Author Archives: Jason Salzman

Like endangered fish that seemed destined to disappear from a once-important lake, journalists have made a miraculous comeback at Colorado’s Capitol, which is now teeming with about the same number of reporters who were assigned there from the 1960s through the 1990s.

“I would have to say, yes, your perception is correct,” said Charles Ashby, Capitol reporter for the Grand Junction Sentinel, when asked if his species of journalist was thriving at the Capitol, compared to the old days. “While I can’t speak on how many people were around in the 60s, 70s and 80s (because I may be the Capitol dean and Oldnewsman, I’m not THAT old), my understanding is there are about the same or maybe slightly fewer people covering the Capitol these days.”

Ashby estimated that when he started at the legislature in 1997, the Capitol press corps, which is the group of journalists assigned to cover the general assembly, consisted of three to four from The Denver Post, two each from the Rocky Mountain News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Associated Press, and one each from Pueblo Chieftain and Longmont Times-Call—with an “occasional” reporter from Boulder Daily Camera and “less occasionally” from the Fort Collins Coloradoan and Grand Junction Sentinel. Other reporters would “parachute in for specific stories,” said Ashby.

That’s a total of 11 to 15 Capitol reporters in the late 1990s, before the numbers started to decline in the next decade.

Today’s list totals at least 17 reporters.

Colorado Independent: Two. Colorado Politics: Two. Denver Post: Two (versus a high of five in the 1960s and 1970s) Colorado Public Radio: Two. Colorado Sun: Two. Associated Press: One. Chalkbeat: One. Denver Business Journal: One Denverite/CPR: One. Durango Herald: One. Grand Junction Sentinel: One. Rocky Mountain Community Radio: One.

“The competition for office space around here this year has been pretty intense, because there just isn’t enough room to accommodate everybody,” said the Capitol’s second-longest-serving journalist Marianne Goodland of Colorado Politics, an online and print weekly.

That wasn’t the case over the past 15 years, when the Denver and rural dailies were cutting their Capitol bureaus—and online platforms weren’t filling the gap.

“A lot of publications stopped sending people here around the time the Rocky Mountain News closed, so you had this dearth of coverage of the legislature, and it’s just now on the rebound to where it was before,” says Goodland, who started covering the legislature in 1998. “It’s a different business model with a lot of niche reporting for which there is a clear demand. Everybody is growing.”

The number of journalists in the Capitol press corps doesn’t include reporters for local television news stations, who have a bigger presence at the legislature than they did during the heyday of the print dailies, according to longtime journalists.

Nor does the Capitol press corps include the many journalists, from The Denver Post, Colorado Politics, Colorado Public Radio, the Colorado Sun, and elsewhere, who drop in for a story or two.

“We have John Frank and Jesse Paul at the Capitol full-time,” Colorado Sun Editor Larry Ryckman said via email. “We have freelancers Brian Eason and Sandra Fish covering state government issues part-time, and we have other full-time reporters — including Jennifer Brown, John Ingold and Chris Osher — who cover issues at the Capitol from time to time.”

Kevin Dale, the Executive Editor at Colorado Public Radio, described a similar approach.

“We have two full-time reporters: Bente Birkeland and Sam Brasch,” Dale said via email. “We also send other beat reporters to monitor bills that are important to that beat. We now have a photographer and often send them there. Last, because we just acquired Denverite, we are making use of their statehouse reporter Esteban Hernandez, though you might already be accounting for him with Denverite.”

Could we have arrived at the surreal situation where Colorado has too many reporters at the Capitol, given that other critical beats, like municipal government, education, courts, etc., aren’t getting the attention they deserve–or not attention at all?

“Media outlets rightly believe that what happens in the Legislature greatly impacts their readers, and therefore is important to follow and report on.” Ashby emailed me. “And I wouldn’t say there is too much emphasis on the Legislature over local government coverage. For example, I’ve had to remain in Grand Junction more often than normal this session because of some turnover here. While they are seeking a new county government reporter, I have spent the past several weeks covering both county government and the Legislature.”

Former Rocky reporter Lynn Bartels, who started covering the legislators in the year 2000, says the legislative coverage now is “overwhelming.”

“There’s almost too much to read in the morning,” Bartels told me, explaining that she will open just one of many morning emails from the outlets, look up, and find that she “hasn’t gotten any of her work done.”

“There is an amazing concentration on the Capitol, and I sometimes think that’s to the detriment of other beats,” she said, explaining that the Rocky had a Denver Public Schools reporter, a suburban reporter, police, higher education, religion, city hall, and more.

Maybe in an ideal world, you’d spread the journalistic love across the community, but alas it doesn’t work that way.

So let’s just accept this as great news for journalism and Colorado—and appreciate it while it lasts.

Colorado Springs artist Sarah Boardman has finished her portrait of President Donald Trump for the Colorado Capitol.

Former State Senate President Kevin Grantham (R-Canon City), who led a $10,000 fundraising effort to commission the work, is now deciding what’s next for the Trump likeness.

“I’m pretty sure there will be some sort of unveiling at some point,” Grantham told the Colorado Times Recorder.

But a date for the unveiling has not been set, and it’s possible the portrait will go up without a ceremony, said Grantham.

Colorado Springs artist Sarah Boardman based her work on a Trump photo and sketch, which shows the president with a “serious, non-confrontational” and “thoughtful” expression, according to Boardman.

