter like CMP, Grasslands, Colorado Press Association, One Chance to Grow Up, and AAA Colorado, hit me up.) Follow meĀ onĀ Twitter, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletterĀ here,Ā or e-mail me at CoreyHutchinsĀ [at] gmail [dot] com.