Local media smackdown: Gazette vs KRDO in Colorado Springs

A spat over 'Olympic City' coverage, and more news behind the news in Colorado

Somewhat lazy image created by DALL-E for ChatGPT, showing that there’s still a ways to go before AI takes over the world, right?

In a rare development, two local news organizations in Colorado Springs — the daily newspaper and a commercial TV station — have ripped each other over the way they are covering something that has been central to the city’s identity for nearly half a century.

At issue is the extent to which the Springs deserves its title as “Olympic City USA,” a trademarked brand coordinated with the International Olympic Committee.

The Gazette newspaper, owned by the Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, is all-in — a proverbial Wheaties box booster for the city’s Olympic brand. Recently, when KRDO, the ABC affiliate in the Springs, reported the city might have an “identity crisis” as the Olympic City, the Gazette’s editor penned a front-page Sunday column calling the reporting “sensational” and the headlines “all hat and no cattle.”

Firing back, KRDO’s news director has accused the Gazette’s editor, a veteran journalist who came to the Springs from the Washington Post, of writing a “biased” and “poorly researched” column.

So what led to this?

An opening salvo came in February, when KRDO produced a 30-minute investigative broadcast under the banner “Olympic City Identity Crisis.” The package featured multiple reporters, including one on the ground in North Carolina. “Our iconic claim to fame, Olympic City USA, could now be in question,” an anchor said at the outset. The report cited Olympians airing their frustrations with the Springs.

In a series of separate stories, the station’s journalists said they were digging into “why a growing number of Olympic teams are moving.” Journalist Heather Skold reported a “subtle but significant shift” over the past decade of teams moving out of the Springs to a performance center in Kannapolis, North Carolina.

KRDO further reported that “multiple” other teams are considering moving. “Millions of dollars could be at stake if more teams leave Colorado Springs,” said a KRDO anchor in one broadcast. In another, journalist Sean Rice reported a story under the headline “City of Colorado Springs spends millions every year to be branded Olympic City USA.” That headline was later changed to “City of Colorado Springs spends millions per year for U.S. Olympic and Paralympic headquarters.”

KRDO kept up the heat, at one point pressing Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade on the issue at a news conference. “If athletes are leaving, what makes Colorado Springs Olympic City USA?” Skold asked him. “I”m actually trying to wrap my head around who’s left and who’s not left,” the mayor said.

Following the broadcasts, KRDO’s sources told its journalists they were getting “frantic calls” from government officials who were “concerned” about what the reporting revealed, news director Staci-Lyn Onofre said in an email.

The image of the modern American Olympics movement came in for broad public scrutiny less than a decade ago when more than 150 women and girls said disgraced and now imprisoned USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar had sexually abused them. A 2018 report from an independent law firm found the Springs-based U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics “enabled Nassar’s abuse by prioritizing medals and money at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of athletes,” media reported.

Last month, as KRDO was reporting its “Identity Crisis” series, a federal commission charged with investigating the U.S. Olympic structure released a 277-page report that was critical of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and the Denver-based SafeSport, an organization created in 2017 that investigates allegations of abuse in Olympic and Paralympic sports.

Here’s an excerpt from the report, which recommended sweeping reforms:

When we examined SafeSport’s funding structure in greater detail, what we found was deeply concerning. In amassing its $20 million funding requirement for the center, USOPC charges governing bodies a high-use contribution fee for each case referred. This practice incentivizes governing bodies to deter participants from coming forward if they have been abused or encountered other forms of misconduct.

Another excerpt:

The stark difference … between incomes for executives and support for athletes was alarming. The Commission found that the net cost to athletes, on average, to participate at the highest levels of our Olympic and Paralympic sports pipeline and pursue international competition is $12,000 a year. This means that our top athletes must pay for the privilege of competing under our flag. Even during the pandemic, USOPC and many governing bodies found creative ways to fund executive compensation while cutting support for athletes, many of whom were left to rely on crowdsourcing and other methods of supplementing their already-low incomes.