Grantham has yet to see Boardman’s finished painting, but he said he was impressed with the work Boardman did on the Obama portrait that hangs in the Capitol along with portraits of other presidents.

“There are people who can capture the essence of people, and I think she did a really great job [on the Obama portrait],” said Grantham.

Asked about criticism that Trump should not be portrayed as “non-confrontational” and “thoughtful,” when he is widely considered confrontational and rash, Boardman said last month:

“I agree that some people think of him that way now, but it is not a universal view which will endure into the future,” Boardman wrote. “There are presidents in the gallery, as it stands, who had very volatile histories, yet we do not look at the portraits in that light today. My choice of references comes from my decision to remain neutral, and let the criticisms stand on their own throughout time.”“

Boardman won an open call to paint an Obama portrait that hangs in the Capitol, and Colorado Creative Industries selected Boardman to paint the Trump portrait “so that the style would match,” according to Ruth Bruno, program manager for Colorado Creative Industries, which served as a liason between the artist and the Capitol. The artist, sketch, and other details were approved by the Capitol Building Advisory Committee.

Just when you think veteran Denver journalists have seen their last rodeo in town, they’re back! Everywhere you turn, ghosts of Denver journalism past are staring at you.

That’s a good thing, of course, because everyone loves a good journalist with roots in the community–even if everyone doesn’t know it.

The latest re-emergent scribes will be found at Colorado Politics, a weekly print and online publication owned via Clarity Media by conservative billionaire Phil Anschutz.

The steadily-expanding outlet has added Neil Westergaard, a former editor of the Denver Business Journal and The Denver Post, to write an opinion column about Denver.

Also as part of its expansion to cover Denver politics and civic affairs, Colorado Politics hired former Rocky reporter John C. Ensslin, for a Denver politics, government and civic affairs beat.

Starting in tomorrow’s print edition, look for a “Focus on Denver” section that will feature city coverage–as well as digital content.

Colorado Politics has aimed to expand statewide through content-sharing arrangements with other publications. Such an arrangement with the Durango Herald ended in December, but the publication continues to share content with 9News.

No other content-sharing plans are in place at this time, said Jared Wright, General Manager of Colorado Politics, in a statement to the Colorado Times Recorder.

“Our publication continues to attract readers from around the state and the country who value our in-depth public policy journalism, analysis and opinion on Centennial State politics, and now, on politics in the City and County of Denver,” said Wright.

Asked how he was going to prioritize coverage in such a big beat, especially given the reduced number of journalists competing with him, Ensslin said, “My approach is going to be the same one that has served me well all these years: Find the best story of the day. Do it.”

“At Colorado Politics, our mission has been to provide award-winning coverage of state politics and policy, and that will continue,” said Mark Harden, managing editor of Colorado Politics, in a news release. “But in today’s challenged media environment, our readers are in desperate need of in-depth, insightful reporting on the city of Denver, its government, its politics and its issues. Now, Colorado Politics is making moves to be the city’s go-to news source for Denver news that matters to our audience.”

“It’s the perfect match,” added Gazette Editor-in-Chief Vince Bzdek, who oversees the Colorado Politics editorial operation, in the news release, “one of the country’s most dynamic cities, chronicled by two of that city’s most dynamic, seasoned journalists. Get ready to understand the larger forces driving Denver – and the major players behind those forces – in a whole new way.”

After voting last month in favor of a proposed law banning mental health professionals from trying to make gay youth become heterosexual, State Rep. Colin Larson (R-Littleton) “didn’t get any backlash” from his district, despite that fact that the vast majority of his fellow Republicans voted against the legislation.

“I didn’t have any constituents reaching out and saying, ‘What are you doing? You’re betraying me,'” Larson told the Colorado Times Recorder after he spoke a news conference today, organized by supporters of the bill.

“If anything, I’ve gotten kudos,” he said, emphasizing his view that GOP opposition to the bill is rooted in generational differences that are fading.

Larson, who’s the youngest statehouse member, said their’s a “disconnect” between the views of ordinary Republicans and the stances of GOP lawmakers at the Capitol.

“My colleagues have a perception that there’s this groundswell of opposition that’s actually a small minority of folks,” he said.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, agreed with Larson that “we are going through a generational change; all people are people, regardless of sexual orientation.”

Decrying the fact that, for four years, “Republican leadership” in Colorado’s state senate killed bills banning conversion therapy for minors, Daniel Ramos of One Colorado told reporters at the news conference that “this year is different.”

“With pro-equlality majorities in both the house and the senate, and a pro-equality governor, this is the year that Colorado sends the message to LGBTQ youth that they were born perfect and should be affirmed for exactly what they are,” said Ramos.

Republican opponents of the conversion-therapy ban mostly emphasize that it should be up to parents, not the government, to make decisions about therapy for their children.

The bill’s advocates emphasized that conversion therapy is opposed by major mental health professional associations.

“Through the testimony I have heard, year after year, of heartbreaking feelings of being rejected by your families and by those who are supposed to love you, we know that this practice is tantamount to child abuse,” said Colorado State Rep. Dafna Michaelson Janet (D-Commerce City) at the news conference.

Today’s news conference took place prior to a state senate hearing on the conversion therapy ban.

“I implore the committee members today to vote in a decent and ethical way and putting an end to the cruel and inhumane practice of conversion therapy,” said Johnny Hultzapple, a South High Student at the news conference. Hultzapple got national attention for his Facebook post denouncing a conversion-therapy program launched last month by Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila.