Gazette to launch statewide 'Colorado Network' for freelancers

The news behind the news in Colorado

Image created with DALL-E for ChatGPT4o with prompts about a new statewide digital platform for freelance journalists in Colorado

After launching the Denver Gazette digital publication four years ago, Clarity Media is seeking to expand its footprint statewide.

“On Oct. 15, The Gazette will launch The Colorado Network, a digital platform that will enlist freelance journalists around the state to cover news for The Gazette,” the outlet’s executive editor, Vince Bzdek, announced this week.

The news came at the end of a detailed column about the Denver Gazette’s fourth birthday that rounded up the impact of the news organization’s important accountability reporting. The column also noted what’s next for this year.

The development of a new freelance network in Colorado is a state-based version of a national model pioneered nearly a decade ago by the Washington Post.

Called the Talent Network, the Post in 2015 created what it called a “new model for covering far more subjects in far more places.” The D.C.-based national newspaper did so by creating a web portal and digital platform that harnesses the availability of “top freelancers” across the nation. (I’ve been a part of it since it started.)

Notably, Bzdek is a former editor at the Washington Post, which is owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Bzdek has spoken openly in the past about the ability to grow a media company with the bankroll of a wealthy owner and how he has been able to localize that model at the Gazette, which is owned by the Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz.

Indeed, in touting this soon-to-launch Colorado Network, Bzdek used the exact same language that the Washington Post employed when announcing its Talent Network in 2015. In his column, he called the Gazette initiative a “new model for covering far more subjects in far more places” around Colorado.

Bzdek added that he hopes the effort will aid in “plugging some of the holes that have opened up in the coverage of issues important to rural areas.”

While I’m not aware of any other outlet with a dedicated statewide freelancer web portal in Colorado, the nonprofit Colorado Sun digital site has been relying on a stable of freelancers to bolster its coverage, particularly in rural areas, for the past six years.

Whether the Gazette’s new effort might cannibalize some of that network of usual suspects or, hopefully, can identify new voices in far-flung locales we haven’t heard before remains to be seen.

In the Before Times, large newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News had bureaus — staffed reporting outposts — throughout the state. But those are long since closed. In the digital era, outlets like the nonprofit Texas Tribune have sought to bolster coverage across the state with a network of “community newsrooms.”

Bottom line for Colorado: the more quality reporting from anywhere the better.

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Creator and subjects of ‘Trusted Sources’ doc that features Colorado journalists will discuss film

A new documentary, “Trusted Sources,” that features Colorado journalists is making the rounds of the U.S. film-screening circuit.

Created by Colorado-based filmmaker Don Colacino and narrated by Jenn White, host of “The 1A” show on NPR, the film tackles the top reasons why people mistrust the news, and it shows how they can identify trustworthy sources.

On Thursday at the Denver Press Club, Colacino will join a panel of journalists, including some who appear in the film, to talk about the documentary following a screening.

I’ll moderate the panel, which is hosted by the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, of which I’m a board member. Register here. The event is free for SPJ Colorado Pro members via reimbursement, otherwise it’s $10. (Use it as an excuse to join SPJ here.)

More about the documentary:

The spine of the story follows a young local reporter … trying to build trust with reluctant sources. There’s also a fair amount of U.S. journalism history showing the evolution from the partisan press at the time of the nation’s founding, through the age of “yellow journalism,” the reforms of the progressive era, to today’s algorithm-driven media. It’s not all doom-and-gloom, in fact, most of the film deals with solutions, from the trust-building recommendations of Joy Mayer’s Trusting News, to Poynter’s Mediawise news literacy TikToks.  

The local Colorado reporter in the film is Nina Joss of Colorado Community Media, and she’ll be on Thursday’s panel.

The film received financial support from organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter.

Estes Park Trail-Gazette columnist: ‘I just don’t know if we even still have a newspaper’

The Estes Park Trail-Gazette, a newspaper financially controlled by the Alden Global Capital hedge fund, might be in trouble.

That’s according to its columnist, Jason Van Tatenhove, who wrote an item about it this week on his personal site, the Colorado Switchblade.

