Dear Denver Post —

Don’t mess with us, because you’re irrelevant, and getting more so by the day.

So you can take your bizarre threat to sue us if we quote any Denver Post article and wrap a dead editor in it.

We won’t quote your articles. We won’t link to your articles. And it won’t matter, as far as we’re concerned. There’s plenty of other news out there for us to discuss, much of it duplicating what The Post reports. We’ll continue to get our 617,661 page views each month without you.

But, please understand that by attacking us like you’ve done you’re actually digging your own grave–and we’ll help push you there by never linking to your little articles–even though you’re happy to let us link to you, you hypocrite.

Thanks, and good luck.

Colorado Pols

That’s a summary of a letter from Colorado Pols, the great Colorado political blog, to a letter from The Denver Post and other media companies asking Pols to stop quoting news articles or face a lawsuit. The Post letter claimed that any unauthorized quotation by Pols amounted to theft.

In its response, Pols claims that The Post never really tried to work things out–before dropping the legal bomb. That’s a shame for The Post, which needs web traffic and buzz from Pols, and for Pols’ readers, who won’t have the convenience of a quick click to a Post article. That’s an inconvenience that could add up because The Post is still the biggest journalism game in the state by far, reporting lots of political news that’s not found anywhere else.

How great would it have been if somehow, some way The Post (old media) and Pols (new media) could have announced today a deal to support each other. And maybe this could have served as a national model. Maybe such a deal could have been struck.

But instead, the battle lines are drawn, despite the “respect” that Pols rightfully has for “print newsrooms,” as acknoledged in its letter. As it is, Pols’ response could serve as a national model for how blogs will battle cranky old media, like The Post.

The Pols letter is a must-read for journalism observers. It’s funny and spot-on for the most part, but like a good blog, it goes over the top as well.

Anyway, it’s a sad day for journalism in Denver, but it probably won’t matter in one, two, three years from now, when the political reporting at The Post will probably be much much weaker than it is today, if it exists at all.

On KVOR radio in Colorado Springs June 19, talk show host Jeff Crank tossed this question at GOP U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton:

“You know, people get frustrated because politicians run and say well, yeah, I don’t know about the Department of Education and things like that. I don’t know if we can kill it. It’s like, nobody’s bold enough to want to make the tough decisions and do it. Where are some cuts that you would make in spending to get us to a balanced budget?”

It’s a fair question from a right-wing host, and here’s Norton’s response:

“Jeff, I have talked about looking at Departments like Education, block granting the money to the states, rather than this huge bureaucracy of 5,000 people.”

Crank’s been around long enough to know that transferring money from the Department of Education to block grants for the states doesn’t save the feds any money. Yet, Crank didn’t ask Norton to explain how you balance the federal budget by moving money form one corner of the budget to another.

To be fair, in response to Crank’s question, Norton recited some other money-saving ideas, like stopping earmarks. But transferring money out of the Education Department was among her biggest money-saving notions, even though this wouldn’t save any money.

You’d think Crank’s ears would have also tuned into Norton’s statement that she’s “looking” at the Education Department, not pledging to cut it, which is a different position than she’s expressed in the past, and it may put her in the category of waffling politicians whom Crank says he’s frustrated with. If Crank were to visit Norton’s website to seek assurance that she won’t leave him frustrated about the Education Department in the future, he won’t find solice there. I couldn’t find any mention of cutting the Department of Education on Norton’s web site.

Instead of calling Norton on this, all Crank could say to Norton was, “Thanks for all you do and good luck on the campaign trail.”

Maybe other frustrated right-wing talk show hosts on the campaign trail will pursue the question further with Norton and give us some clarity.

It’s been almost two weeks since 1) we learned that the Hasan Family Foundation paid gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis $300,000, rather than $150,000 as previously reported, mostly for his “series of in-depth articles on water, Colorado Water” and 2) that the series, titled “Musings on Water,” amounted to 150 pages, according to McInnis’ campiagn (though, mysteriously enough, the Hasan foundation is only in possession of 60 pages).

