The Message

Nonetheless, Wadhams says Allard's response to Channel 7 was specific to the e-mail received by the station, and Ferrugia emphasizes that he never mentioned Westword's Gilbert e-mail when speaking with Allard's office, going so far as to declare that he "didn't care about" the earlier, spicier communication. But Associated Press writer Robert Weller certainly did. Weller excerpted the Gilbert e-mail to Westword in a February 17 article that ran in newspapers and on Web sites across the country, including the New York Times and CNN.com, but neglected to identify its source. Likewise, he ran a verbatim quote given to Jargon by Major Kelly Phillips-Henry, described as "the psychologist in charge of providing assistance to sexual assault victims at the academy," without any reference to Westword.

Weller did not return calls from Westword about what looks like an indisputable case of plagiarism, but George Garties, new bureau chief for the Associated Press in Denver, offers no defense on the reporter's behalf. "Using those quotes without attribution violates our policy," he says. "The story ran on both our state wire and our national wire, so we're talking here and in New York about ways to make sure it doesn't happen again." Garties won't discuss potential disciplinary action aimed at Weller, but he allows that both quotes "came from Westword."

Jargon's feature was nearly 10,000 words in length and wide-ranging by any measure, but Channel 7's Ferrugia describes it as more of a "narrative" than "a large, comprehensive story about a systemic issue." But appearances to the contrary, he insists that taking credit and boosting ratings are unimportant to him, especially in light of problems at the Air Force Academy. "The bottom line is, these women have been terribly hurt and damaged, and if collectively the media can bring this to the fore and get something done so that they get some justice and the system changes, that's great. That's why we do these stories."

For better or verse: Last month, Channel 9 anchor and consumer reporter Mark Koebrich was among those rewarded for their toils with a new multi-year contract; also invited to stick around were sports anchor/guilty pleasure Drew Soicher, weatherman Nick Carter, and reporters Dana Knowles, Paul Johnson and Cheryl Preheim. For Koebrich, the new deal was testimony to his longevity -- he's been with the station since 1980 -- as well as proof that an embarrassing episode triggered by last December's 9News Christmas party hadn't come back to haunt him.

Each year, Koebrich notes, he emcees the outlet's yuletide festivities -- and as part of his annual duties, he composes a poem about his co-workers. This time, however, the poem wound up making the rounds. He says that "a lot of people in the newsroom started adding verses and stanzas" to his doggerel, some of which portrayed certain colleagues in an unflattering light. Although Koebrich insists that he didn't pen any of the offensive material, he was called on the carpet anyway. Channel 9 news director Patti Dennis declines to discuss specifics, calling the affair "a personnel matter," but Koebrich confirms that "our local management got involved, and I apologized to everyone -- and it went no further than that. It was just one of those unfortunate inter-office things."

Make that another of those unfortunate inter-office things. In August 2001, Koebrich made headlines after being cited by Denver police for getting into a physical confrontation with an engineer from his own station while covering the first game at Invesco Field. Afterward, Koebrich was quoted in Penny Parker's Rocky Mountain News gossip column as joking, "Look out, I'm pretty volatile" -- a self-deprecating approach that worked to his advantage, since his on-air presence is so pleasantly benign. He takes a less humorous tack when talking about the poem.

"I don't know how these things get blown out of proportion," he says impatiently. "But I do regret that it happened."

As the print flows: The February 13 edition of this column stated that a letter sent to the Rocky Mountain News by two organizations at the University of Colorado in reference to a January 16 Dave Krieger column hadn't been published as of February 11. In fact, the letter ran in the Rocky's February 11 issue. Oops.

Joining me in error was the Denver Post, which, due to an editing goof, printed the second mom-related botch to appear in a Diane Carman column this year. Last month, Carman wrote that when Lola Spradley officially became Colorado's first female speaker of the house, "the eyes of her proud mother" were "trained on her beaming face," despite the fact that the woman who'd given birth to Spradley was no longer among the living ("Seeing Red," January 16). Then, in Carman's February 11 column, dialogue from the play King Hedley II was put down as "God is a bad mother" instead of the actual line, "God is a bad motherfucker" -- or, as the Post prefers it, "God is a bad mother (expletive)."

To paraphrase the theme from Shaft: Shut your mouth! You're talkin' 'bout God! Can you dig it?