November 08, 2012 07:52 PM UTC

Air out your post-election anger at the news media tomorrow

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• by: Jason Salzman

Election losers, especially, love to blame the news media, but scratch the surface of election winners, and they’ll usually find plenty of reasons to bash the press as well.

So rather than scream at your television, whether you won or lost Tuesday, come down to the Denver’s Independence Institute Friday morning to level your media critiques directly at those responsible: journalists themselves.

A panel of leading Colorado journalists will discuss “Colorado Journalism and the 2012 Election,” and take your questions.

Journalists on the panel are: Shaun Boyd, Political Specialist, CBS4; Ivan Moreno, Reporter, Associated Press; Chuck Plunkett, Politics Editor, The Denver Post; Eli Stokols, Political Reporter, KDVR Fox 31; and KWGN TV; Megan Verlee, Reporter, Colorado Public Radio. Diane Carman, Director of Communications, University of Colorado Denver, will moderate.

You’ll notice there are no bloggers on the panel, but the truth is, as much as new media’s influence is gaining, legacy media are still the biggest game in town, reaching the ever-popular swing voters in ways bloggers like to dream about.

If that weren’t true, I’d have the presidential campaigns’ mean ads on my blog, but alas there are none. Somehow, they don’t think my three readers matter to them.

So that leaves us with the traditional media still in the driver’s seat, and that’s why it makes the most sense to direct your post-election questions at them.

The panel takes place Friday, November 9, at the conservative Independence Institute, 727 East 16th Ave. Doors open at 7:30 a.m. for a light breakfast, and the one-hour panel discussion begins at 8 a.m. Disclosure: the event is sponsored by my blog, BigMedia.org, along with the Independence Institute, and the University of Colorado Denver.

The unusual co-sponsorship, of conservatives and progressives, should make for interesting questions from the audience.

And it makes sense to put everyone in the same room for a change, because if you read conservative and progressive blogs, you know that anger at the news media doesn’t reside on one side of the political divide or the other. It’s universal.

And it’s unfortunate, because people of different political stripes also respect professional journalism on some level, even as they tear it down and watch it decline.

So air out your post-election anger at the news media Friday morning. See what the people responsible for the news have to say to you.