How Colorado's ethnic media outlets are working together

The news behind the news in Colorado

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• Now, onto this week’s news from behind the scenes in Colorado media…

From Spanish-language publications, Asian magazines, and what one Nigerian-American publisher likens to a “community center in print,” some of the state’s ethnic media outlets are banding together.

The new initiative, called the Colorado Ethnic Media Exchange, is a “group consisting of a handful of publishers of ethnically owned newspapers and newsmagazines, or those serving a largely ethnic or immigrant audience.”

Colorado Public Radio’s Elaine Tassy recently profiled the organization and its members. Here’s an excerpt from the story, which led with an anecdote about the origins of the Aurora-based Afrik Digest:

They meet Friday mornings to discuss ways to work together. Can they share ads? Collaborate as far as solving problems unique to their niche industry?

That’s the goal, said Brittany Winkfield, president of the group.

“It was really within the last year where we’ve gotten some traction and movement to move forward, a shared group model where we’re presenting ourselves as a network. And when you buy into the network, you then get exposure to this great audience,” said Winkfield, 38. Other members include Enterate Latino, a Spanish publication serving Western Colorado; the English-language Asian Avenue, and the Aurora Sentinel, invited to join because of the ethnic diversity of Aurora.

During a recent meeting, they discussed a memo of understanding and strategies for seeking group sponsorships; Winkfield mentioned that the Colorado Media Project and Rocky Mountain Public Media Organization had invested grant funding into the network.

Some more nuggets from the piece:

• “‘Afrik Digest just wants to amplify the voices of Africans and people of African descent … getting the information from somewhere and delivering [it] to them so that they can be educated and informed on what’s going on,’ said [Publisher Vera] Idam, who was bubbly and lively during an interview in which she wore a dress of what appeared to be a West African print, speaking with a slight lilting accent.”

• “Colorado Chinese News serves readers not only in Colorado, but in the Rocky Mountains region.” Editor Wendy Chao “said that because there is no other Chinese-language newspaper in North or South Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas or New Mexico, people in those states rely on hers. When a Chinese restaurant owner wants to sell or hire more staff, it’s her publication that carries those ads in Mandarin.”

• El Comercio de Colorado “fills the language gap created through generations: while Hispanic millennials are often bilingual, their parents or grandparents may not be. If they don’t speak or read in English, there aren’t many other ways to get Colorado news in Spanish.”

El Comercio de Colorado Publisher Jesús Sánchez Meleán told CPR he believes that through the Colorado Ethnic Media Exchange, leaders of the state’s ethnic-serving publications will be able to identify similar goals and try to solve problems they share of visibility, growth, connectedness to their audience and ad sales.

Winkfield, the president of the CEMC, calls herself “an ambassador” for the publications. “I do appreciate just being able to create something that may not have existed before or something that we don’t know exactly what it is,” she told CPR.

The emergence of the Colorado Ethnic Media Exchange spotlights some of the major new developments in Colorado’s local media scene in the past decade: A spirit of collaboration and coordination over competition, an uplifting of nonwhite and other-than-English-only media and the deployment of philanthropic resources and support to bring it all together.

Read the whole CPR story about the CEME here.

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Crestone Eagle newspaper’s future uncertain, some working on ‘solutions’

Since last week’s announcement that the nonprofit Crestone Eagle monthly newspaper in the San Luis Valley would cease operations “at least temporarily, perhaps for good,” its future is uncertain.

This week, Managing Editor Matthew Lit resigned, saying that he had pushed for publishing a story in the November edition that offered a “complete and accurate assessment” of the situation, but was rebuffed by the paper’s oversight board.

“I could not continue — in good conscience — to work with (work for) the sitting board of directors,” he posted in a message to his followers on Facebook.

Lit added that an “unrealized grant brought forth a financial pothole that, while certainly problematic, did not warrant the disarray that followed. Three weeks of paralysis, confusion, mixed messages and personal attacks from board members left me in an untenable position.”

He is referring to one of the $100,000 Press Forward grants that the national local news fundraising group announced earlier this month will flow to nine Colorado outlets. (One news organization in the San Luis Valley that landed a grant was the digital for-profit Alamosa Citizen.)