From the post, which came with an image of a sinking ship sporting Trail-Gazette flags:

There’s been a gnawing at the pit of my stomach for weeks now. This is a day I knew was coming—the day when the future of our local newspaper would hang by a thread. I wrote about it years ago, back when I first walked away from the Trail-Gazette. But this feels different. I’m not walking away now—I just don’t know if we even still have a newspaper or if it will last longer than the next few weeks.

Some more nuggets:

• “I’ll continue writing my weekly column, The Edge of Insight, even though Friday’s edition of the paper didn’t hit newsstands until Tuesday. I have no idea who’s left on staff or if the column I submit will be published this Friday.”

• “The website seems frozen in time, and hard-won advertisers are growing uneasy. Everything feels like it’s unraveling. I am sure I will hear some blowback for writing this piece… but this is the truth of what is happening to our small-town newspaper, and it is still my job to speak the truth, to talk about the things we aren’t supposed to talk about, even if it’s about the paper itself.”

• “Through its subsidiary MediaNews Group, Alden has gutted local journalism in pursuit of profit. They acquired the Trail-Gazette in 2011, and since then, the paper has been on a slow decline.”

Last month, the newspaper’s longtime publisher walked away, and it lost a writer who has not yet been replaced.

Asked to talk about the status of the Trail-Gazette, John Vahlenkamp, who is listed as editor on the paper’s online masthead, said he would have a note to readers in today’s paper.

“We are continuing to regularly provide community news at eptrail.com and via our twice-weekly print edition,” it read. “The voices you have grown used to seeing in this publication are still here. That said, we are in a time of transition.” The paper is hoping to hire a reporter and publisher, he wrote.

“We’re still here, and we’re still reachable,” the editor, who is also listed elsewhere as an editor for the Alden-owned Boulder Daily Camera, Longmont Times-Call, and Loveland Reporter-Herald, told Trail-Gazette readers.

The paper on Friday also published a column by Van Tatenhove, though not the one he wrote for his personal site. In his column reflecting on a science-fiction book he is reading, he notes that he considered writing about “the uncertainty of our local newspaper’s direction.”

There is precedent for someone who writes for a local hedge-fund-owned newspaper in Colorado to self-publish a critical take about it on their own site. It didn’t end well.

In 2018, a publisher for the Alden Global-controlled Boulder Daily Camera fired that paper’s editorial page editor, Dave Krieger, after Krieger posted a scathing column about the Camera’s owners on his personal website after he said the newspaper had blocked it from landing in print.

Unlike in some towns and cities that have seen their newspapers dwindle or disappear, those in Estes Park might have an alternative beyond Van Tatenhove and his one-man Colorado Switchblade newsletter and podcast.

Earlier this summer, the Estes Valley Voice, a digital public benefit corporation, launched with former Trail-Gazette journalists at the helm, saying, “it’s time to turn the page to better journalism in the Estes Valley.”

Founder Patti Brown has said that its launch came at a “fortuitous time.”

🔎 Sponsored | Spotlight: Colorado | Colorado Media Project 🔍

Colorado Media Project believes our democracy works best when the public has transparency into powerful institutions. That’s why accountability journalism is so important to our civic infrastructure. We chose to sponsor this section of Corey’s newsletter to showcase some of the important watchdog work Colorado journalists and their news organizations have been producing recently. Corey chose which ones to spotlight.

Recent Colorado accountability coverage

• Pueblo’s city attorney is defending the city’s use of contempt charges to lengthen jail sentences for defendants in municipal court in what Denver Post reporter Shelly Bradbury said were the official’s “first public comments since a Denver Post investigation found the practice was unprecedented in Colorado’s major cities and likely unconstitutional.”

• The Denver Gazette had to file an open-records request to uncover that “an internal investigation that Denver Public Schools officials originally withheld from disclosure shows an East High School club cannot account for $565 collected through a cash app.” Scott Pribble, a district spokesperson, “did not explain why” the outlet had to file a second open-records request to get the information, reporter Nicole C. Brambila wrote.

