Like endangered fish that seemed destined to disappear from a once-important lake, journalists have made a miraculous comeback at Colorado’s Capitol, which is now teeming with about the same number of reporters who were assigned there from the 1960s through the 1990s.

“I would have to say, yes, your perception is correct,” said Charles Ashby, Capitol reporter for the Grand Junction Sentinel, when asked if his species of journalist was thriving at the Capitol, compared to the old days. “While I can’t speak on how many people were around in the 60s, 70s and 80s (because I may be the Capitol dean and Oldnewsman, I’m not THAT old), my understanding is there are about the same or maybe slightly fewer people covering the Capitol these days.”

Ashby estimated that when he started at the legislature in 1997, the Capitol press corps, which is the group of journalists assigned to cover the general assembly, consisted of three to four from The Denver Post, two each from the Rocky Mountain News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Associated Press, and one each from Pueblo Chieftain and Longmont Times-Call—with an “occasional” reporter from Boulder Daily Camera and “less occasionally” from the Fort Collins Coloradoan and Grand Junction Sentinel. Other reporters would “parachute in for specific stories,” said Ashby.

That’s a total of 11 to 15 Capitol reporters in the late 1990s, before the numbers started to decline in the next decade.

Today’s list totals at least 17 reporters.

Colorado Independent: Two.
Colorado Politics: Two.
Denver Post: Two (versus a high of five in the 1960s and 1970s)
Colorado Public Radio: Two.
Colorado Sun: Two.
Associated Press: One.
Chalkbeat: One.
Denver Business Journal: One
Denverite/CPR: One.
Durango Herald: One.
Grand Junction Sentinel: One.
Rocky Mountain Community Radio: One.

“The competition for office space around here this year has been pretty intense, because there just isn’t enough room to accommodate everybody,” said the Capitol’s second-longest-serving journalist Marianne Goodland of Colorado Politics, an online and print weekly.

That wasn’t the case over the past 15 years, when the Denver and rural dailies were cutting their Capitol bureaus—and online platforms weren’t filling the gap.

“A lot of publications stopped sending people here around the time the Rocky Mountain News closed, so you had this dearth of coverage of the legislature, and it’s just now on the rebound to where it was before,” says Goodland, who started covering the legislature in 1998. “It’s a different business model with a lot of niche reporting for which there is a clear demand. Everybody is growing.”

The number of journalists in the Capitol press corps doesn’t include reporters for local television news stations, who have a bigger presence at the legislature than they did during the heyday of the print dailies, according to longtime journalists.

Nor does the Capitol press corps include the many journalists, from The Denver Post, Colorado Politics, Colorado Public Radio, the Colorado Sun, and elsewhere, who drop in for a story or two.

“We have John Frank and Jesse Paul at the Capitol full-time,” Colorado Sun Editor Larry Ryckman said via email. “We have freelancers Brian Eason and Sandra Fish covering state government issues part-time, and we have other full-time reporters — including Jennifer Brown, John Ingold and Chris Osher — who cover issues at the Capitol from time to time.”

Kevin Dale, the Executive Editor at Colorado Public Radio, described a similar approach.

“We have two full-time reporters: Bente Birkeland and Sam Brasch,” Dale said via email. “We also send other beat reporters to monitor bills that are important to that beat. We now have a photographer and often send them there. Last, because we just acquired Denverite, we are making use of their statehouse reporter Esteban Hernandez, though you might already be accounting for him with Denverite.”

Could we have arrived at the surreal situation where Colorado has too many reporters at the Capitol, given that other critical beats, like municipal government, education, courts, etc., aren’t getting the attention they deserve–or not attention at all?

“Media outlets rightly believe that what happens in the Legislature greatly impacts their readers, and therefore is important to follow and report on.” Ashby emailed me. “And I wouldn’t say there is too much emphasis on the Legislature over local government coverage. For example, I’ve had to remain in Grand Junction more often than normal this session because of some turnover here. While they are seeking a new county government reporter, I have spent the past several weeks covering both county government and the Legislature.”

Former Rocky reporter Lynn Bartels, who started covering the legislators in the year 2000, says the legislative coverage now is “overwhelming.”

“There’s almost too much to read in the morning,” Bartels told me, explaining that she will open just one of many morning emails from the outlets, look up, and find that she “hasn’t gotten any of her work done.”

“There is an amazing concentration on the Capitol, and I sometimes think that’s to the detriment of other beats,” she said, explaining that the Rocky had a Denver Public Schools reporter, a suburban reporter, police, higher education, religion, city hall, and more.

Maybe in an ideal world, you’d spread the journalistic love across the community, but alas it doesn’t work that way.

So let’s just accept this as great news for journalism and Colorado—and appreciate it while it lasts.

Writers love to add stuff after they’re done writing something, but usually they tweak rather than blow up their work with a completely new idea.

But Colorado Springs Gazette dropped a last-minute bomb in an editorial yesterday.

The piece argued that Democratic candidate for governor Jared Polis’ ties to the KKK run deeper than Republican Walker Stapleton’s, even though Stapleton’s great-grandfather was a leader of the KKK in Colorado. And Stapleton has refused to denounce the KKK or his family ties to it, while instead praising his great-grandfather in campaign ads.

And Polis has no ties to the KKK.

Westword’s Chris Walker noticed that the original version of the Gazette’s editorial didn’t have the closing line that Polis is the “candidate our established, left-wing media hope to elect.” This was added later.

So it was an afterthought!

You’d think news like this would be the headline of the editorial (with lots of supporting evidence). Something like, COLORADO MEDIA IN THE TANK FOR THE LEFT.

But the Gazette, which is owned by Republican mega-donor Phil Anschutz, provided no evidence for the assertion.

And the election of Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, with The Post’s endorsement in 2014, would tend to make you think otherwise about any liberal leanings of the media in Colorado.

The Denver Post published a few thoughtful letters over the weekend about whether the New York Times erred in reporting on the potential impact of Republican candidate for governor Walker Stapleton’s family ties to the KKK.

The letters responded to Post columnist Mario Nicolais’ June 29 piece titled “The New York Times kneecaps Walker Stapleton.”

In his column, Nicolais complained that the Times article, titled “Family History Haunts G.O.P. Candidate for Governor in Colorado” by Julie Turkewitz, was a “hit piece.” “It’s dirty, it’s wrong, and it contributes to the dumbing-down of the electoral process,” wrote Nicolais.

One letter writer, Ryan Bauer of Thornton, points out that Nicolais, who’s normally super detail-oriented, somehow failed to note that Walker Stapleton once bragged about his great-grandfather, Benjamin Stapleton, who was a leader of the Colorado KKK in the 1920s,

As the Times article points out, Stapleton touted his great-grandfather’s public service in at least one campaign ad as a candidate for state treasurer in 2009. He has avoided the issue more recently with rising public awareness of Benjamin Stapleton’s Klan affiliation, i.e. efforts to rename the Stapleton neighborhood as well as an eponymous school.

If Walker Stapleton felt it was appropriate to highlight his great-grandfather’s accomplishments for electoral gain, he also must decry the ugly, racist side of that legacy. It’s a loose end that, unless Stapleton officially comments, voters will be left to wonder whether his sympathies lie with the white nationalist bloc under the Trump-GOP tent.

A second letter, by Nancy Banks, states. in part:

Nicolais correctly argues that Walker Stapleton isn’t responsible for the sins of his great-grandfather; however, he ignores the fact that Walker Stapleton is not a self-made politician, but instead is the beneficiary of the political dynasty started by his great-grandfather — a dynasty that had initial success based on Benjamin Stapleton’s support for white supremacy and his support by white supremacists.

Voters are entirely within their rights to ask Walker Stapleton what that dynasty means to him, and to get a clear answer from him.

A third letter writer wrote:

I note that Denver attorney Mario Nicolais in his op-ed justifiably lambastes the New York Times for its association of Colorado gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton with the membership of his great grandfather Benjamin Stapleton in the Ku Klux Klan.

It is rather ironic to say the least that on the very next page George Will begins his criticism of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez by noting that “For three months in 1917, Leon Trotsky lived in the Bronx, just south of the congressional district where Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez recently defeated a 10-term incumbent in a Democratic primary.” C’mon George.

Much has been made of The Denver Post’s hedge-fund owner’s strategy of sucking profit from the enterprise while sending it into a death spiral with staff cuts that undermine the core journalistic mission of newspaper.

But everyone who tracks The Post knows that the paper’s problems run much deeper than Alden Global, its owner.

The core subscriber base of The Post’s print edition, which is still a major revenue source for big city dailies, is getting older and dying–while younger people don’t want to pay for journalism at all–online and certainly not in print.

Ironically, the newspaper’s precarious financial condition is undoubtedly the major reason its accepting fake news advertisements that brazenly aim to manipulate the loyal audience that continues to love and cherish the newspaper: old people.

Since March, I’ve tracked some of the fake-news ads that run in the Post’s print edition. To me, they’re shocking, funny, and heart-breaking, especially because I’ve seen them work on my very own mom.

I’m sure they’re hated by the fine journalists who work at The Post, but that doesn’t make the ads, often with fake bylines and disclaimers too tiny for the eyes of many oldsters, any less disgraceful.

Tuesday’s ad, for example, was headlined:

“New arthritis pain killer works on contact and numbs pain in minutes.”

“David Watson Associated Health Press” was the journalist-ish name atop the article. A Google search for this person revealed ads in newspapers across the country, including one with his name on it from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, which surely has the same audience problem as The Denver Post. The title of the St. Louis Post ad: “New Numbing Drug Relieves Crippling Arthritis Without Pills or Needles.” (A previous ad on a similar topic had “Robert Ward, Associated Health Press, as the author).

To its credit, The Post labels the ads as advertisements, but the warning is too small and does not get the newspaper off the hook for promoting the same fake news it purports to hate.

The ads undermine The Denver Post’s most valuable asset, which is its credibility as a trusted news source.

Here’s some other sample headlines of ads printed since March 13 in The Denver Post:

New pill reverses memory loss in amazing way. Subhead: Developed by Israeli doctor. Study shows key ingredient reverses years of mental decline and may also prevent dementia (July 23).

Pills may replace diapers and padded underwear at stores. Subhead: Clinical studies show new pill may be effective enough to replace diapers for bladder control. Initial users show dramatic reduction in trips to the bathroom, embarrassing leaks and nighttime urgency (July 18).

Why haven’t senior homeowners been told these facts? Subhead: Keep reading if you own a home in the US and were born before 1955 (July 7).

New drug numbs arthritis pain exactly where it hurts (June 18).

America is hungry for Martha Stewart’s new 30 minute dinner kits (April 30).

New non pill sex cream for men gets amazing results. Subhead: Recent warnings on sex drugs could lead to the creation of an amazing no-pill option. Key ingredients activate sensation pathways triggering erections and arousal.

New prostate pill reduces urge to pee especially during the night.

Adult diapers may no longer be needed thanks to amazing new pill (March 15).

Pill used in Germany for 53 years relieves joint pain in 7 days without side effects. Subhead: Now available in the US without a prescription! By JK Roberts, interactive news media. (March 14).

Americans report improvements in memory, concentration, and thinking power. By Daniel Ward as health press (March 16).

I don’t mean to hit The Denver Post when its down, but the victims of these ads deserve to know that none of this is news that’s been vetted by their trusted Denver Post. The deception is probably working. Otherwise these ads would have stopped months ago.

More Ads:

A flock of journalists, from an array of media outlets, covered a rally of about 100 people at The Denver Post headquarters today, pointing cameras at marching and chanting Post reporters, who called on the newspaper’s hedge-fund owner, Alden Global, to find a buyer who cares about journalism and the community.

One of the journalists covering the rally didn’t want to be interviewed about it, saying he needed permission from his bosses before commenting to the press.

But another,  KOA 850-AM’s Jerry Bell, quickly offered his take.

“It’s horrible,” Bell said when asked how it felt to cover the rally. “A lot of those people are my friends. I’ve worked side-by-side with them for years. It’s heartbreaking.”

Despite somewhat strong chants of, “What do we want? A new owner. When do we want it? Now,” an undercurrent of horribleness and heartbreakingness, not to mention vulnerability and sadness, indeed pervaded the rally today at the industrial-scale Post headquarters.

That’s because no one at the rally, or chit chatting on the side or anywhere on the internet, explained how The Post’s predicament, with a hedge-fund owner that’s chopping away at the newsroom, ends well.

No path toward a solution is on the table, but, still, the goal was clear, as expressed in a chant that went, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Alden Global has got to go.”

A dubious group of potential buyers, who rode a media wave after the Post’s former Editorial Page Editor Chuck Plunkett penned an editorial critical of Alden last month, has disappeared, at least for now. Plunkett himself resigned, after a follow-up editorial was rejected by Alden executives.

Plunkett spoke at the rally, expressing the painfully obvious truth that the journalists in front of him were uncomfortably protesting and marching.

But Plunkett also told the crowd and the reporters present, “Local journalism is way too important to be neglected, as it has been over the past few years. Local journalism is way too important to be censored, as we are starting to see now. We really need Alden Global to come around and start reinvesting in its newsrooms and start looking for a way to preserve journalism across all its holdings, particularly at the Denver Post. Or they need to sell to more responsible owners. That’s the message these people are trying to get out. And these people have been working hard, under impossible conditions, for way too long. And it’s time for the people of Colorado to stand up and help these folks, if they care about local journalism, and they should.”

Plunkett is soft-spoken and precise with his words, which makes him a somewhat unlikely character to become the poster child for saving journalism in Denver, but most journalists would be similarly ill-suited for the role. That’s their nature, as Plunkett himself expressed.

Yet, as the signs carried by The Post journalists read, “Democracy Depends on Journalism.”

So there’s hope. There’s still a lot of great journalists in Denver, outside The Post.

And the Post’s cause is so noble that big civic-minded money may well flow its way. That’s what I’m waiting for, at least.

The Boulder Daily Camera’s Editorial Page Editor Dave Krieger was “terminated” last week after the Camera’s publisher spiked an editorial, written by Krieger, that took aim at the Camera’s hedge-fund owner, Alden Global, which also owns The Denver Post. Krieger’s piece was titled, “Private Equity Owners Endanger Daily Camera’s Future.”

Krieger published the spiked editorial the week before he was sacked.

Here’s why Krieger published it:

Krieger: “This is a story about an important, longstanding Boulder institution. As journalists working in that community, we have an obligation to our readers to tell it.”

Does that mean that Post and Camera journalists should risk their jobs and start investigating and publishing articles about Alden? Do all journalists have that “obligation” to their readers?

If so, the scribes at the Camera and the Post have some work ahead of them. I had this vision of mass rebellion at the Post and Camera, not just from the editorial page editors, but from the entire staffs, refusing to write about anything but Alden Global, defying management and turning out newspapers until Alden had to call the police to forcibly shut down the newspaper and fire everybody. A mass strike and act corporate disruption.

Not gonna happen, but should more journalists at those newspapers risk getting fired over this, like Krieger did?

Krieger, who’s answering questions at 6:30 tonight at the Denver Press Club, undoubtedly knew there was a chance he’d be fired if he went rogue, just as I did when I published a column, spiked by Rocky Mountain News editor/publisher John Temple, arguing that maybe the Justice Department could intervene and force the Rocky to stay open a bit longer. (Temple got really mad but didn’t fire me.)