Multiple Eagle board members wrote and responded to comments on Lit’s Facebook post. None of them disputed what he wrote, but Board President Gussie Fauntleroy did say “as soon as there’s clear information to share, it will definitely be shared.” She added that “caring folks are working on solutions.”

Fauntleroy also confirmed in a comment that losing out on a recent grant opportunity contributed to the Eagle’s meltdown.

“There was a very large grant that was expected, but it was very competitive and the Eagle didn’t receive it. That’s what’s hard about grants,” she wrote. She added that not getting it was a “major factor” but was also one of many. “This may not be the end of the story,” she said. “Stay tuned.”

The Eagle converted into a nonprofit two years ago when its longtime editor, Kizzen Laki, who also sat on the town council, retired.

A band of locals had gotten together, formed the Crestone Eagle Community Media nonprofit, and took over the paper. They raised money, rallied the community, and wrangled support to sustain it as an independent news organization.

Some of those who helped launch the nonprofit haven’t been involved in a while.

“What the future holds for a newspaper in Crestone is, as yet, unknown,” Lit, the outgoing managing editor, wrote. “There is a group of people continuing to seek solutions to revive this important community asset.”

Big new study on Colorado media: ‘Business as usual is not enough’

This must be the month of Big New Reports on Colorado’s media scene.

It was only two weeks ago when this newsletter covered a major deep dive into our state’s local media ecosystem from the organization Impact Architects.

Now, it’s the Public Media Company that’s out with a look under the hood and some suggestions about our media future.

Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter, asked PMC to “develop a 5-year model to help illuminate potential pathways to protect and grow the $650M local news provider ecosystem in Colorado.”

From PMC:

For us this was a first: We had never before applied our expertise to an entire state-wide ecosystem, and we were eager to help and to learn along the way.

The model was a collaborative effort, building on a five-year vision developed by over 130 civic leaders in journalism, higher education, nonprofit service, business, philanthropy, and public policy from across Colorado. To build it, we analyzed trends using multiple sources and available data sets, we created newsroom archetypes, and we met with a team of Colorado news leaders and CMP staff for three months to inform the development, to test our assumptions, and provide guidance and refinements.

So, what did the organization learn?

• “In the end, the model demonstrated that media and consumption habits, along with sources of revenues, are changing rapidly in Colorado, and there is urgency to create sustainable business models in local news media organizations.”

• “Most Coloradoans access local news online, and Colorado newsrooms face varying degrees of audience and user migration to digital platforms. This is consistent with national trends, though unique in many ways to the local news ecosystems within the state.”

The model was built around three scenarios: Business As Usual, the Conservative Case, and the Aspirational Case. And it “demonstrated that affiliation and closer coordination between different types of newsrooms” will be critical.

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: “Business as Usual is not enough to meet the news and information needs of all Coloradans, and the current trajectory will result in the contraction of the local news ecosystem rather than its growth across a number of key metrics, including ecosystem-wide financial capacity (the ability to allocate more resources to journalism), the number of news outlets, and editorial capacity -or- the number of people contributing [to] the development of news at media outlets.”

• Bottom line: “The model demonstrates that significant increases in investment are needed to move the ecosystem to the Aspirational or the Growth State. There is no single source of current revenue that can cover the $50M gap between the Business as Usual and the Aspirational Case. Colorado will need to see increases in all categories of revenue (and potential new sources, like public funding), as well as cost savings through collaboration, controlling and reallocating expenses, operational efficiencies, and technology innovations.”

Read the whole report here.

A ‘post-COVID future’ means 2 layoffs at Denver’s 5280 magazine

Another Colorado publication has laid off an editor and a business manager as it restructures its masthead three years after the worst of the pandemic lockdowns.

This time it’s the Denver magazine 5280.

“Over the last few years, we’ve been right-sizing the company for the post-COVID future,” the magazine’s founder, CEO, and editor, Daniel Brogan, said over email this week. “That meant identifying products unlikely to bounce back and instead shifting our focus fully onto the flagship magazine and growth areas such as digital and events.”

