January 11, 2023 11:28 AM UTC

Gazette's 'Investigative Journalist' Levels Baseless Attacks on the Colorado Times Recorder

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Jimmy Sengenberger is best known as a far-right opinion monger on talk radio station KNUS and as a right-wing contributor to Colorado Politics, which is owned by billionaire GOP donor Phil Anschutz.

On Dec. 30, at the bottom of an article published in the Denver Gazette, also owned by Anschutz via Clarity Media, he’s identified not as an opinion columnist but as “an investigative journalist, public speaker, and host of ‘The Jimmy Sengenberger Show.’” The article doesn’t appear in the opinion section of the website, despite the headline, “Nothing Extreme About Parental Rights.”

As investigative journalists ourselves, we couldn’t help but notice some differences between our approach to reporting versus his.

When reporter Heidi Beedle asserted in her Dec. 1 article that groups like Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN) and FAIR [Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism] have an anti-LGBTQ activist agenda, she provided evidence in the form of direct quotes from group leaders and citations of other news reporting.

Beedle’s reporting — and characterization of these groups as “conservative” — is backed up by facts and quotes.

Sengenberger states without evidence that “none of these groups are extremist.”

He writes that the Colorado Times Recorder “attempted to paint CPAN as a right-wing extremist group working to undermine public education and harm the LGBTQ community. The site grouped CPAN with the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, Advocates for D20 Kids, and the longstanding Independence Institute. None of these organizations are extremist.”

But Sengenberger didn’t refute any of Beedle’s reporting. And it’s worth noting that in both Beedle’s Dec. 1 and Dec. 12 news articles, she didn’t characterize the groups as extreme, though arguably she could have.

We welcome Sengenberger to point out any factual errors in our stories, particularly when he’s working as an “investigative journalist” for an outlet whose owner continues to donate millions to anti-LGBT groups, even after promising to stop.

If he simply doesn’t like what we write, we suggest he stick to his opinion column.