Archive for the 'Rocky Mountain News' Category

Meet the Press

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

Colorado Senate candidate Bob Schaffer’s spokesperson, Dick Wadhams, seems to be manipulating the media in some strange way every time he’s in the news these days.

This time he’s telling Lynn Bartels at the Rocky Mountain News that the Producers at Meet the Press had mostly given up on trying to convince Schaffer’s opponent, Mark Udall, to accept their invitation to debate. Bartels quoted Wadhams:

“I can tell you that Meet the Press had pretty well given up on him,” Wadhams said. “The producers didn’t think he was going to do it. “We pretty much shamed them into accepting the debate.”

But Bartels didn’t state whether Wadhams accusation was true. Just because an allegation sits within quotation marks doesn’t mean reporters shouldn’t fact check it–or at least get a response to it.I called up Meet the Press, and the show’s publicist, Jenny Tartikoff, would only tell me, “We don’t comment on our booking process.”

You wouldn’t expect the truth-crusaders at Meet the Press to illuminate the truth for citizens in an importatn Senate race, would you? Oh well, I can see the logic of not commenting on the booking process in some cases, but here’s a situation where Meet the Press is being used by Wadhams. Meet the Press should have set the record straight.

For her part, Bartels wrote me that she had contacted Mee the Press, and she had intended to put its response into her article, but this was dropped from the final version of her article. She wrote me by email:

We initially had in there a line that we didn’t get a response from Meet the Press, and a line about how Tara Trujillo laughed out aloud when I told her what Wadhams said about Meet the Press.Those were removed. Can’t remember if it was space or some other reason.That was more than 24 hours ago!

…Some background: Wayne Allard was the first sitting senator to debate on MTP. Before, incumbents figured why risk it.

The debate can be important. Pete Coors in 2004 mistakenly said North Dakota was part of the axis of evil. Republicans kind of gave up. That same year, John Thune and Tom Dashle debated. Thune didn’t win but didn’t lose, either. He showed he could hold his own with Thune.

I think the most fascinating thing is the sidebar to my story. It was Schaffer who told Benson in 1994 to quit debating, a move that pundits said helped sink his campaign.

In the end, Wadhams used the credibility of Meet the Press to advance his agenda. Neither the Rocky nor Meet the Press should have allowed him to do this.

The Meet the Press debate takes place Sept. 28.

 

 

 

Wadhams = Schaffer?

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

I spoke with Bob Schaffer’s spokesman Dick Wadhams last week about his use of words like “ass” and “scumbag” when talking to the Rocky Mountain News about Mark Udall.

You know that Wadhams has a plan when using language like this, and so you believe him when he says, “I know exactly what I’m doing,” which is what he told me when asked about why he does this. He didn’t get into the details but you know he wants to get more media attention.

It worked Aug. 5, when Democrats objected to his use of the word “ass” (to describe the part of Democrat Mark Udall’s body up which the Schaffer campaign plans to “shove” 30-second ads) and the Rocky wrote a story about it. Here’s Schaffer’s original ass quote from the Rocky in a piece by Lynn Bartels.

You can debate whether Wadhams’ PR strategy makes sense. Will the vulgar language turn off swing voters? Or will it embed his talking points in their minds? I think it’s smart for the Dems to selectively respond to a harsh operative like Wadhams…-to spotlight his meanness, but who knows, really.

In any case, from a journalistic perspective, it’s definitely the right thing for reporters to quote Wadhams’ rather harsh language, even if the Rocky won’t spell out the dangerous word in the newspaper. The Rocky also quoted Wadhams May 2 using the word “scumbags” to describe an anti-Schaffer organization.

And when Dems object to Wadhams’ unusually strong language, reporters should cover this, too, as the Rocky did when the Dems objected to “ass.”

But reporters should also ask Schaffer whether his spokesperson, who speaks for Schaffer and presumably is controlled by Schaffer, has his blessing for using words like ass.