The federal report got plenty of national attention, but beyond KRDO I haven’t yet seen much local coverage of it in the city known as “Olympic City USA.”

KRDO’s broadcast about the report, headlined “Olympic athletes live in poverty while executives get rich, federal report finds,” included an interview with the commission’s co-chair and came packaged under the branding of its “Identity Crisis” series. The broadcast also focused on the salaries of Springs Olympics executives and how local government funding flows to local Olympics-relate endeavors.

“This all comes just weeks after a KRDO13 investigation uncovered that some Olympic teams are leaving Colorado Springs to train in North Carolina,” reporter Skold said in the broadcast.

If the Springs is in danger of losing its luster as the city for the Olympics and Olympics-related activities, the news likely would not sit well for some in the city’s establishment who have long relished that designation.

For months, KRDO stood alone in its crusade among the city’s soupy-thin media scene. Then, in an April 7 personal opinion column published on the front page, Gazette editor Vince Bzdek threw down the gauntlet. He scolded KRDO and its team for what he characterized as overblown coverage.

Here’s an excerpt from the Gazette broadside headlined “Colorado Springs vs Kannapolis: Will the real Olympic City please stand up?”:

On closer examination, I’m afraid those headlines are all hat and no cattle, as we like to say out West. The stories just don’t back up those three-alarm headlines. Upon deeper inspection, in other words, Colorado Springs’ claim to the Olympic City title is pretty darn safe. The city that’s supposedly coming for our iconic title is Kannapolis, N.C. Yea, I’d never heard of it either.

The column came labeled as “news commentary,” which unlike standard news reporting includes a personal point of view and doesn’t typically follow the same conventions as reporting, such as seeking comment from subjects mentioned.

In the piece, Bzdek took up for the Springs brand as “Olympic City USA” and how he doesn’t believe it’s in danger of losing that designation by ticking off a roster of organizations still calling the city home, the number of athletes that train in the Springs, and a laundry list of other reasons. He dunked on Kannapolis throughout as not being up to snuff for such an Olympic designation.

The editor also challenged elements of KRDO’s reporting, specifically the claim that a North Carolina training center has lured three National Governing Bodies for Olympic sports to relocate. That, he wrote, is “not correct, according to officials with the Colorado Springs Sports Corp, which provides support for the governing bodies in the Springs.”

Here’s more:

An early version of one of KRDO’s stories said that the City of Colorado Springs paid millions to be branded “Olympic City USA”. That’s not accurate. Editors at KRDO corrected the story later to clarify that the City of Colorado Springs pays for the headquarters offices and other buildings the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee uses in the city. That agreement also allows the city to be branded "Olympic City USA". There is no direct payment from the city to the USOPC. Rather, the city is paying back bonds used to finance the Tejon Street headquarters. 

To inform his coverage, Bzdek took a private tour of the Springs Olympic training center and found it “packed” and busy — not a “ghost town” as one of KRDO’s main sources for their series, former Olympian pentathlete Eli Bremer, suggested. In his column, Bzdek, who didn’t reach out to Bremer for the piece, wrote, “I’m not sure what Eli was smoking when he said that.” (Bremer, a well-connected figure in the Springs and the Olympic community and a former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, has posted on social media inviting Bzdek to debate him on local talk radio.)

Until now, KRDO has not publicly responded to the column. But in a statement to this newsletter, Onofre, the news director, took it head on:

Here’s part of her statement:

We question why this article was published, out of the blue, more than two months after our report aired.  In an amazing coincidence, shortly after the article was published, an organization tied to the establishment informed KRDO13 we were on an “Enemy list,” whatever that means.

It’s clear politics run deep in this city and influence some journalists who are supposed to remain impartial.

KRDO13 does not report to the Colorado Springs Gazette or anyone else, except our viewers and readers. We will not be spoon-fed a narrative without taking a critical eye to what we are being told. Some characterize this important work as being sensational and this week, one official accused us of “not knowing how things work around here.” We disagree.