• In a follow-up to an investigation last year by CBS News Colorado, “advocates claim practices at a mobile home park in the Centennial State have continued to exploit the families with lower incomes who have lived there for more than a year, despite a state agency citing the park's owner with several violations.” Reporter Kati Weis wrote: “The park in question is the Foxridge Farm Mobile Home Park on Colfax, just east of the E-470 and I-70 interchange in Arapahoe County.”

• “We set out four years ago to make accountability journalism our bread and butter, and last year saw our reporters fill that mandate with a vengeance,” wrote Denver Gazette executive editor Vince Bzdek in a Sept. 13 column. “No other media outlet in Colorado collected as many awards in the last year.”

• Master Plan, a podcast by Denver journalist David Sirota who founded The Lever news site, is “an investigative podcast series exposing the 50-year plot to legalize corruption in America.” The first season “traces the untold history from the 1970s to today, showing how a small group of operatives and oligarchs used vast wealth to manipulate key U.S. government policies for personal gain at the expense of everyone else — a plan that’s coming to fruition in the 2024 election.”

To submit a local accountability story for consideration in the future, send me an email. If you or your organization would like to sponsor a recurring newsletter section like this, hit me up.

Law360, with journalists in Colorado, ends strike and reaches a deal

Colorado’s four journalists who work for the LexisNexis-owned subscription legal news service Law360 are off the virtual picket line.

“The Law360 union bargaining committee and management reached a tentative agreement on the contract late Tuesday and we went back to work Wednesday,” said Clara Geoghegan, a Denver-based Law360 journalist who covers bankruptcy. “Our unit will vote to ratify the new collective bargaining agreement on Monday, Sept. 23.”

Last week, Colorado’s cluster of Law360 journalists were observing a “click-it” line and handing out flyers about their strike at a courthouse in Denver.

Law360 employees under the auspices of the Communications Workers of America agreed to a five-year contract deal with the company, the labor union said Wednesday.

“The agreement, among other gains, lifts wages by an average of 12%, increases family leave to 14 weeks, includes an average bonus of $9,000 and ensures strong job protections on AI and more,” the account Law360Union stated on social media.

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➡️ As a new board member of the Society of Professional Journalists Colorado Pro chapter, I’d like to invite you to join the nation’s foremost organization for journalists. SPJ is a fierce national advocate for First Amendment rights, journalistic ethics, and other values important to a free and vital press. The Colorado Pro chapter offers professional training programs and events, including the four-state Top of the Rockies competition, the region’s broadest platform for honoring journalism excellence. We’re making plans for a regional conference next spring. And each year, the chapter provides thousands of dollars in scholarships to the young journalists of tomorrow. At a time when journalists are under fire from all sides, joining SPJ is your chance to make a stand for journalism. Learn more about the chapter here, and find out how to join here. ⬅️

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More Colorado media odds & ends

💵 “Locally owned and non-profit newsrooms serving communities across Colorado are invited to apply to join the 2024 #newsCOneeds Year-End Giving Challenge and apply for matching grant funding” from Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter. Learn more details and apply here. (Deadline: Oct. 14.)

📰 Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times traveled to Denver and Aurora to report a Sept. 15 story headlined “How the False Story of a Gang ‘Takeover’ in Colorado Reached Trump.” (Nugget: On Aug. 5, “a public relations agent, Sara Lattman, hired by CBZ, pitched a ‘tip’ to the local Fox television network affiliate in Denver,” he reported. “‘An apartment building and its owners in Aurora, Colorado have become the most recent victims of the Venezuelan Gang Tren de Aragua’s violence, which has taken over several communities in the Denver area,’ she wrote on Fox 31’s tip line, according to an email obtained by The Times. ‘The residents and building owners of these properties have been left in a state of fear and chaos.’” (You know what happened next.)

⬆️ Former Denverite editor Dave Burdick said on LinkedIn this week that he will be joining the American Journalism Project in October as its vice president of Newsroom Strategy “to guide, shape, and ensure the successful creation of new local newsrooms around the country, and to play a critical role in catalyzing excitement for and investment in local news.”