But I had almost nothing to lose, because the Rocky was a holiday-season away from closing, and I was freelancer anyway and could afford it.

Krieger’s full-time job was on the line.

And so was Plunkett’s, even though, as I understand it, he never disobeyed his bosses when he orchestrated his newspaper’s editorial attack on Alden Global from the pages of The Post. So maybe his firing seemed a bit less likely than Krieger’s, due to Krieger’s outright insubordination.

Actually, Krieger might not call what he did insubordination, because he works for his readers, or at least partly.

But if journalists put their readers first, what should the remaining staffs at the Post and Camera do now?

It sounds kind of ridiculous to spell it out, but all of us have the option of civil disobedience, if laws violate our higher ethical bearings, and we can tolerate it no longer and are willing to accept the consequences. See David Thoreau.

Whether we, as citizens, break the law obviously depends on a lot of things, including our personal circumstances (ethical, religious, financial, health, and more) and possibly our assessment of whether our law-breaking would help right the ship.

The same holds for journalists who have to decide when they owe it to their readers to disobey the corporate master and rebel, like Krieger did. Or go on strike. Or carry on, under the circling vultures, if they think a rebellion would just hasten the demise of journalism in Boulder and Denver.

Of course, journalists have faced dilemmas like this before, when they’ve battled managers and owners, but Alden Global is forcing a lot of them in our community to think about it at the same time, like right now.

Some people are feeling betrayed by The Denver Post, or should I say its hedge fund owner, for putting its articles behind a paywall about a month before the newspaper decided to lay off a third of its news staff, meaning there’s no way The Post’s offerings will match what you expected when you bought your subscription.

It’s a bait-and-switch, even for someone like me who’s had a subscription to The Post for over 20 years.

So I called The Post to find out if you get your unused money back, if you cancel your annual subscription during the year.

You’d expect to get a partial refund, but with the hedge fund involved, and things being what they are, you don’t know.

You’ll be happy to read that, yes, if you cancel, you can claim your money for unused months.

So now what do those of us with subscriptions do?

You could argue, why give money to the hedge fund, which appears to be sucking money from the newspaper without any concern about journalism?

But you could have taken that position not only when the newspaper went behind the paywall in early January, but ever since Alden Global Capital acquired The Post in 2013.

Things look worse now, awful in fact, but if you subscribe to The Post because you wanted to support local journalism, you still should.

Don’t cancel your subscription.

I mean, there’s still hope. It’s hard to write it, but it’s true.

At some point, you have to expect that The Post will be sold, and maintaining as much journalism between then and now is worth it, so that the next owner can start off in the best place possible under horribly adverse conditions.

Yes, Alden Global Capital will eat some of your money, but not all of it. Or maybe not all of it.

Also, if you believe there’s hope in The Post’s subscription-only model, and I have an itsy bitsy amount of faith in it, then you want to give it a chance to succeed. Yesterday’s staff cuts, coming so soon after the wall was put up, are even more sad, because Alden didn’t give the subscription model a chance to succeed, and now it has much less of a chance.

But there’s still hope for it,

So I’m not canceling my Post subscription. The newspaper still deserves the best shot possible. That’s what it should get from its owners but is not getting. And that’s what we should give it.

Plus, I have no doubt that the dregs of the Post, the 70 stiffs who remain, will still churn out great stories that I will want to read.

The Denver Post took time to extract the actual newsworthy information from Sunday’s Face-the-Nation interview, featuring U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), instead of simply transcribing the main topic of the senator’s appearance on national TV.

The news, which came at the end of an interview focused on North Korea, was, as The Post’s headline stated, “Cory Gardner doesn’t deny blocking a bipartisan effort to improve gun-purchase background checks in TV interview.”

In contrast, CBS4’s news-free headline read, “Gardner on North Korea Relationship: Hold China Responsible.” CBS4’s piece, like the Hill’s and not surprisingly the Washington Times’, failed to mention Gardner’s repeated refusals to answer questions about his alleged decision to block a proposed bipartisan law to help force federal agencies to accurately document the criminal histories of gun buyers.

The Post not only reported Gardner’s newsworthy gun-question dodge, but also tried (and failed) to get a clarification from Gardner, provided background on the issue, and noted Gardner’s recent statements on gun issues (urging a focus on mental health care, not guns).

Related: In radio interview about how to respond to the Florida massacre, Gardner doesn’t utter “gun,” “rifle,” “firearm,” “bump stock,” “magazine,” or any related words

The important interview, illustrating the secretive tactics used to stop gun-safety legislation, was mostly ignored nationally and locally.

The Post reported that Gardner “did not deny that he put a hold” on the gun-safety bill.

From The Post:

The Colorado Republican, interviewed on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said he has concerns about the measure that has broad bipartisan support in the Senate over what he describes as “due process issues.”

“This isn’t a issue of whether you like this or not,” he said. “It’s a question of constitutional rights and protecting the people of this country, protecting them from harm …”

“So, you are blocking the bill for now?” moderator Margaret Brennan interjected.

Gardner continued, “… and, and making sure we’re protecting people from harm and making sure that we get this right, and if there’s a constitutional issue at stake then that should be worked out.”

The Durango Herald appears to have axed its much-admired, one-person Denver bureau, once staffed by legends like Joe Hanel then Peter Marcus, in favor of relying on content from ColoradoPolitics, which like the Colorado Springs Gazette, is owned by Phil Anschutz’s Clarity Media.

In a post Thursday, Herald Editor Amy Maestas wrote that the new “partnership” with ColoradoPolitics will “expand the political coverage we bring our readers” with both print an online-only stories.

The Durango Herald has a long-standing commitment to providing our readers in Southwest Colorado news about our lawmakers and the state Legislature. For many years, the Herald had a one-person bureau in Denver to write stories about legislation and issues pertinent to our corner of the state. Those full-time Herald staff reporters were invaluable as coverage from statewide news outlets dwindled.

To continue that commitment, we are pleased to announce a new partnership with Colorado Politics, which will now provide our legislative and political coverage from Denver. Colorado Politics is a print and online publication that launched in January 2017. The news outlet is owned by Denver-based Clarity Media – the same company that owns the The Gazette in Colorado Springs. The Gazette’s editor, Vince Bzdek, is also editor of Colorado Politics…

This summer, Colorado Politics hired two writers to report on legislators and issues from the Western Slope. This includes La Plata and Montezuma counties. Under the leadership of lead reporter Joey Bunch, Colorado Politics journalists will provide daily coverage of statehouse activities, as well as follow the activities of state Sen. Don Coram and state Rep. Barbara McLachlan.

Maestas stops a millimeter short here from saying the Herald’s Denver bureau has been shuttered, and she did not immediately return an email seeking to confirm the death of the bureau. The Herald’s last known Denver Bureau Staffer, Luke Perkins, isn’t filing stories from Denver.

I also asked Maestas if she was paying for the ColoradoPolitics content, if she had concerns about the fact that GOP mega donor Phil Anschutz owns ColoradoPolitics, and if she’d gotten any reader feedback on the arrangement. Is she providing content to ColoradoPolitics?

My take on Anschutz’s ownership: we have no choice but to trust the journalists who work at ColoradoPolitics to alert us if he undermines their ability to practice journalism due to his partisan goals. Right now, there are clearly journalists on staff there who wouldn’t let Anschutz get away with too much.

Asked if ColoradoPolitics has similar relationships with other newspapers, Bunch said via email that his news site may partner with other rural outlets in the future.

The Durango Herald was one of the last rural newspapers in Colorado to staff a Denver/Capitol office. The Grand Junction Sentinel has a presence in Denver, in the venerable Charles Ashby. The Greeley Tribune keeps a few toes in Denver. The Fort Collins Coloradoan pretty much ended its coverage with the departure of the equally venerable Patrick Malone in 2013. The legislative coverage of the Colorado Springs Gazette, helmed previously by Megan Schrader and, before her, John Schroyer, has morphed into ColoradoPolitics.

Conversely, The Denver Post closed its last rural bureau in 2015, with the departure of Nancy Lofolm from the Grand Junction bureau.

Updated Wednesday with my opinion on Anschutz’s ownership.

Journalists hate fake news, right? And they hate it when they’re accused of being purveyors of fake news. So why would a newspaper put its most valuable asset, its credibility, at risk by publishing fake-news advertisements that look almost exactly like news? And then not answer questions about it?

Don’t ask ColoradoPolitics, a political news site owned by conservative billionaire Phil Anschutz, because that’s what it did this week.

Corey Hutchins, writing for the left-leaning Colorado Independent, reports that ColoradoPolitics will not respond to questions about a deceptive advertisement, designed to mimic a news supplement, that ran in the online and print editions of ColoradoPolitics last week.

That was disappointing, because I thought ColoradoPolitics would respond to reasonable questions like the one in Hutchins’ headline, “Who paid for ‘sponsored content’ and a ‘paid advertisement’ in Colorado’s weekly political newspaper?”

I noticed that the logo on the ColoradoPolitics’ sponsored content/advertisement appears to matche the one used by Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED). And CRED ran a similar ad insert in The Denver Post a few years ago, with similar pro-oil-and-gas messages. So the answer to Hutchins’ question could well be CRED, but we don’t know for sure. CRED did not return a call.

I had a few other questions about the ad, and I listed them in my email, sent Thursday, to Vince Bzdek, the editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette, also owned by Anschutz. Bzcek oversees editorial direction at ColoradoPolitics. He did not respond, which is too bad because I’ve admired his work and was hoping to hear from him.

Here’s my email to Bzdek. If you happen to know the answers to any of my questions, please let me know.

Hi Vince –

I’m a former freelance media critic at the Rocky, now blogging on media and politics, from a progressive perspective, at BigMedia.org, ColoradoPols, and elsewhere.

…[I thought] you might answer a few questions about the sponsored content that ran in ColoradoPolitics.

I know this is standard industry practice these days, used by The Denver Post and many other newspapers. And I’ve written about The Post’s sponsored content previously here.

My questions are:

• Why is there no mention of the sponsor of the ad in the print or online editions. The logo matches the one used by Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED), so I’m guessing that’s the sponsor. Is this true? Why not state this on the ad?
• Did you consider making the “Paid Advertisement” in larger type on the print edition. I was glad to see it on all four pages, and you admirably made “Sponsored Content” very large online, though an explanation of what this phrase means might be useful for readers.
• When you Google author “Tim Peters,” who’s the bylined author of the sponsored content, along with the phrase “Colorado Politics, you get “Author at ColoradoPolitics.” Click there, and you get his story, which, to your great credit, is headlined as “sponsored content.” Still, this makes it appear as if he’s a real journalist/author.
• But other than his identification as the author of the sponsored content, Tim Peters appears not to exist. I can’t find him on the energy company websites or on CRED’s site. A fake byline mocks the basic journalistic principle that the author of an article should stand behind it. Do you think the stories should have no byline or the byline of a person that can be reached, even if that person is an energy-company employee?
• I’ve been told I’m wasting my time on this, and journalism has bigger problems. I would agree, but the sponsored content bugs me, because if you want journalism to survive, why put your best asset, your credibility, at risk by brazenly deceiving readers?

Thanks for considering a response to these question, or as many of them as you want to answer.

Nothing lengthy is needed, and feel free to call me if that’s easier. And if you want to respond, I can wait as long as you need to find time for it.

Much appreciated.

Jason Salzman