A Feb. 22 Rocky story by Bartels pointed out that when Wadhams worked John Thune’s campaign in South Dakota, Thune was asked directly about Wadhams behavior. Here’s an excerpt from the Rocky story.

In 2004, Wadhams went to South Dakota to manage the campaign for John Thune, who was trying to unseat Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle. It was Wadhams who went after Daschle while Thune shook hands and smiled.

“Would I have said it that way?” Thune told The New York Times, after one of Wadhams’ responses. “Probably not. But that’s why I hired Dick.”

Below is an excerpt from my interview with Wadhams on this topic. I also quoted Wadhams in my Sat. Rocky Column.

Jason: I’m wondering if Congressman Schaffer approves your language? Wadhams: He approves of the aggressive way we are trying to draw contrasts with Boulder Liberal Mark Udall.Jason: Will you hook me up with the congressman to see if he approves of you using those words, ass and scumbag?Wadhams: You can try calling him if you want.Jason: OK. What’s his number? Wadhams: You know, Jason, you are a liberal partisan. You set yourself up as some kind of objective source. And, Jason, you and I both know you are liberal partisan Democrat.Jason: Not true. I try to be fair.Wadhams: I don’t consider you a legitimate reporter, Jason.Jason: You’ll see. I’m fair. Wadhams: Oh no you’re not. Your columns amuse me, but you are a partisan Democrat. Talking to you is like talking to the spokesman of the Democratic Party. We don’t have to talk to you.Jason: Well, I appreciate your talking to me.Wadhams: I don’t have to. I might as well be talking to the press secretary for the Democratic Party.Jason: That’s not true. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Take that.

Clarification

Monday, June 9th, 2008

In my last post, I provided Rocky Mountain News reporter Lynn Bartels explanation of why she deleted “Boulder liberal” from a quotation from Dick Wadhams, spokesman for Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer.

I should have made it clear that Bartels will not routinely delete “Boulder liberal” from Wadhams’ quotations in which he refers to Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall of Eldorado Springs as “Boulder liberal Mark Udall.”

She will evaluate Wadhams quotes on a case-by-case basis.

 

What Boulder liberal?

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

If you’ve been following Colorado’s U.S. Senate race, you know that Colorado Republican Chair Dick Wadhams has trained himself to refer to Rep. Mark Udall as “Boulder liberal Mark Udall.”

 

Whenever Wadhams is quoted, which is quite often because Schaffer apparently doesn’t like to talk to reporters, Wadhams spreads his name-calling propaganda.

 

It’s Wadhams’ PR at its slimiest, and it’s the kind of thing we pay reporters and editors keep in check, for reasons explained here.

 

So it was a relief to see “Boulder liberal” apparently removed from a Wadhams quote in this morning’s Rocky.

Here’s the key passage:

Two days after winning his party’s nomination, U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer went back to a necessary chore in politics: raising money.

 

“A lot of it is one on one,” said Schaffer’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams. “We’re not going to raise more money than (Democratic congressman) Mark Udall, but we are going to raise what we need to win this race.”

I asked Rocky reporter Lynn Bartels, who wrote the piece, whether she responsibly removed “Boulder liberal” and replaced it with “Democratic congressman). She emailed me:

 

Wadhams said “Boulder liberal Mark Udall” and I only had 10 inches so I didn’t have the space to explain to readers that Udall is not from Boulder and has never lived in the city of Boulder so I used parens.

Breakdown of breaking news

Friday, May 9th, 2008

For my Saturday column, I analyzed the breaking-news emails distributed by The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News from Feb. 1, 2008, to May 6, 2008.

Here’s a breakdown of the Rocky’s 39 breaking-news emails sent during this period:

21%      sports
18%      crime
15%      election
13%      business
10%      traffic
5%       disaster
5%       national politics (Spitzer stories only)
5%       state politics (Garcia resignation; Benson approval)
3%       international politics (Fidel Castro resigns.)
3%       Iraq War
3%       celebrity (Fishbein dies.)

