U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
See Full Big Line
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Michael Bennet
50%
50%
50%
Att. General
See Full Big Line
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) Brian Mason
60%↑
30%↑
20%↓
Sec. of State
See Full Big Line
(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
See Full Big Line
(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%↑
30%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
45%↓
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
January 15, 2009 06:44 PM UTC
31 Comments
the newspapers didn’t. They haven’t changed their business model much and that means that they aren’t going to survive. The Denver Post will hang on a couple of years but if they don’t evolve either – they also will be going away.
I’m not saying it’s a good or bad thing, it’s just a fact of life.
Without daily newspapers, there’s no large-scale news operation available to dispute misinformation from campaigns. Politicians and campaigns would be able to do and say virtually anything, knowing full well that nobody would call them on it (except for the occasional 45 seconds of TV, which is irrelevant).
Can bloggers fill the gap?
It’s too easy to not bother to look something up. If it’s in a commercial, it must be true, right? If you’re reading the paper and come across something, fine, but would the average voter scroll through mostly partisan blogs looking for facts? How would you know who to trust?
He has credibility, and he’s proven that he’s a legitimate reporter–despite the fact that he’s been relegated to electrons instead of ink.
As the internet becomes more and more pervasive in the information game, I think you’ll see more people like him. I’m not saying anonymous bloggers (who, me?) should instantly become the purveyors of unbiased reporting, I’m saying electronic journalism is still in its infancy.
Maybe they won’t be called bloggers, but if newspapers go belly-up, then someone will have to keep the lobbyists, pols, and everyone else in the machine, honest.
Both papers could be solely online and have a partnership with a news station (CBS4 and RMN already have a small one). Add in some special subscription benefits, while leaving most of the stuff free, raise advertising prices (suddenly this would be the only way other than TV and traffic would be up) and you wouldn’t have to employ the huge amount of people for distribution.
Having things here and there won’t help, IMO, because if you’re usually not interested in politics, for instance, you’re just not going to go looking. I do get your point about Pelzer, but it won’t work unless he seeks a wider audience. Maybe add football scores?
*I know for some people this is a big deal, but it’s cheaper and better for the environment.
I like your idea, and it’s true that a wider audience does help with legitimacy. It’s such an important institution that it needs to survive in some modification.
Who has no idea who Jeremy Pelzer is. To the average voter, the Post and the News represent (to some degree, anyway) the truth.
While I think that the blogging community is an important part of modern journalism, the base part of journalism, attending, investigating is largely left to the larger news outlets, whether it be print or television media. I think that Colorado Pols is a great way to find out the news, its partially because people base their contributions on well thought out investigative reporting done by paid journalist. This is not to demean bloggers, but a majority of the front page stories on most credible blogs quote heavily from the media.
I think that the changes in Print media could have dramatic effects on the blogging world, particularly with issues that require physical location, i.e. reporters that daily attend and work in the local/state/federal legislative bodies.
If some of those Rocky political reporters wanted to start contributing to Pols. The pay is crap, but the fringe benefits are mediocre.
Just call 1-800-DEAD-GUV
How about promoting better funding of the Colorado Independent, which is an actual journalism organization (not a blog) that does real news reporting?
Online journalism will be an increasingly dominant driver of real news reporting with each passing year; we’ve already got it set up in this state, let’s take advantage of it. Further, non-profit journalism (see ProPublica as one example) also is an impending force. Let’s take the talent that shortly will be freed up from the Rocky, find funding and staff up real online news organizations in Colorado.
to donate your Jeopardy winnings?!
Are you making fun of us Bill? 🙂
Would it be fair to say that the Rocky is in Jeopardy!…?
To the Rocky, and perhaps to the practice of journalism as we know it. The notion that somehow unpaid bloggers, operating in an unstructured environment, can take the place of the Rocky and the Post is ludicrous. On the web, it’s amateur hour-lots of noise, lots of aggregating, lots of puffery & grudge-settling-and not much else. Reporters and editors need to be paid a living wage, and there’s no model for that on the web. But that’s the way things are-and, inevitably, as new models of profitably disseminating information come into being, those models will be controlled by the Rupert Murdochs of the future-and all of us skanky bloggers will devolve into impotent fury-and as President Jenna Bush will say, OMG-I so don’t care!
The Web hosts several very credible investigative reporters, who are paid for their online work (plus media appearances). These reporters have been at the forefront of several important stories. If you don’t believe me, ask our outgoing President how that US Attorney thing worked out…
But I don’t think the Web, as it exists now, can support the number of investigative reporters that newspapers around the country boast. The web-based model just doesn’t produce the funding to drive a multi-person local reporting team in every major metro area, never mind the smaller cities and towns.
It’s worth noting too that the vast majority of journalism people rely on every day isn’t the kind of sexy investigative stories that will continue to be covered in print, on broadcast or online. It’s the dogged accumulation of detail and mundane news that only a large metro daily can afford.
What if, instead of my idea of online-only, there was a new, free, daily with contributions from real reporters. The money comes from advertising like Westword, and there would be online content as well.
if the money’s there.
