March 07, 2013 08:08 AM UTC

Denver Post Spontaneously Rediscovers Fact Checking

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• by: Colorado Pols

On its face, it's tough to argue with the story in the Denver Post today from reporter Ryan Parker. The story responds to a defense offered by Sen. Evie Hudak, as you know now in the hot seat for telling a testifying rape victim that "the statistics are not in your favor" in terms of defending one's self even if armed with a gun–which has subsequently gone viral on conservative social media. As Republican lawmakers and surrogates eagerly pounced on Sen. Hudak's "insensitivity," Hudak offered a statistic in defense of her argument, that 83 women die by a gun for every woman who kills with one in self-defense.

After scrutiny by the Post, Ryan Parker declares:

Seeking clarification on figures used by Hudak to support her claim, The Denver Post discovered the statistics are not an equal comparison to the argument.

Got that? Not "an equal comparison to the argument." You see, the study Sen. Hudak cited applies to women attacked by "intimate acquaintances," but the witness Hudak was responding to was attacked by a stranger. The Post's editorial board in their companion editorial blasting Hudak does note a more applicable study that shows in general that "individuals who possessed a gun during an assault were roughly 4.5 times more likely to be shot than those who did not." That's much closer to justifying what Hudak said, but unfortunately it's not the statistic she offered in her defense when the press started calling for comment.

It wasn't Sen. Hudak's finest hour. Her biggest mistake was in challenging in any way the obviously sincere and deeply-held opinion of this victim. The the only responsible thing to do in the situation Sen. Hudak was in is to nod empathetically, thank this woman for her testimony profusely, and do not attempt to take issue with anything she says. Late in an daylong marathon debate, after having been shouted at by thousands of angry citizens and deafened by honking horns, Sen. Hudak screwed up. Her underlying point was at least somewhat defensible, but she used it at the worst possible time, bungled the delivery, then was not adequately prepared to defend it.

Because we have consistently argued for better (or at least some) fact checking from the Colorado media, we would be hypocrites if we failed to acknowledge that the criticism of Sen. Hudak in both the news and editorial pages of the Denver Post today is more or less accurate. What doesn't make sense, though, is the relative scrutiny of Hudak's misstatements compared to what we have repeatedly described in this space as some of the most free-ranging truthlessness we have seen in any legislative debate in our over eight years covering this state's politics. Given the demanding requirement made on Sen. Hudak to not just be generally accurate, but really precisely accurate down to the minute details, here's some other items that we feel deserve the same treatment:

Sen. Greg Brophy's claim that House Bill 13-1224 would "ban shotguns."

The claim from Sen. Mark Scheffel and numerous other GOP legislators that House Bill 13-1229, closing the background check loophole, "would prohibit and criminalize the private transfer of firearms."

The claim from the president of the National Rifle Association to the Denver Post's own editor Greg Moore that post-Columbine gun law reforms were "reasonable," when in fact the NRA spent hundreds of thousands of dollars opposing them.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg–what about the "Hick: don't take our guns" airplane banner that hardly any reporter bothered to correct even though it was laughably untrue? What about Sen. Randy Baumgardner's silly chestnut about hammers killing more people than guns? The fictional slippery slope from background checks to "universal registration?" Rep. Kevin Priola comparing magazine limits to internment of Japanese-Americans?

Folks, we're not displeased at the intensity and unforgiving nature of newsroom/editorial board scrutiny of the handling of this episode by Sen. Evie Hudak, or the defense she offered when called out on her remarks. But it's a high bar they've set, and it had better not stop with her–or it risks becoming something else entirely.