More from Brogan:

In 2022, we sold Colorado Parent. As a print-centric, free-distribution magazine, it just didn’t make a lot of sense for us anymore. Last year, we folded 5280 Home back into 5280. Ninety percent of 5280’s subscribers are homeowners, which made us realize they’d be interested in home-related content and we could give advertisers a far bigger audience in 5280 than they were getting in 5280 Home. Almost all of 5280 Home’s advertisers agreed and made the jump to the main magazine.

That left us with a top-heavy management structure. Previously, we had an Editorial Director who oversaw the chief editors for each title and a Chief Revenue Officer who oversaw the Ad Directors for each title. With only one primary title, we no longer needed that extra layer of management and so we made the difficult decision to eliminate those positions.

Geoff Van Dyke, our former Editorial Director, and Camille Hammond, who was Chief Revenue Officer, are wonderful people who made many important contributions to 5280. I wish them nothing but the best in the future.

“As difficult as this was, we feel we’re now in a far more sustainable position as we move into 2025 and beyond,” he added.

The move at 5280 comes about a month and a half after the nonprofit Colorado Community Media laid off its editor in chief, citing a leadership reorganization.

Kyle Clark of 9NEWS at DU: Journalists ‘shouldn’t advocate’ for things? ‘Screw that, I live here’

Last week, the University of Denver hosted an event about “the roles of the media and higher ed in shaping our shared understanding of the world,” and invited Denver’s 9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark to participate.

Asked if we are now in an era where everyone gets to have their own facts and how we get to a place of shared conversations, Clark said he felt we are quickly approaching an era when people revel in having their own fact set.

“Being wrong or even dangerously misinformed used to be something that people would be embarrassed by,” he said. “And now it's often something that is celebrated as a tribal identity.”

He added he worries people might be too quick to dismiss this development as a passing fad or “just politics,” especially since people with their hands on the levers of power seem to be taking advantage of it.

Here are some more moments that stood out:

• “As much as I love journalism and believe in the fundamental importance of journalism to American democracy, it’s more important to me that people have the facts, they have truth and they have a shared reality — it’s more important that they get it than they get it from journalists. If they decide that journalism is functionally obsolete for a period of time, that would break my heart — I think it would do great damage to America — it would not do nearly as much damage as if we no longer have a shared reality with which to operate from.”

• Asked about journalism’s role in an age of echo chambers and a death of expertise, Clark said one thing it’s not is “for journalists to retreat into he-said-she-said and let people figure it out on their own. That’s lazy, that’s cowardly.”

• “Journalism, if done right, is something that’s done in conversation with community,” he said.

• “I think objectivity is something that the public desires, but I think that too many journalists have used the guise of objectivity to do very shoddy work and to avoid telling the truth about things. I think what people want is the truth. I think what people want is for someone to say ‘I’ve looked at the fact set, I’ve talked to the key players, I’ve brought to bear every brain cell I have to rub together, and this is what appears to be going on here’ — and not to couch that and make that something that I tell my friends at parties and don’t tell you. If I know something, I tell you. That’s the bargain.”

• “One of our great goals when we launched ‘Next’ eight years ago is that we saw it as a true force for community building. Some people can say that that’s advocacy and that journalists shouldn’t advocate for things. Well, screw that, I live here. I want the community to be better.”

Watch the entire hourlong event, which includes University of Denver Chancellor Jeremy Haefner and was moderated by media department chair Derigan Silver, below:

Spotlight on Colorado student journalism from The Nutgraf

This week, Chatwan Mongkol, who writes the excellent national newsletter The Nutgraf, which focuses on student journalism, trained his attention on Colorado.

Mongkol’s Oct. 28 edition details how student journalists at Metropolitan State University in Denver covered Donald Trump’s visit to Aurora even though reporters for The Metropolitan were denied press access.

“A lot of us are Hispanic, first-generation immigrants, and those identities are being heavily debated in this election,” Isabel Guzman, editor-in-chief of student newspaper The Metropolitan, told the Nutgraf. “It’s really important and relevant to our student voice that we cover the event.”

Mogkol used the Denver story to point out how student journalists across the country were facing similar roadblocks to reporting, then circled back to the Met.

Back in Denver, without a press pass, Guzman sent Managing Editor Mariana Ortega Rivera to cover a protest outside the rally instead.