But I can’t find a single news reporter in Colorado who’s reported a water expert’s views about McInnis’ formerly stealth water articles.

Fortunately, while we wait for basic reporting on the matter, a few columnists and bloggers have weighed in. Here’s what they concluded:

Over the weekend, Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, who’s definitely counts as an expert on Colorado water issues himself, spotlighted big-time errors in McInnis’ work, including McInnis’ failure to list the South Platte among Colorado’s major river basins. Quillen writes, “We’re not talking arcane knowledge, just the ability to read a map.”

Quillen concludes, “So you may not learn a lot about our water issues from these $12.50-a-word musings, but you could learn quite a bit about McInnis.”

On KBDI’s Colorado Inside Out June 18, Post columnist Susan Greene had a similar view:

“You know, I’ve actually covered the Colorado River for 20 years, and you could Wikipedia this stuff. I’m not saying he did… I’m just saying his name is on it. I don’t care. It’s not edifying at all. It tells me nothing about the Colorado River Compact. It has these sort of flourishes and great moments of insights like, water is very important to humanity. You know, $300,000? I’m thinking, he could have done that much less expensively.”

The blogosphere has also been pretty quiet about the substance of McInnis’s writings. John Orr of the Coyote Gulch blog  was by far the most kind to McInnis: “He’s consistent in his message, bashing government and the Bureau of Reclamation specifically. He embraces the development of water and other resources and laments all the possible mineral mother lodes locked up by wilderness designation. He demonstrates a good understanding of water issues and the history behind Colorado’s present situation.”

Over at Westword’s Latest Word blog, Alan Prendergast has made a complete mockery of McInnis’ own claim in a memo to the Hasan Foundation that his articles were “carefully-proofed.”

In his third article on the topic, published the same day that the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was holding its national conference in Denver, Prendergast quoted a passage from McInnis’ water writings and then pointed out that McInnis got his Spanish translation messed up.

McInnis: “The Colorado River is the primary River of the Southwest part of Our Nation. It is called the ‘River of Rivers’ because of its importance in some of the most arid lands in the Americas… Do you know the name of ‘Rio Colorado’? That was the name, given by the Spanish, to a portion of what we now know as the ‘Colorado River.’ Colorado is ‘Red’ in Spanish. It was called the Rio because of the Reddish color that dominated the River…”

Westword’s Prendergast:  “No, Señor Snore, I’m pretty sure it was called the Colorado because of the reddish color, but who am I to contradict a $2,000-a-page man?”

So, despite some great work by columnists and bloggers, we need more serious news analysis of the McInnis writings. You might argue that journalists don’t need to go fact checking old articles of a former Congressman who’s got a long trail of paper behind him, but with the Big Question still hanging out there (Why was McInnis paid so much for this?), I think reporters should ask more experts about the substance of these articles.

Media outlets have not reported that, during part of the time that gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis was scheduled to meet with reporters after his speech to the Denver Petroleum Club Tuesday, he appeared at a sun-roof reception for Petroleum Club members, according to a Petroleum Club board member who helped organize the event.

“I do know that Scott went up to the sun roof for a few minutes, but he didn’t stay long,” Denver Petroleum Club board member Pam Roth told me. “They had to move him along to the next commitment, whatever it was.”

McInnis was scheduled to meet with reporters after his speech, but he did not show up, instead going to the sun roof at the Athletic Club for at least part of the time. Roth did not know where he want after this.

“They were very well aware that we had scheduled Hickenlooper first, pre-event, and Scott was to go down and visit with you guys post event,” Roth told me.

“So I think they were looking at the time constraint saying, well, it wouldn’t be the full 20 minutes anyway so here’s another option: we’ll go down and give them another time to follow up,” Roth said. “I had several discussions Mike Hess, who is with McInnis’ campaign, that that was rather frustrating for me because, first of all, it was on the fly, so I didn’t have a chance to understand how we could accomodate you guys better. But I was told that [McInnis spokesperson] Sean [Duffy] was going give you the opportunity to have an alternative time.”

