Last month, Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Bente Birkeland broke the news that Colorado Republicans are taking concrete steps, including more frequent press briefings, to improve their relations with Colorado journalists.

In response, I offered the free advice that GOP lawmakers should consider a halt to sweeping accusations of liberal media bias.

State Sen. Vicki Marble (R-Ft. Collins) didn’t take my advice–or she isn’t one of the three people who read my blog posts–because she hit reporters with the salvo in a recent Facebook post, forwarded to me by a source.

Marble apparently “liked” a meme that read:

THE MEDIA ARE THE ENEMY. FIGHT THEM, OR LOSE AMERICA.–Ben Shapiro.”

“Do you believe the lies of the liberal media? LIKE if you agree we need to fight back,” reads the comment atop the meme, sponsored by the Daily Wire, founded by Shapiro, who’s a former Breitbart editor.

Marble, the state Senate majority caucus leader, isn’t alone, as 1.5 million others also liked the meme, according to the ad, if you can believe that. You’d be excused doubting it, given that a Daily Wire headline last week read, “Trump Is 100% Vindicated On Wiretapping, and 7 Other Things You Should Know.”

It’s one thing to “fight back” with reporters over facts; it’s another to suggest that they are the enemy.

In any case, I can understand if you’re wondering why I’d bother writing this post about a small deep-swimming fish like Marble, when we have Trump regularly calling professional journalism fake news.

But that’s why I’m writing about Marble. Marble is the fish in our tank, and her colleagues, who seem to want to respect journalism more, should talk to her about whether suggesting the media are the enemy helps their cause or anyone’s. She didn’t return an email from me.

The days when journalists wouldn’t respond to officials who insult them, lie about them, degrade them, or otherwise slam their professionalism are fading.

Case in point: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Darryll Glenn’s ridiculous attacks on The Denver Post.

Glenn said last week he would no longer talk to The Post, explaining on KFKA radio that the newspaper had called him a “liar” and journalists there had become “advocates,” which he finds “totally unacceptable.”

Rather than ignore the unsupportable attack, The Post’s Joey Bunch responded on Twitter:

Bunch: I applied facts to his words until he, not I, said his words were not correct.” [here]

The Post’s John Frank then reported over the weekend:

Glenn did not explain why he is blacklisting Colorado’s largest newspaper, but in an interview Thursday with KFKA talk radio, he appeared to link his decision to the Post’s coverage of his conflicting explanations of a 1983 charge for third-degree assault, which was later dropped…

The coverage of the incident did not call him “a liar.” A campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to questions Friday…

Glenn’s decision — which drew criticism from Republicans and Democrats — and other missteps are disturbing to GOP strategists in Colorado, but many still hope he can regain his footing.

The correction of Glenn is good, but I’d like to see journalist call out officials whenever they attack the press, even if they do so in sweeping terms, like leveling bogus accusations of “liberal media bias.”

This year, GOP Senate President Bill Cadman did so and slid by. U.S. Senator Cory Gardner did it a few times in recent years, with no response from the media.

Glenn also appears to have had a Mike-Coffman moment, when he repeated the same line over and over. Local reporters have been good at spotlighting this behavior. (See this video.)

“My press secretary back there will handle all Denver Post questions,” Glenn told Frank four times when questioned.

You recall, Coffman infamously wondered in 2012 whether Obama is an American, and then he offer a sedcripted and unapologitic apology to 9News Kyle Clark five times in a row.

In a fundraising email yesterday, Colorado Senate President Bill Cadman hisses at The Denver Post, writing:

Cadman: “You see, liberal newspapers like the Denver Post want to use this in an attempt to divide Republicans. They can’t comprehend individual thinking.”

Cadman was mad about Post reporter John Frank’s article Sunday exposing an “ideological divide” among Republicans in the state legislature that reflects the division we see on stage at GOP presidential debates. Drawing on GOP voting records, Frank’s piece outlines a pattern of Republican opposition, particularly by eight GOP state senators, to legislation that Cadman and other state Republicans supported.