Perhaps what is most disturbing about Bzdek’s article is the failure to follow one of the major tenets of journalism: Telling both sides of the story. KRDO13 was never contacted for comment before the slam piece was published. It’s hard to believe, especially considering the respect KRDO13 has for the talented journalists in the Gazette newsroom. 

Onofre went on to say the station’s reporting was never focused on Kannapolis, North Carolina becoming the new Olympic City, a point she argued that the Gazette column “seems to misunderstand.” She said her reporters noted it for context “and to spotlight a potential larger effort to make North Carolina the new ‘Olympic State’” and a shift to its capitol of Charlotte that houses the U.S. Performance Center where Olympic athletes train. “Some of them include athletes who left Colorado Springs for better facilities,” she said.

KRDO’s reports “were built upon deep sources inside Olympic circles, including several high-ranking officials,” she added. “These individuals did not want to be named, fearing retaliation. KRDO13 repeatedly asked the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to be a part of our reports. They declined to be interviewed for our initial report and follow-ups.”

The glaring contrast between the coverage from KRDO and the Gazette has spilled onto local talk radio.

Shortly after the Gazette column dropped, Bremer, the former Olympian who has been a vocal critic of the Springs-based U.S Olympic Committee, went on the Richard Randall Show at KVOR and spoke for roughly 20 minutes about his take on the situation. He and Randall contend that the city just doesn’t have the visibility it once did as “Olympic City” — no high-profile Olympians hanging out in coffeeshops or consistently training at the downtown Olympic Training Center. When an Olympian recently visited his son’s school, Bremer said, he found out they had flown him in from out of state. Bremer had some choice words for the Olympic Committee and for Bzdek for his choice of a primary source for the column.

“He’s a very accomplished journalist,” Bremer said. “So I would ask the question: Why would he use an organization that has been grossly discredited in the national media — and in front of the United States Congress and the people of the United States — as his only source without even reaching out to me to say ‘Hey where are you getting your information from?’” Bremer said he was “still scratching my head and saying why is our hometown newspaper basically trying to cover up what’s a clear story?”

I sent Bzdek the gist of KRDO and Bremer’s critiques; he declined to comment for the record.

For now, this coverage contrast is largely between the daily newspaper and one of the city’s four local TV stations. I haven’t seen KOAA, KKTV, or FOX21 try to match either of the outlet’s reporting, and the local public radio station KRCC hasn’t weighed in.

The Springs lost its alternative weekly newspaper (along with the Colorado Springs Business Journal) in January, which for decades had provided a counterweight to the Gazette. The closure has left its daily rival as the sole dominant print publication in the nation’s 40th largest city.

That will change in a couple weeks, however, when the Indy comes back as a revived twice-a-month paper with a new staff. The new paper is bankrolled by two local developers who say they want to see more voices in news coverage.

It will be interesting to see if it joins in the fray. Who could resist?

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What investigation? State lawmakers decide for themselves CPR host’s firing ‘violated his rights’

Nearly a dozen state lawmakers this week signed and sent a letter to the board of directors of Colorado Public Radio expressing their support for the weekend host and creator of the “Back from Broken” recovery podcast who CPR fired in January.

Vela has filed a discrimination complaint against the powerhouse public broadcaster, saying a vice president of the company mocked him for his history of addiction and CPR fired him when he sought accommodations. Colorado Public Radio executives have vigorously disputed the allegations in various public forums.

While a civil law enforcement agency investigates the complaint, 11 Democratic lawmakers have put in writing that they’ve already concluded Vela’s version of events are fact.

“Vela faced discrimination and hostility, which not only undermined his efforts but also violated his rights under the American Disabilities Act and Colorado anti-discrimination laws,” they wrote. (CPR says their letter is “void of balance and truth.”)

The lawmakers wrote that they “urge CPR and its leadership to address Mr. Vela’s concerns and work towards a resolution that upholds the principles of equity, justice, and respect for all employees.”

Colorado Public Radio responded in a letter to Democratic Rep. David Ortiz, whose name graced the letterhead. Here’s part of it, attributed to CPR CEO Stewart Vanderwilt:

At CPR we do not tolerate hostile, abusive or discriminatory behavior. Mr. Vela was terminated not because of a disability or experience with addictions, but because he repeatedly failed to address his hostile behavior. This abusive and erratic behavior was witnessed and reported by numerous CPR employees, and we offered Mr. Vela ample opportunities to correct it and move forward. Ultimately, he was unable to meet those expectations, so he is no longer with our team. Any allegations that CPR acted inappropriately are false.

We assure you and your colleagues that CPR offered to provide help and resources to Mr. Vela on numerous occasions.

I am very surprised and disappointed that rather than contacting me or another member of the CPR staff to hear our account and learn about the resources and support we offer every employee, you chose to write a letter void of balance and truth. Now, this letter has gone viral, much to the disappointment of the many people at CPR who tried to help Mr. Vela. Your letter impugns the reputation of people at CPR who have devoted their careers to supporting employees and serving Colorado with trusted information.

I’ve posted it in full on Twitter/X here.

A Gonzo journalism mea culpa in Estes Park

In a recent journalism class, a student asked how much “Gonzo journalism” exists these days in contemporary news media and to what extent outlets and audiences might have an appetite for it.

I mentioned how the late Hunter S. Thompson pops up from time to time in the journalism world and how his ghost is currently occupying a Jiminy Cricket-type role in the HBO political journalism show “The Girls on the Bus.” I also noted how the new early 30s editor of the Aspen Times recently said he “sees room for gonzo journalism in the paper, but maybe not the front page.”

But this week offered a cautionary Colorado tale for the genre.

Jason Van Tatenhove, who runs the local news Substack newsletter Colorado Switchblade, published a “clarification and apology” for how he approached recent coverage of the local police.

From the April 19 piece:

This morning, as I received a text from Interim Police Chief Ian Stewart asking to meet at a local coffee shop, a familiar flutter of anxiety stirred in my stomach, reminiscent of being called to the principal’s office back in junior high. This summons signaled a serious conversation was about to unfold, one that would challenge my recent assertions and broaden my understanding of a complex issue.

In a recent piece titled “Operation Senior Menace,” I presented a satirical, Gonzo-inspired view of a local law enforcement operation aimed at serving outstanding warrants in Estes Park. The tone and tenor were influenced by a perceived overreach, particularly towards our community’s senior residents. However, a conversation this morning with Chief Stewart has shed new light on the intent and execution of this operation, prompting me to revisit my initial judgments.

“While satire and critical analysis play vital roles in our discourse, ensuring accuracy and context are just as crucial,” he added. “I commit to further engaging with our local officials to provide the most accurate and constructive coverage possible — even when it is in a Gonzo-styled satire opinion piece. It is my hope that this article not only serves as a correction but also as a catalyst for fostering a more informed and cooperative relationship between the public and the police.”

Here’s to seeing if Van Tatenhove will one day run for sheriff like the Godfather of Gonzo did in Aspen.

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🔎 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

• Jason Blevins of the Colorado Sun spent two years “assembling hard-to-get data about the number and severity of crashes” at Colorado’s most popular resorts. Why did it take so long and why did the reporter have to file open-records requests with public entities to obtain the information? Because “unlike just about every other industry in the country, the resort industry does not disclose injury data.” Now we know — because of a reporter who put in the work.

• Lizzie Mulvey and Carly Rose at Rocky Mountain PBS investigated a “resignation loophole” in Colorado law that allows problem police officers to avoid accountability. “There is no statute requiring police departments to complete investigations into their officers if they resign, meaning other departments are not privy to important information about the officers when making hiring decisions,” the journalists reported. For officers under investigation for bad behavior “resigning can offer key benefits” if they plan to seek employment elsewhere as cops.