 

Here’s a breakdown of The Post’s 70 breaking-news alerts emailed during the same period:

 

34%      sports
17%      crime
11%      election
7%       business
7%       traffic
6%       disaster
4%       state politics (Garcia resignation, Bruce “peasants” remark, and Benson approval)
4%       celebrity (Fishbein dies; Ledger overdose; Winehouse visa granted)
3%       national politics (Spitzer stories only)
1%       international politics (Fidel Castro resigns.)
1%       editorial opinion (announcement of The Post’s endorsement of Mitt Romney)
0%       Iraq War

(not equal to 100% due to rounding)

 

As I write in my column, there’s nothing about Congress or the President. Other than the presidential election, the only national political story to make breaking news was Spitzer’s sex scandal. The only breaking news from the Colorado Legislature was the Garcia resignation. There was nothing about the passage of bills in the Colorado Legislature providing health insurance to 50,000 kids who lack it or requiring energy companies to credit customers who use wind or solar power to make electricity.

 

 

Sprengelmeyer and Abramoff

Saturday, April 26th, 2008

You may by intrigued by Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer’s ties to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, as reported in the Denver Post here, here, and elsewhere.

But the Rocky Mountain News has a reporter who’s in Abramoff’s pants.

That would be M.E. Sprengelmeyer, the long-time Washington DC correspondent for the Rocky.

Sprengelmeyer told the strange story of how he acquired Abramoff’s exta-large pin-striped suits in a 2006 Rocky article

It’s a convoluted story, but here’s the gist of it: Abramoff is a unusually-sized man whose expensive suits were made by a fancy tailor.

Abramoff ordered a couple suits when he was making big bucks ripping off American Indians and others, but he couldn’t pay for the suits because he went bankrupt when authorities caught him.

The Rocky’s Sprengelmeyer, who was roughly the same size as Abramoff, snapped up Abramoff’s suits at a bargain rate from the fancy tailor in Washington DC.

So, situated in Washington and possibly even wearing Abramoff’s clothes, Sprengelmeyer is in a great position to find answers to troubling Abramoff-related questions that have popped up lately in Denver.

Was Schaffer or his staff doing Abramoff’s bidding in defending the immigration policies of the Marianas Islands that resulted in forced abortions and other worker abuse?

I hope Sprengelmeyer does everything he can to find out. The Rocky has some catching up to do.

Iraq War coverage

Friday, February 15th, 2008

In my Sat. column, I beg journalists to keep the Iraq War on the front burner. There’s nothing partisan about supporting the troops. All public figures, including journalists, should talk about the troopsHere’s what KOA radio anchor Steffan Tubbs’ explanation of why he signs off his broadcast with, “Remember the troops.”

I try every day to end Colorado’s Morning News with “remember our troops” simply as a minor way of reminding people that as we go about whatever, there are tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan (and around the globe) in uniform fighting and serving us. I do this as completely non-partisan as possible.  I was embedded in March of 2006 with the 4th ID in Iraq and came back with an entirely new respect for servicemen and women.  It doesn’t matter if you’re pro-war, anti-war, Pro-Bush, anti-Bush, it is a fact that they’re serving.  In an all-volunteer force.  The least the deserve is the respect from all of us.  And to not be forgotten.
That’s why I say what I say.  It really is that simple.
  

  

Rocky Mountain News Managing Editor Deb Goeken explained her newspaper’s goals in covering Iraq deaths that have link to Colorado. The daily, which won a Pulitzer for a story about a Marine officer who notifies family menbers when a Marine dies, has produced some outstanding coverage Colorado’s connection to the Iraq War. The Denver Post, the other daily in Denver, has also done a good job finding local angles on the war. The following is Goeken’s response to my questions about coverage of Colorado Iraq deaths:
Jason, We try to write about all Iraq deaths with Colorado connections, starting with soldiers and Marines who are from Colorado and extending to all soldiers based at Fort Carson. If a soldier or Marine is from Colorado, and has family still living here, we view it as especially newsworthy. In the case of a Fort Carson-based soldier, we make every attempt to contact their family and to write their life stories as completely as possible. We also try to cover all the memorials at Fort Carson, either ourselves or with coverage from the Gazette. The memorials are always touching, and our photographers have shot some extraordinary photos at the memorials. (As you know, we covered the memorial service for Major Andrew Olmsted, who had blogged for us about his front-line experiences in Iraq.) And, yes, we do as a policy try to cover all funerals of Colorado soldiers, unless the family specifically requests privacy. We honor those requests.       

 

 

  

 

 

 

Interview with Chronicle’s Bronstein

Friday, December 7th, 2007

For my Sat. Rocky column, I interviewed San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein. To me, what he’s trying to do in San Francisco makes a lot of sense. Here’s a transcript of part of my interview with him.

JS: I’ve read that you want to find ways for readers to act instead of just saying things are bad. What does this mean?

PB: It can mean a variety of things, but we snagged this mission from the original William Randolph Hearst, who despite an interesting and colorful reputation, was for a long time a champion of the working man and women. His newspapers took on trusts. They did a lot of things. And he’s not always remembered for that.

And he had a thing called, journalism of action. And of course his action was probably far grander than anything we have in mind. As someone said about it, and I don’t think he said this, but newspapers at the time injected themselves routinely and conspicuously to correct the ills of public life.

Now we have a slightly different view. The model we have is called Chronicle Watch. Chronicle Watch we started some years ago. It’s on the front of the local Bay Area section every day. And it’s not a column, and it’s not a consumer advocate, or a consumer hotline or advocacy. It basically solicits from readers problems from readers that should be getting fixed primarily by public officials. So it’s not Chronicle Watch to End the War in Iraq. But it’s Chronicle Watch about potholes, it’s about the electrical wiring in public school classrooms that doesn’t work, it’s about bridges that are broken and unsafe. So they [readers] send us a note about it, and we check it out. And we run a thumbnail of the problem and a brief description. And we run a photo of the public official whose job it is to fix it, and we run all their contact information. And we run it every day until they fix it. And this has been going for five or six years. It’s success rate is in the 90th percentile. So it’s a pass through. It’s not, we’ll go out an fix it for you. No question, there’s a lot of leverage in putting a photo in the paper each day next to a problem their paid to fix and they’re not fixing. But basically it really is people feeling like even if it’s not their street that they can do something about it. We are providing them the information and the avenue to do that. And obviously some encouragement to do that if you got that information.

And so this, on a small level, is what we have with this journalism of action.

You provide people with all the information they need to do something. No just here, ok are the facts. Or here’s a problem, and that’s it. That’s our job. We’ve provided the information. See ya. Good night. Have a good day. Good luck. Instead, you know we will offer them opportunities to do something about it. Whether it’s something that’s been standard in newspapers for a long time…-help boxes or which congressperson to call, that sort of thing.

We’re doing that, but more than that, it’s in the stories you choose.

So for instance, the mayor of San Francisco says he’s going to improve the homelessness problem. It’s a huge issue in the last several elections. We go out to Golden Gate Park, actually on another story, and our columnist-goes out there…-he was actually looking for coyotes because there was a coyote problem out there…-and instead he finds giant encampments of homeless people, and once more, you know, there are homeless people who have all sorts of problems and issues. There are hypodermic needles all over the place. One kid, in fact, gets stuck in the butt sliding down a public park slide. And he writes about it and provides people the opportunity, you know, if you want to complain about this. We make the maximum use of all the digital possibilities. There stories are on our website and you get comments, and you take from the comments, we reverse publish some of the better comments. In those comments people can have ideas for solutions. We provide the opportunity for those people to express themselves, for other people to then participate if they want to. Immediately the mayor sent people out there to try to deal with this problem. And we kept sending Chuck out there and other reporters out there and sweep the place, map it for the website, where the homeless encampments in Golden Gate park are, where they are moving, are they doing anything that’s valuable or helpful with the folks they are moving. What about social services?

Another example. They had a trash strike in Oakland. One would think that’s pretty limited to Oakland. If you are not or are not having your trash picked up in Oakland. But, you know, the trash company said despite the strike, everyone’s trash is being picked up by management and replacement workers. We went out as reporters to see if this was true. Not only was it not true, but the places they were picking up happened to be the wealthy neighborhoods and the not picking up happened to be the nonwealthy neighborhoods. So we covered that like it was the giant oil spill we just had, and we had a trash watch, and we put the picture of the guy who’s the head of the trash company and his contact information as part of the Oakland trash strike package. It’s hard to say whether we had any role whatsoever in the resolution of the Oakland trash strike, but no question people got to express themselves and they did, including a lot of people who didn’t live in Oakland but were plugged into the story in a more profound way than if you were just reading it in passing.

These are the kinds of things where you actually give information on about how people can participate in a resolution if they want to. The Bay Area has the highest volunteer rate of, I think, anywhere in the country. So when we had the oil spill, the head of the Coast Guard came to San Francisco, and we had an ed board meeting with him, and he said, “I was frankly kind of shocked, but I guess I shouldn’t have been at the number of people who showed up to help.” And there were a thousand people who showed up the first day saying what can we do. And a lot of them were turned away, so we tackled that, too. What can you do and why were people being turned away, and how can that be fixed?

You just leverage people’s desire to participate in their own lives in the paper and online.

And the third example I’ll give you is a guy fell off Half Dome. Half Dome is a very popular climbing place. Most people didn’t realize, the last part of this climb is a vertical climb, and there are two cables that go up, and there’s a line, it’s like a line for a popular movie, around the block. So this guy falls off. And we have an outdoors writer, Tom Stienstra, very well known, writes a lot of books about the outdoors, he writes about it. And he got hundreds and hundreds of comments on his blog-among the comments were people who claimed to be eye witnesses to this guy falling off. So what you do is go and verify, if you can, that they were there, that they saw this-and in the same set of comments are a set of descriptions of why this is a dangerous situation and how it can be fixed-You turn this into, what can you do and how can the public participate in the solution.

That’s the kind of thing, and as I say, it varies on how you do it and what the tools are. You can go from a help box to the whole way the story is reported or follow-up story is reported-.

People can do a lot more, obviously, than a lot of people think they can.

JS: On the online comments, do you actually solicit solutions in the comments, like solution comments, or do they just naturally come as part of the comments on the story?

PB: So far, they just naturally come but I think that’s probably a great idea. I don’t know what form that would take but I do think that we ought to consider, and we’ve talked about, how to specifically solicit solutions.

And you know, this is controversial. People, you know, have accused us of advocacy journalism. That’s not what we do.

We sort of snagged the William Randolph Hearst line because it’s not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s one that journalism has gotten away from in the last number of decades-

The idea is not to direct people to do anything. We’re not telling people what to do. We’re saying, if you want to do something about this, here are all the places you can go, here’s what you can do. We don’t say, do this. More like, if you want to do something, here are some options-.

We started about two and a half months ago. Doing this systematically is new-

I just heard from too many people, you know, readers or former readers, who said, if you want to tell me what’s wrong, I can turn on the TV 24 hours a day. I can find out what’s wrong. I just want to find out what to do about it.

 

 

 

 

Tax-freeze lawsuit to be filed by end of the month

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

I emailed Jon Caldara yesterday.

Hi Jon …•

You’re milking your threat of a tax-freeze lawsuit into significant media coverage. That’s a good PR tactic for you, but it’s bad for people like me who have better things to read about in the newspaper. For my blog or column, do you still plan to file a lawsuit? If so, when? By year’s end? Or after? Or have you already filed it?

As usual, he responded quickly:

The law suit (sic) is a go.  I expect it to be officially filed by the end of the month, unless I want to milk it some more 😉

Jon 

Now, I want to know if Caldara is buying a suit to wear to law school? Or was he referring to the the lawsuit he’s been threatening to file?

Independence Institute: Loved and Embedded by Denver Media

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

In my column on Saturday, I argued that the Independence Institute, the self-described “free-market think tank,”  projects a disproportionately loud voice in the Colorado media.

The Golden-based organization plays a unique role in state politics compared to other local policy shops. It dedicates a large share of its resources to issue advocacy, communications and media. 

And as its impressive media presence demonstrates, II is quite effective at getting its message out.  By way of regular features in the press, television and appearances in news articles, II enjoys a status of being a newsmaker and conservative source for reporters.

The question for journalists, editors and television producers, however, is how to handle such a behemoth with an aggressive media strategy and ideological bent?

Here’s some more information about the Institute’s media profile.

INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE STAFF EMBEDDED IN COLORADO MEDIANo organization on the left or right of the political spectrum has so many of its staffers doing part time media gigs on the side:President Jon Caldara hosts his own talk show on KOA radio and KBDI Channel 12. In addition, he subs for Mike Rosen on KOA.

Jessica Peck Corry, policy analyst for II, is part of the current crop of Denver Post Colorado Voices columnists, and she’s the “Diary of a Mad Voter” blogger on the Post’s new PoliticsWest.com website.

Dave Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute, is an “On the Media”
columnist at the Rocky, as well as a regular guest on KBDI’s Colorado Inside Out.

Amy Oliver, operations director for II, has her own radio show on KFKA 1310, Greeley/Ft. Collins.

Undoubtedly, some left-leaning organizations wouldn’t want a media gig. They’d rather focus limited funds on lobbying and PR work that targets a narrow segment of the population. Being a host on KOA, for example, isn’t a wise use of time for the leaders of many nonprofit groups.

But surely at least some left-leaning organizations would jump at the chance to have one or more of the media platforms enjoyed by the Independence Institute.

KBDI President Wick Rowland told me he’d work with a group like the Bell Policy Center on a show, and the Bell spokeswoman Heather McGregor said her organization would produce some type of show if it had grant money.

“We’d like to be invited on Colorado Inside Out more often,” McGregor told me. “Wade [Buchanan] and Rich Jones have been on 4 or 5 times. There’s no cost to us.”

OP-EDS BY INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE STAFF

Here’s a list of op-ed placements by Independence Institute staff.

Staff Name and Position                                                                    Op-eds
 

Pamela Benigno, Director, Education Policy Center                               0

Linda Gorman  , Director, Health Care Policy Center                            0

Dave Kopel, Research Director                                                          18       

Randal O’Toole, Director, Center for the Am. Dream                           0

Jessica Peck Corry, Policy Analyst, Property Rights Project                  6

Ben DeGrow, Policy Analyst, Education Policy Center                          0

Marya  DeGrow, Research Associate, Ed. Policy Center                      0

Penn Pfiffner, Director, Fiscal Policy Center                                          0

Amy Oliver, Operations Director                                                          1

Jon Caldara, President                                                                          0

It doesn’t look like II staff places more op-eds in the dailies than the staff from comparable organizations, if you don’t count Dave Kopel, who writes bimonthly for the Rocky. Jessica Peck Corry has the temporary “Colorado Voices” position at the Post, accounting for three of her op-eds.

It could be worth analyzing placements by II “fellows,” like Jay Ambrose, whose op-eds are distributed by his former employer, Scripps Howard. He had six op-eds in the Rocky this year, on a variety of subjects.

To be fair, you’d have to compare op-eds placed by II fellows with those published by advisors to comparable left-leaning organizations. The results of such a comparison might not be all that meaningful, since unpaid advisors presumably have their own agenda.

NEWS ARTICLES IN 2007 WITH QUOTES OR REFERENCES TO THE INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE

Independence Institute is mentioned in staff-written news stories by the dailies more than any other comparable issue-advocacy group.

Group                                                              News               Post
Independence Institute                                    19                    19

Bell Policy Center                                          2                      8                     

ProgressNow and ProgressNowAction            5                      5

Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute                        4                      6

Focus on the Family                                       13                    15

Colorado Union of Taxpayers                          1                      1

Colorado Progressive   Coalition                      6                      7

Journalists turn to the Independence Institute for a wide variety of opinions, ranging from FasTracks to green subsidies.

In some cases, the II is in a “newsmaker” role when it’s quoted, but in most cases it’s not. By “newsmaker role” I mean II might be, for example, releasing a report or threatening a lawsuit. I did not assess whether the “news” that II was “making” was in fact newsworthy. But you can argue that in some cases the organization got more attention for its “news” than it deserved. For example, the II got repeated ink for threatening a lawsuit on the tax freeze, even though such a lawsuit hasn’t been filed.

CALDARA IS THE MOST-QUOTED POLICY ACTIVIST
 
Jon Caldara appears to be the dailies’ number-one favorite public policy activist. He was quoted in a total of 22 news articles this year in the dailies. As a newsmaker, he was quoted eight times.

Even if you deduct the instances when Caldara was quoted as a newsmaker, he was still quoted twice as much as any comparable activist, except James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who’s not really comparable to Caldara. I did not count a guy like Mason Tvert, of Safer, who’s a newsmaker on a very narrow issue.

Name                                                              News               Post    
Jon Caldara                                                      13                    9

John Andrews                                                   7                    0

Michael Huttner, ProgressNow                         1                    4

Rich Jones, Bell                                                1                      2

Wade Buchanan, Bell                                       0                      2

Kathy White, CO Fiscal Policy Inst.                 2                     1

Carol Hedges, CO Fiscal Policy Inst.               0                      2

James Dobson, Focus on the Family                 4                      5

Bill Vandenberg, CO Progressive Coalition      2                      4

Most of the Independence Institute’s views align with the fiscally conservative branch of the Republican Party. The center describes itself as “free market.” A smaller number of its views are left-leaning.

There may be fewer conservative public policy organizations, but there certainly are conservatives willing to talk to reporters any time of day or night.

Independence Institute doesn’t have a monopoly on articulate and conservative policy mavens.

FALSEHOODS BY INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE STAFF IN THE MEDIA
 
In their media appearances, Caldara and other Independence Institute staff mix up their facts, as documented by Colorado Media Matters. Click here to see a summary of this.

INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE IS NOT IDENTIFIED AS CONSERVATIVE/LIBERTARIAN OR FREE MARKET

When reporters mention the Independence Institute, they should identify it as “conservative,” “conservative-libertarian,” “free-market,” or something like that, so readers understand the dominant ideology of the outfit.

Sometimes the Independence Institute is properly described; other times it isn’t.

Liberal groups, like ProgressNow, seem to be labeled “liberal” or “progressive” more frequently, but I did not evaluate this methodically.

INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE IS OFTEN QUOTED UNCRITICALLY

Colorado Media Matters has documented that reporters will not only quote Caldara, but do so uncritically. In its May report, CMM noted that Caldara was quoted by local media as comparing Gov. Bill Ritter’s mill levy freeze to “fiscal date rape.” But Caldara was not asked to explain this statement or prove its veracity. Caldara’s point was that the Colorado Legislature did not ask voters to sign off on the tax freeze, prior to approving it. But, in fact, local districts where the freeze will be applied had already approved it. And furthermore, the freeze isn’t a tax increase. Journalists reported Caldara’s sound bite, but did not point out that local districts already approved the tax change.