Westword, OutFront, Denver Daily are not what they used to be. In the metro region the only paper that appears to be increasing in depth of coverage is the Aurora Sentinel. (I would be interested if other local papers are)
The print medium is undergoing a major change; the final version is unknown, if there are any final versions. A major reason for the change can be seen at the current (5 days left) administration effort to allow complete consolidation and control of the media into a very limited number of individuals. See Murdock.
What would have happened if the government encouraged consolidation had not occured is open to speculation. I am guessing that there would still be viable newspapers and magazines.
The combination TV and newspaper online form may be the next step in the evolution of news distribution.
The Onion is widely read, at least among people I know. Fake news is more popular than real news apparently.
Paula Woodward is one of the more influential and connected investigative reporters in Colorado. She has the skills, knowledge and connections to find stories that most journalists can only dream about stumbling into.
But if she left 9News and started a blogging website, she’d be a non-factor within a few months.
Yes, Paula has a huge rolodex to call up when she wants information. But she has a goddamn fantastic Executive Producer who runs the I-team, a News Director that has good instincts, and a nationally-recognized team of photogs that can turn a story into a news event.
She can make calls and call in favors because the person on the other end knows that she’s got a major news organization behind her. That credibility and power cannot be overemphasized.
Maybe the Denver Post lacks some (ok most) of that reputation and infrastructure, but I guarantee they can count on getting callbacks…or a tell-tale “No Comment.”
Joe WebBlogger is going to get snickered at, and when he posts some potential news on his microsite, it will only get legs if some major news organization picks it up.
Even if that blogger is Paula Woodward, it’s not going to have the same gravity and power if she posts it on PaulaWoodward.com. maybe at first, but probably not long-term unless she consistently delivers news that no one else can get.
Newspapers and TV stations can survive in the era of the internet…if they use it properly and get rid of the 19th century thinking we call editors.
I’ve found that when I call people to get comments on a story, I do not get rebuked just because I’m a blogger. I get called back 90% of the time.
And most of the elected reps I’ve asked to interview have said yes.
Sure, you’ll both get a call back when it’s for a friendly comment or some other non-dangerous article.
How successful are you going to be when you need to corner an EPA official about a potential disaster around Leadville? Or the Federal bench when a Judge gets caught with his Wilie in a hooker? Or a Fort Carson Commander who’s ignoring PTSD or TBI in his soldiers?
I’m talking about the dirty and deep stories that investigative journalism is all about. There are some news websites that blog that could get that story, but I doubt that one-man server sites could.
I got a call back from DPD with a comment, and an assurance that the stickers would be removed before the end of the day. It wasn’t that controversial, but it was embarrassing, and they responded.
You have a point about Paula Woodward and other experienced investigative journalists. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if community journalists and the New Media continue to play an active role.
You’ve already mastered a defining habit of the mainstream media — “we’ll have to wait and see”
Mark Udall & Ed Perlmutter both were unwilling to talk to me – and that was for a basic “what are you going to do” interview. They definitely can avoid us bloggers.
some bloggers have great access to Perlmutter and Udall.
We still (for now) have the Post. But while it would cause a dust-up, it would be really nice to have the best reporters working for the surviving paper, regardless of which paper they work for now.
Long term, though, we (the public) may have a problem. Newspapers have traditionally funded some of the best investigative reporting. The current newspaper shut-down craze is not only going to reduce local investigative reporting, but it will have ripple effects to the (international) news agencies as well. Web readership is up, but it cannot support the same number of reporters as are being let go – and without reportage, Web blogs also suffer, because much of what blogs promote is based on other peoples’ reporting work.
If we can’t find a workable model to employ reporters, then society’s information level declines (despite a drastic increase in verbage online…), and we stagnate. Pay-to-read models have largely failed online. Web ads don’t bring in a lot of revenue for any but the largest sites, and with ads moving to ‘click-thru’ payment, that revenue is declining.
So I guess the question is – we know what’s not working… does anyone know what is working?
which is basically a super RSS feed that takes stories from a news organization in their media groups, along with all the assets (photos, charts, video etc) and pushes it to all the other outlets. When another outlet publishes a story, it automatically pushes out, etc etc etc.
The idea is reduce the amount of Content you pay for by maximize it’s use, and use a smaller and cheaper staff to cover city council, the dog show, etc.
But Gannett is cutting the local staff as well, and telling the rest to suck it up and produce more. Also, the content of the website isn’t any different than the published content, so there’s no value in a hands-on subscription.
The problem with newspapers (and to a lesser extent, local tv news) is advertising. People don’t want to search thru a large wad of dead trees to find an ad, they want it online. When they sell stuff, they do if for free on Craigslist, or nearly free on eBay. Newspapers never reacted to that, and now they’re left behind in the ad business.
Isn’t that the name of the magazine…?
Current issue I happened to look at at the library had a very intersting article on the use of e-journalists in paper and TV media. Organizations putting up $15K for equipment and pushing them out the door to the street.
Really very encouraging for all who have used it. The all print paper may join the dodo bird, but some hybrid may work.
I’ve mentioned here that the local paper has a cable channel with an astoundingly good format and reporting. From local HS sports to Gaza, it’s there. And the anchors are real looking, not bimbos or studs.
There is hope, although we will founder for awhile and we may not completely like whatever replaces the tradition newspaper.