The story focuses on how immigrants in the Denver metro area felt overlooked and frustrated with the “perpetuation of harmful stereotypes in media and political rhetoric.”

While watching a livestream was an option, Guzman emphasized the importance of being present at events to capture the student perspective.

“We were a little bit scared because Trump rallies are known to be a little negative towards the media,” Guzman said. “We knew that would really impact the way we told the story.”

Guzman said student media deserves more recognition in the industry.

“Maybe just more honored in the perception of people who are hosting press events,” she said. “I’m always going to be a big fan of little, local media. I think that they deserve more access to things.”

Elsewhere in The Nutgraf newsletter edition, Mongkol profiled a partnership between the Denver online news site Bucket List Community Café and MSU Denver’s student newsrooms.

“Vicky Collins, publisher of Bucket List, said national journalists tend to focus on ‘the horse race’ aspects of elections, which often magnify divisions, whereas student journalists and Bucket List prioritize informing voters about the issues that matter most,” he wrote.

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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

🙏 Thanks to the Axios Denver team of Alayna Alvarez, Esteban L. Hernandez and John Frank for joining my “Inbox Journalism: Writing for Newsletters” class at Colorado College this week and letting students help with the newsletter.

🤐 With the billionaire owners of the L.A. Times and Washington Post silencing their editorial boards from making endorsements this year, Colorado Sun columnist Mike Littwin wrote that it matters because “these decisions — along with similar decisions made by others in positions of power — tell us as much or more about the risks of electing a strongman than any article or column I’ve seen in any newspaper, in any magazine, on any podcast, on any blog, on any news website.”

⏳ Speaking of … will the conservative editorial board of the Phil Anschutz-owned Gazette in Colorado Springs and Denver make an endorsement in this presidential election? I emailed Publisher Chris Reen multiple times and emailed and texted Editorial Page Editor Wayne Laugesen throughout the week but did not hear back. For context, the Gazette endorsed Trump nine days before Election Day in 2020. With three days until Election Day this year, the Gazette, like some other newspapers with billionaire owners, has not made an endorsement for president this election cycle. It’s not a stretch to wonder why.

🤐 Meanwhile, in 2022, the Alden Global Capital hedge fund that financially controls the Denver Post and several smaller Colorado newspapers, told its papers they could no longer make endorsements for president, U.S. Senate, and races for governor. Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, said this week its 200-plus newspapers, including the Coloradoan in Fort Collins and the Pueblo Chieftain, could not make a presidential endorsement but could endorse state and local candidates.

😡 Ethics leaders at the Society of Professional Journalists this week “denounced the apparent decisions by the owners of the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post [for] preventing their respective editorial boards from publishing endorsements for president just days before the election,” the organization stated. “SPJ ethics leaders worry that this marks the beginning, and not the end, of such interference, which flouts the ideal of editorial independence.”

🐶 Denver7, a.k.a KMGH, wanted to counterbalance a visually off-putting political ad about abortion that it’s airing. So the ABC affiliate’s creative services producer, James Dougherty, “came up with a cute puppy clip, which played with the note that it was a ‘15-second political ad break,’” Denver7 General Manager Brian Joyce told Patty Calhoun of Westword.

📻 In Colorado, local radio is a “key factor in securing Latino votes,” Inside Radio reported, focusing on the 8th Congressional District race where Sonny Subia, Colorado’s volunteer state director for LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, said such voters are “listening to social media and the radio.”

🆕 Moe K. Clark, an award-winning investigative journalist who has worked for plenty of Colorado publications and has “a track record of exposing wrongdoing and inspiring change, is joining InvestigateWest as a Washington State University Murrow News Fellow,” the outlet announced.

🪦 Scott Monserud, “who elevated the Denver Post’s sports section into one of the most respected in the country,” died this week at 69, Sean Keeler reported for the paper. “Monserud worked at the Post for 22 years until his retirement in June 2023, including 17 as sports editor. He passed away, his family said, after a nine-year battle with prostate cancer.”

🏆 Florence Reporter owner Kevin Mahmalji said he recently learned the paper “is being recognized as the Most Impactful Business for Southwest Colorado as part of the Colorado Sun’s Best of 2024.”

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.