Duffy did this. He told reporters he would arrange individual interviews with McInnis.

Even with U.S. wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, I was surprised U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton dropped the old Democrats-are-weak-on-defense bomb into the Colorado Senate campaign, via an ad that’s angered some left-leaning veterans.

But now that Norton is talking about the military, reporters should broaden the debate a bit, and ask her and the other Senate candidates about defense spending generally.

Tea party activists from coast to coast are trashing big government generally, and big government spending in particular.

They tick off ways that they think the government should save money. Stop the bailouts. No more earmarks. Abolish the Department of Education.

If you review local news coverage where tea party candidates are running strong, you see that reporters are dutifully noting the budget-cutting soundbites from tea partiers.

But reporters are failing to ask tea party activists about a more effective way to curb deficit-building federal spending that’s not on their cost-cutting wish-list: the wasteful programs embedded in the world’s largest bureaucracy, the Pentagon.

We’re spending about $750 billion on the military this year. That accounts for about 40 percent of the federal budget, if you include mandatory outlays like interest on the debt and Social Security. It’s over half of the so-called discretionary budget, the amount Congress divides up and spends annually.

As budget analysts of all political persuasions will tell you, the Pentagon budget replete with waste. Over $60 billion could be easily trimmed, according to the Unified Security Budget taskforce headed by Institute for Policy Studies research fellow Miriam Pemberton and Lawrence Korb, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s assistant secretary of defense. The savings, they say, would come from just cutting fighters, submarines, and other big weapons that don’t make sense given the threats faced by the U.S. today. Other military analysts have identified other ways to save even more money.

If the Pentagon isn’t red meat for the ferocious tea bag express, what is?

Yet, the issue is off the media radar screen for the most part. A Google News search for “tea party” and “Defense Department” yields about a dozen articles. Searching for “tea party” and “health care” produces more than 2,700.

But one recent article in Politico, titled “Robert Gates May Get Lift from Tea Parties,” did tackle the issue. It provides an excellent example of the kind of Pentagon-related questions reporters across the country should ask tea party candidates.

Politico asked numerous tea party activists whether military spending should be on their budget-cut hit list. And all of them said it should be.

The article quotes tea party leader Mike Pence (R-Ind.) saying “If we are going to get our fiscal house in order, everything has to be on the table.”

But Pence opposes cutting a redundant engine for the F-35 fighter jet. Rolls Royce, a big fish in Indiana, makes the engine.

So Pence isn’t joining forces with the Obama administration to cut this second engine, widely seen as unnecessary, and tea partiers haven’t been up in arms about his embrace of Pentagon waste.

Reporters should call Pence on this inconsistency. They should find out if other tea party candidates are willing to join President Barack Obama on this issue. Despite the recession and noise about the deficit, Congress is bitterly fighting even his relatively small defense cuts.

Tea party candidate Chuck DeVore, who lost a bid for the GOP Senate nomination in California, told Politico that defense cuts are “not an issue” that came up in the hundreds of tea party events he attended on the campaign trail in California.

Yet he and others like him, when asked, say they won’t shy away from the issue.

Against this backdrop, and now that Norton is talking military issues, it’s time for Colorado reporters to ask tea party leaders about this.

How much would they trim from the Pentagon budget? What weapons systems would they cut? Would they join Democrats and the president to get the job done?

A portion of this article was distributed nationally by the OtherWords syndicate.

In my “What happened to them?” series, I’ve been asking Denver journalists 1) what they’ve been up to since leaving the Rocky, the Post, or some other news outlet in Colorado…-and 2) what they think of the state of Colorado journalism these days. Lots of journalists in recent years have been on our doorsteps one day and then gone the next. I thought it would be interesting to find out what happened to some of them.

Mike Saccone was a writer and blogger at The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction from Jan. 2006 through the end of Feb. 2009, first covering mostly criminal justice and then politics. Prior to working at the Sentinel, he wrote for Cox News Service in Washington, DC, and The American Lawyer Magazine, among other publications.