Cadman’s email didn’t cite any data to support his view that The Denver Post is “liberal,” and a call to his press officer was not returned. But everyone knows The Post isn’t out to get the Republicans. There’s no basis for the accusation.

But that doesn’t stop Cadman from trying to raise money by trashing the newspaper and, by extension, the profession of journalism. How statesmanlike of him.

Over the years, I’ve chronicled these cheap attacks in Colorado (e.g, from Sen. Cory Gardner and former Secretary of State Scott Gessler.).

In this case, you have Cadman asserting that The Post can’t comprehend individual thinking, even though Cadman himself blamed his Republican opponents for not trying hard enough to iron out their individual differences.

Cadman told Frank that “Republicans who opposed the bills ‘maybe should have exerted a little more influence before they got to the floor.'”

Plus,  how could The Denver Post, even if it wanted to, divide the Republicans any better than the Republicans divide themselves? Seriously.

I’m waiting for someone like Cadman or Gardner to have the guts take their accusations against The Denver Post out of shadowy fundraising emails and talk radio and have a real debate about it. Maybe one of them would like to challenge The Post’s John Frank or Post Politics Editor Chuck Plunkett to a debate. Or Post Editor Greg Moore. That would be fun to see.

Talking Points Memo reports that the Mitt Romney campaign told an Ohio TV station yesterday that it preferred not to answer questions about Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin.

“They were chatting and it came up and I believe [a Romney staffer’s] wording was that they prefer not to talk about it,” [WHIO-TV] assistant news director Tim Wolff told TPM. “But we didn’t care because we were going to talk about Ohio stuff.”

If I’m a journalist, and a campaign tells me it prefers not to talk about something, that’s immediately what I want to ask about.

But Wolff told me that the preference was expressed by a low-level logistical person in the Romney camp, and so it didn’t matter to the station, which wasn’t interested in the topic anyway.

I asked Wolff if his station would have conducted the interview, with some questions banned outright.

“We’ve never agreed to any kind of stipulations and never would,” he said. “So it wouldn’t be an issue for us.”

Dave Price, a reporter at WHO-TV in Iowa who also interviewed Romney yesterday, told Talking Points Memo that he also would not have agreed to the Romney interview, if he’d been told that Akin questions were banned.

I asked Wolff what he’d do if forced to reject an interview, due to unacceptable preconditions.

Would Wolff report that the interview invitation was declined?

“I’m not sure, just because I’ve never had it happen,” he said. “There are many variables in how it can happen. We may or may not report, depending on how big a deal it was, that we did not do the interview because of these circumstances.”

Normally, I’d think a reporter should tell us, if he or she doesn’t accept an interview because of banned questions or the like.

Transparency is key, and that’s why CBS4 did the right thing by going ahead with the Romney interview and reporting the ban on Akin/Abortion questions.

Rejecting the interview would have been an over-reaction, because, as CBS4 News director Tim Wieland tweeted, there’s a lot of other questions that can be asked–and you can still report that certain questions were banned, as CBS4 did.

But, at some point, and I’m not sure where it is, an interview gets so restricted that a reporter has to say no, and report what happened.

Or if a topic was so important at a particular moment, a reporter might decline an interview, just because one topic was banned.

So I think it just depends, but CBS4 made the right call yesterday.

In my Saturday column, I wrote that Kris Olinger, Director of AM Programming at Clear Channel here in Denver, decided not to add a left-leaning commentator during KOA’s morning newscast to balance Rush Limbaugh’s daily commentary.

This was disappointing because, in a previous email exchange, which I discussed in a previous column, Olinger seemed open to making her show more balanced journalistically. See my latest exchange with Olinger below.

From: Jason Salzman
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 10:45 AM
To: ‘Olinger, Kristine’
Subject: Rush Commentary
 
Hi Kris …•
 
Last Saturday, I wrote a column (Read it here, if you want.) about the one-minute commentary by Rush Limbaugh on Colorado’s Morning News.
 