• Chris Vanderveen of 9NEWS reported that the Colorado Parole Board “remains a very opaque entity” — and the board, along with leadership at the Department of Corrections, denied the outlet’s requests for interviews. But that did’t stop the reporter from being able to tell the story through shoe-leather reporting, digging through documents, and knowing how to request information by using the state’s public records laws. The investigation “found the state failed to assess a parolee for more than a year before the stabbing deaths of two people in Denver.” On social media, Vanderveen provided a play-by-play of his reporting process and all that went into it. “This is NOT a story about the need to get tougher with those on parole (although I'm sure some will argue it absolutely is),” the reporter said on Twitter/X. “What we found was a failure to identify and support a man on parole who was clearly spiraling in a very bad direction. His parole officer knew it.”

• Tim Drugan and John Herrick at Boulder Reporting Lab used the Colorado Open Records Act to obtain city emails that revealed “widespread confusion” after a power outage and a “near-miss sewage threat to Boulder Creek.” The reporters wrote that the emails also “highlight the city’s unpreparedness, largely due to poor communication from Xcel. These communications show officials struggling to grasp the full extent of the outage and its impact on Boulder’s critical infrastructure.”

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.

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David Sirota’s investigative news outlet is growing because readers ‘support the journalism’

Denver journalist David Sirota launched The Lever in 2020 with two people, and it has since grown to 19 with the help of a “flourishing subscriber strategy.”

That’s according to a recent story by Charlotte Tobitt of the U.K. Press Gazette that profiles the muckracking site. From her piece, which quotes Managing editor Joel Warner:

The team is remote and based all over the US, but gather multiple times a year in Sirota and Warner’s home city of Denver, Colorado.

The Lever’s reporting is free for registered readers. Paid subscribers are offered perks such as exclusive columns, weekend round-ups of good news and must-reads from elsewhere, extended and bonus podcast content, access to online events, the ability to comment on articles and e-books.

Warner said people were not as bothered about getting perks if they pay – they just wanted to support the journalism.

Warner said The Lever aims to publish “one completely original, highly reported story every day that you won’t read anywhere else” and that its “bread and butter” and “core area of success” is “investigative-focused, daily reporting on, as I like to put it, literally how corporate power is making everything worse for the rest of us.”

Last year, the outlet’s “paying subscriber base increased by 16.5%,” Tobitt reported, adding, “The Lever also developed a digital tip jar due to people demanding ways to give it money after reading a story.” (Editor’s note: Hmmm, not a bad idea! I just created this link if you want to show your support for my work on this free newsletter.) “As a result it received 2,200 individual donations last year (which were additional to any recurring subscriptions).”

Warner called his experience at The Lever strange.

“I’ve been in journalism since 2001 from all sorts, from newspapers, to magazines, to books,” he told the Press Gazette. “And I’ve never been at an operation before that isn’t either treading water furiously, or just going downhill. It’s weird to be at an operation that is growing.”

Read the whole thing here.

More Colorado media odds & ends

🎓 “I’ve come to understand that the business side of journalism is just as crucial as the reporting itself,” wrote Zoe Wirth, a graduating senior at Colorado College, about her internship at the Colorado News Collaborative where she “engaged with local Colorado publishers, stakeholders, and innovators in the industry, gaining invaluable insights into the local media landscape.”

➡️ The National Association of Black Journalists released a statement saying, in part, the organization is “disappointed with the image created for Westword’s ‘Armed and Dangerous’ cover. It projects an image of young Black men as criminals and plays into the worst stereotypes and innuendoes.” Westword editor Patty Calhoun had earlier apologized for the illustration, saying it was “an ignorant miss from the start, and I deeply regret allowing it to proceed. Again, we apologize for a major mistake that created harm and hurt.” NABJ’s local chapter, the Colorado Association of Black Journalists, “has planned to meet with Westword leaders to share the organization’s and readers’ concerns,” the NABJ stated.

🔎 “The title is set for a proposed Colorado initiative to repeal newly enacted legislation that narrows the definition of ‘public business’ in the Colorado Open Meetings Law as it applies to the General Assembly and lets lawmakers communicate by email and text message without it being a ‘meeting’ under the statute,” reports Jeff Roberts for the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.

I’m Corey Hutchins, co-director of Colorado College’s Journalism Institute. 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.) Follow me on Threads, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.