 Here are his answers to my email questions:

1. More than a year ago, I left my perch as chief political writer and blogger for The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction to become communications director for the Colorado Department of Law. I am responsible for coordinating our public relations efforts as well as responding to the daily needs of the media throughout Colorado. Having covered the legal profession in New York and our nation’s capital, I have always been fascinated with the law. My current job allows me to continue to learn about the law and to see state government from the other side …- the inside …- of the fishbowl.

2. All things considered, I think Colorado’s journalism scene actually is all-in-all fairly healthy. Though larger newspapers might be going through a rough patch, smaller, local outlets such as my former newspaper, The Daily Sentinel, along with The Durango Herald, The Longmont Times Call and too many others to mention are doing great local and regional coverage that at times bests the work of their larger peers. For example, Bob Moore at the Fort Collins Coloradoan blows his competition out of the water when it comes to covering the 4th Congressional District.

Colorado broadcast media also is doing some really strong work. From the investigative pieces coming out of the Denver market to the local and regional coverage of outlets like KUNC in Greeley, KREX in Grand Junction and Aspen Public Radio, Colorado’ broadcast outlets do some great work, even if the smaller stations don’t get the notice they deserve. Just as an example of broadcast media expanding, Colorado Public Radio stationed one of its reporters at the Capitol this year to cover the legislative session.

On top of all of this, Colorado’s online media also is flourishing. From the Colorado Independent to Face the State to the work Westword is doing with its blogs, there is decent competition emerging for the traditional print and broadcast media. Do I think they will eclipse the traditional media? Probably not in my lifetime, but they do add another layer to Colorado’s journalism landscape. That can’t hurt.

Will every print, broadcast or new media outlet still be here in five years? Probably not, but Colorado overall is in great shape. Obviously losing the Rocky was a major blow to Colorado journalism, but the show goes on. From The Denver Post, 9 News and KOA on down, there’s still great journalism being done. And from my perspective, I think great journalism will continue to be done in Colorado, even if it’s coming from new outlets or existing outlets being repurposed or reoriented.

Washington Post blogger David Weigel wrote Tuesday that not all Republicans are running away from Rep. Joe Barton’s surprising comment that the BP’s $20 billion escrow account for Gulf oil damages amounts to a government “shakedown” of BP.

Weigel points to a couple GOP candidates who’ve criticized the fund in Wisconsin, and writes:

In Colorado, it was an aide to once-frontrunner Jane Norton (Ken Buck now leads in some polls for the GOP’s U.S. Senate nomination) who called the escrow account a “slush fund.” I’m not seeing a massive trend here, but I’m not sure that local reporters are all posing the question. Plenty of conservative candidates agree with Rush Limbaugh that the fund amounts to “thuggery” or a shakedown — something the Gulf Coast Republicans who favored the fund disagree with.

We know, thanks to the Denver Post and Progress Now, that Norton’s Josh Penry later said the aide, Aindriu Colgan, was not speaking on behalf of the Norton campaign, even though he had said he was representing Norton.

Penry said the campaign didn’t have a comment on the fund set up by BP.

So here in Colorado, reporters are posing the question, at least to Norton’s underling, but they aren’t getting an answer one way or the other. This makes me think reporters should, per Weigel’s suggestion, ask other candidates about the BP fund. I don’t know about you, but I’m curious about what they’d say.

Republican gubernatorial candidate McInnis didn’t show up for a scheduled news conference after his speech before the Denver Petroleum Club yesterday.

The Colorado Independent reported that McInnis spokesperson Sean Duffy told journalists, who were waiting for McInnis after his speech, that McInnis was unaware of the press conference. The Denver Post quoted Duffy as saying McInnis had “other events.” (I was not aware of the Post’s reporting in an earlier version of this.)

Another journalist, who was one of the group of reporters waiting for McInnis, told me that Duffy entered the room and told reporters that the Petroleum Club hadn’t “told him [McInnis] about the press availability, but Duffy said he’d schedule individual meetings with anybody who wanted one.”

I asked Joyce Witte, President of the Denver Petroleum Club, if it was true that the McInnis Campaign wasn’t informed about the news conference.

“No, he did know about it, and I am not sure why he decided not to participate,” Witte told me. “It was my sense it was a last-minute decision on behalf of his campaign.”

I wanted to be sure I had this right, so I asked Witte, “But you’re sure he got the message, or Sean got that message somehow, because Sean is putting the blame on you guys?”

“Nope. They knew about it.”

Both McInnis and Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper spoke to the Denver Petroleum Club. A press conference with Hickenlooper took place, as planned, before his speech. McInnis was supposed to answer questions from reporters after his address to the group.

Hickenlooper sat down with about a dozen reporters and took questions not only about oil and gas issues, but about healthcare, immigration, stimulus funding, and more. At one point, the Mayor said he thought the press conference was going to be about oil-and-gas issues only, but he answered most of the questions put to him. (He told one reporter he’d have to get back to him on a question related to state legislation about a national identity card.)

Hickenlooper’s spokesperson George Merritt told me that his campaign was aware of the scheduled press conference well in advance.

I was on the press list for Petroleum Club event, which was moderated by Adam Schrager of 9News, and I attended half of it. I didn’t see a single organizational flaw there. The planned press events with both candidates were listed on press materials emailed to me two weeks in advance.

Some of the best news stories stay in your head because they revolve around an unanswered question.

The story about Scott McInnis getting $300,000 from the Hasan Family Foundation, mostly to write 150 double-spaced pages about Colorado water issues, centers on exactly this kind of big question.

Why did McInnis get so much money to write this stuff?

It’s surely a question that journalists will put to McInnis during the campaign, even if he’s not talking about it now. Right, all you reporters out there?

But over at Westword, which prides itself on alternative views, Alan Prendergast thinks the real question is, “what McInnis’s 150 pages of soggy prose tell us about the kind of governor he would make.”

Prendergast dissects McInnis’ water writing, quoting McInnis, and then offering his analysis of the pricy articles:

 McInnis water article number one: “The water we use day-to-day comes mostly from mountain snow melt — some from rain — but mostly from mountain snow melt. The climate of Colorado is semi-arid or even arid with statewide precipitation of 16-17 inches, mostly as snow melt, mostly in the mountains.”

Prendergast: Hmm. Somebody seems to be hypnotized by the words “snow melt.” But showing the resourcefulness of a true leader, McInnis rouses himself from this rhetorical rut and soldiers on, marching through a droning geography lesson about Colorado’s major river basins, marred by only the occasional incoherence, as in “So Colorado does not get to keep off of ‘its water.'” Could “off” be a typo for “all,” or is the writer invoking the rebellious spirit of Mick Jagger singing “Get Off of My Cloud”?

Read the entire piece here, but watch out because Prendergast warns us, “The Westword Foundation is paying me an extravagant sum to blog on this topic. I can’t reveal the exact amount without my patron’s permission, but suffice it to say that I am getting paid by the word.”

One Republican has said that President Barack Obama “has a default mechanism” that “favors the black person.”

Closer to home, another GOP politician has said at least twice that President Barack Obama’s Administration “cares more about the rights of terrorists than the lives of American citizens.” 

The first statement is by Rep. Steve King of western Iowa, the second by Colorado Senate candidate Jane Norton.

If you’re a journalist, you don’t need to have an opinion on which of the statements is worse.

All you have to do is recognize that they are comparable.

If you think they are, and it’s clear that the two statements are in the same ballpark, then it’s fair to ask Rep. Cory Gardner, who this week canceled a $100-per-person fundraiser with King, if he’d un-invite Norton to a campaign event, if he were holding one with her. Or if he’d stand with her on stage at some point in the future.

Trouble is, Gardner cancelled the King event without comment, and his campaign isn’t talking to the media about it.

So what’s a reporter to do?

Don’t let this slip through the cracks. Ask Gardner about Norton’s statement (versus King’s) at a venue where he can’t run away from the question, like a televised debate or a direct, public interview.