I suggested you add a commentary by Jim Hightower every other day to balance Rush’s conservative views. (Listen to Hightower here.) This would be in keeping with the journalistic values of KOA’s news department. I’m not suggesting you balance your talk lineup on KOA, just the commentary during your news program. Some readers thought I was suggesting that you need to add Hightower to your talk lineup.
 
Readers of my column suggested that talkers from AM 760 be given a one minute spot, but I assume this isn’t practical, since they don’t have one-minute commentaries ready to go. I could look into this, if you think you’d possibly use any of them.
 
So I’m writing to ask if you’re willing to broadcast Hightower?
 
Again, I respect very much your willingness to consider him and other options to balance Rush.
 
Jason

From: Olinger, Kristine
Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2008 3:56 PM
To: jason salzman
Subject: RE: Rush Commentary
 
Jason,
 
I’m sorry it’s taken awhile to get back to you.  We’ve been busy with conventions etc.  I’m familiar with Jim Hightower.  I don’t think he’s the right fit for the Denver market.  He certainly doesn’t have the following or name recognition of Rush or Paul Harvey and he would be an expensive addition.
Beyond that, I’m curious why you’re not demanding that we air a conservative viewpoint on AM760 Colorado’s Progressive Station or that NPR add more conservative content? 
Kris Olinger
  From: Jason Salzman
Sent: Sun 9/7/2008 4:00 PM
To: Olinger, Kristine
Subject: RE: Rush Commentary

Hi …•
 
My point is that Colorado’s Morning News is a newscast that reflects journalistic values of fairness, except there’s a daily conservative commentary in the middle of it that’s not balanced by a liberal commentary.  I’m not saying you need a liberal talker on KOA for three hours to balance Rush. I just think that, in keeping with the journalism that you present on Colorado’s Morning News, you should offer a commentator from the left as well as the right.
 
There’s no newscast on AM760. There’s no news show like CO Morning News.
 
Please see my column for a longer explanation here.
 
JASON
 
From: Olinger, Kristine
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 9:20 PM
To: jason@effectcommunications.com
Subject: RE: Rush Commentary
 Hey Jason,
 
First things first.  AM760 does carry newscasts.  From 6a – 10a we carry a CBS cast followed by a local cast Monday – Friday.  We carry a CBS cast every hour the rest of the day.  We carry a significant amount of CBS long-form coverage on national events.  Do you listen to the station?  Have you ever listened to AM760? 
 
You neglected to respond to my question about NPR…specifically in morning drive.  I’d like a response.
Finally, in answer to your concerns about Colorado’s Morning News, I read your column the day it was printed.  My issue with you has always been your lack of knowledge and accuracy about radio, not your viewpoint. 
See AM760 correction above and your lack of response to the NPR question.
You seem to have some admiration for the 850KOA News Department but still can’t help yourself from taking shots.  Colorado’s Morning News is not an ALL NEWS radio product such as WCBS or KCBS.  It is more like a newspaper (horrors) or a TV morning show that covers a lot of ground.  It has been for as long as I can remember.  Yes, KOA leans right and male.  That’s the audience we serve.  We cover a lot of sports (horrors) because that’s what our audience wants.  What audience does the Rocky serve?  What audience does the Denver Post serve?  Do the newspapers include “fluff” as you call it?  That would include features on anything from rock concerts to gardening to home improvement to movies to silly feature stories about Paris Hilton to features about Health or Kids?  Does that content take away from the hard work both newspaper’s reporters do each day?  Come on.  Can our anchors do better.  Of course, we can all do better. Should they robatically deliver only the “news”  every morning for four hours?  I don’t think so.

Finally, Rush is as entertaining as he is political.  Like it or not, he has a huge following and we will continue to carry his commentary and show as we will continue to carry Mike Rosen’s “tease” during CMN and his show.

I still want an answer on NPR and I would like you to include AM760 and KHOW in this debate.  Clear Channel Denver is offering listenings great options with KOA, KHOW and AM760.  Aren’t we?

Love the debate (horrors).  I think it’s healthy.

Kris Olinger