☀️ #ProTip: Students can gain free registration for the Colorado Sun’s annual SunfFest taking place Thursday and Friday, Sept. 26 and 27 by using their .edu email addresses. Register here. The event calendar is here.

🆕 Rocky Mountain Public Media has named Ayana Contreras “as the new vice president of radio” to lead THE DROP and KUVO JAZZ. “Ayana is a pioneer in urban alternative public radio, and we are thrilled to welcome her into this new role,” Rocky Mountain Public Media President and CEO Amanda Mountain said in a statement.

🪦 Investigative reporter and anchor Ward Lucas, who spent more than three decades at 9NEWS in Denver, died this week at 75. “Lucas was known by his colleagues as a quick-witted truth seeker with a passion for words, and he mentored many young journalists,” Jennifer Campbell-Hicks reported for the local NBC affiliate.

🙄 University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders continued his war with the press this week, this time accusing reporters of criticizing his players because of personal feelings of inadequacy. “Once upon a time, you guys never attacked college players,” Sanders said during a press conference. “Now, they’re making more money than y’all and some of y’all are envious and jealous about that; so you’re on the attack.”

⛰+🌴 Starting next month, Tim Wieland, general manager of Denver’s KCNC, also known as Channel 4 or CBS Colorado, “will become a Regional General Manager, overseeing his station in Colorado and that of Los Angeles-based KCBS (Channel 2) and KCAL (Channel 9), according to an internal memo circulated on Wednesday,” Matthew Keys reported for MSN.

🎭 Yellow Scene magazine is hosting a “Carnivale Masquerade Gala” on Oct. 10. The publication turns 25 next year but is “starting early” on the celebrations.

🗞 Reporter Nina Joss of Colorado Community Media is one of 25 journalists chosen for a National Press Foundation Covering Equitable Community Development Fellowship. “The journalists will gather in Missoula, Montana, Oct. 7-10, to learn more about the policies and investments related to health, wealth and overall community well-being in large, small and mid-sized cities,” the NPF stated.

🔗 Colorado is a leader in collaborative journalism. What might we learn from the Tar Heel State and its “collaborative approach to supporting North Carolina’s emerging journalists”?

♻️ Pikes Peak Media Company announced this week that Fran Zankowski is “once again returning as publisher for the Colorado Springs Independent and Colorado Springs Business Journal.” Zankowski, who was also publisher of Boulder Weekly where he is leaving, served as interim publisher for the Indy during its spring transition following a sale to two local developers. (Mackenzie Tamayo said in June that owners J.W. Roth and Kevin O’Neil had appointed her publisher.) “I’m excited and so happy to be returning,” Zankowski said in a statement.

🔎 “A 2021 law intended to improve accessibility to government documents for individuals with hearing and vision impairments has had unintended consequences — it prompted some agencies to completely remove public records from websites altogether in order to avoid non-compliance with the legislation,” Marissa Ventrelli reported for Colorado Politics.

🗳 The Colorado Press Association reports that INN or LION members in Colorado are eligible for free election coverage resources from the Associated Press, stating, “If you’re not a member, but want to see if AP can help you, reach out to Nancy Watzman at nwatzman@ap.org.”

⚕️“Last week, the Colorado Health Foundation invited a group of Hispanic media outlets, journalists and community leaders to a presentation,” Rossana Longo Better reported for Colorado Community Media. “We had the opportunity to chat with one of the presenters, portfolio director Maribel Cifuentes, to discuss the results of this recent survey and dive into the critical issues affecting us.

🙏 Multimedia journalist Fiona Murphy, from Denver, is one of four journalists chosen by Religion News Service for a Religion Journalism Fellowship Program. “The fellowship aims to develop future religion news journalists by deepening their understanding of religious expression in individual lives and diverse communities,” the organization stated.

“Here’s what our journalists have been up to in advance of Election Day,” wrote Linda Shapley, Colorado Community Media’s director of editorial and audience engagement.

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 is underwriting this newsletter, and my “Inside the News” column appears at COLab, both of which I sometimes write about here. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter hit me up.) Reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.