Journalism

Christine Tatum: Anti-pot jihadist's questions about Westword, THC tie to terrorism, murder

Amendment 64's passage has energized marijuana opponents like Christine Tatum. An ex-journalist and wife of addiction specialist Dr. Christian Thurstone, Tatum recently went after yours truly for, among other things, failing to contact Thurstone for a post featuring one of his critics. Since then, T ... More >>

Jennifer Latham: Saga of $37 million verdict featured in alt-weekly anthology

Some stories are worth revisiting -- not just for the writing, although we like to think we do a good job on that, but for the people whose remarkable efforts and sacrifices make them worth writing about. And that's why I'm particularly pleased to offer a shameless plug for a free ebook available to ... More >>

Free Press media reform panel answers the question: "Is journalism dead?"

Journalism is dead: That seems to be the familiar refrain among the public these days. But last night, a panel of practitioners and free-press advocates at a preview event for the National Conference on Media Reform taking place in Denver next month, begged to differ. In their view, journalism is a ... More >>

Free Press' Craig Aaron on teaser for National Conference on Media Reform

Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press, an organization devoted to changing media and technology policies, is among the headliners for "The Perfect Storm: Democracy in the Age of Big Money and Big Media," taking place tomorrow at the Tivoli Center. But while the event can certainly stand on it ... More >>

Will reporters have to stay pot-free in Colorado? Not at Westword

The query came from Jim Romensko, who covers media across the country: "Hi Patti, I'm checking to see how Colorado news outlets are responding to the relaxed marijuana law. Have you screened new hires in the past? If so, will you hire journalists who smoke marijuana on their own time and, thus, 'fai ... More >>

Phil Anschutz-owned company buys Colorado Springs Gazette

For years, media observers have speculated that Dean Singleton would someday purchase the Colorado Springs Gazette with the idea of synergizing with his other Front Range newspapers, most prominently the Denver Post. But that day isn't today. With Singleton taking a backseat to John Paton in Digital ... More >>

Curious asks the hard questions in Time Stands Still

Red Hot Patriot's kick-ass portrayal stays true to Molly Ivins's character

Kevin Vaughan, Denver Post city editor, leaving to join nonprofit I-News

Despite reassurances, questions continue to be raised about the financial health of the Denver Post following the bankruptcy of the Journal Register Company, sister firm of MediaNews Group, the Post's owner. But Post city editor Kevin Vaughan insists that sinking-ship fears had nothing to do with hi ... More >>

Rocky Mountain News vet Gil Rudawsky: Old newspaper days were great, now they blow

Journalists these days inevitably know lotsa former journalists, many of whom seem happier than those still employed in the profession. That appears to be the case with former Rocky Mountain News staffer Gil Rudawsky, whose new blog post about making the leap from newspapering to public relations a ... More >>

Reader: I do not agree with the NRA's lenient view of gun ownership

Reader: It's a welcome change to see investigative journalism alive and well

Michael Tracey, CU prof in Ramsey family-John Mark Karr debacle: Negative job evaluations

Remember Michael Tracey? He's the CU journalism professor whose obsession with the JonBenét Ramsey murder helped lead to a media frenzy over false confessor John Mark Karr back in 2006. Could his apparent disinterest in actual student instruction have finally caught up with him? One possible indica ... More >>

Armando Montano: Account of "accidental" finding in journalist's death disputed

Update, 2:15 pm: Since I posted the account below concerning the mysterious death of 22-year-old journalist Armando Montaño in Mexico City, his family has received new information from the Associated Press that contradicts many of the details presented in the Mexican press (particularly an article ... More >>

Westword writers receive national acclaim

Michael Brown and David Sirota team up to fill KHOW Caplis & Silverman slot

Last week marked the end of the long-running Caplis & Silverman show on KHOW. Shortly thereafter, we started hearing rumors about a new pairing -- one that would team a conservative KOA personality with a progressive from AM 760. Turns out the buzz was true. Meet your new KHOW afternoon-drive team: ... More >>

Alex Landau still waiting for DPD decision, but his Westword story wins a major award

In January 2009, Alex Landau landed in the hospital after Denver cops pulled over the black teen for making an illegal left turn. He's still waiting for the Denver Police Department to determine the fate of the officers involved -- but another verdict came in this weekend, when Joel Warner's cover s ... More >>

Denver Post layoffs estimate: 16 copy editors, nearly tenth of staff

Update: At this point, neither representatives of the Denver Post nor the folks at the Denver Newspaper Guild seem eager to talk in detail about a plan to lay off two-thirds of the copy editors at the paper of record. However, we've gotten more information about the likely fallout. In the end, as ma ... More >>

Reader: New History Colorado Center is world-class, and Michael Paglia is not

The criticism of Michael Paglia's review of the History Colorado Center, and his subsequent suggestions for "Ten shows the History Colorado Center should have opened with," are getting pretty colorful. Says Guest: I don't understand why you don't just open your own musuem! I'm quite irritated that ... More >>

Reader: Denver Post changes are like Exxon watering down gas

Our item sharing a memo from editor Greg Moore about impending cuts in the Denver Post copy-editing department, which sources tell us could result in two-thirds of the staff being laid off, prompted plenty of discussion about the state of journalism today. Here's a comment from a reader who thinks s ... More >>

Tearing Down the Wall

John Hickenlooper: If he can become governor, there's no limit to Colorado's future

Governor John Hickenlooper met with newspaper reps in town for the Colorado Press Association's annual convention at the Governor's Mansion yesterday. There, he talked about Iowa, Christo, the coolness of Lieutenant Governor Joe Garcia...and how Westword was a very good neighbor during the Wynkoop B ... More >>

Susan Greene: Funding investigative journalism today as challenging as doing it

In late 2010, Susan Greene resigned from the Denver Post after learning her column had been canceled. She later wrote a Huffington Post piece that compared working for the paper to Stockholm syndrome. And since then? She's spent much of her time putting together "The Gray Box," a moving project made ... More >>

Journalism Plus: There is a future for journalism at CU-Boulder after all

I'm three weeks an intern for Westword, and with each day, I'm made more aware of the strengths (and the pitfalls) of my journalism education at CU-Boulder. Nothing scares me more than joining my older brother in his misery caused by the mania surrounding this economic downturn. "Good luck finding a ... More >>

Ke$ha rules, journalism drools

Britt ChesterEat it, journalism!​There are two distinct periods in the average American's life: high school and not-high school. For me, the farther I get from those formative ninth-through-twelfth-grade years -- 1994 to 1998 -- the cooler they seem to have been. Today, when I look back at say ... More >>

Rick Perry: CO lawyer on criminal investigation of reporter who wrote N*ggerhead story

On October 1, the Washington Post published a story by reporter Stephanie McCrummen in which she noted that early in his political career, GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry hosted lawmakers at a family hunting camp labeled near its entrance as "Niggerhead." Castle Rock attorney Mike Robinson found ... More >>

Westword wins big in 2011 with several journalism prizes

Wendy Kale, veteran Boulder music writer, R.I.P. -- and also say a prayer for Colorado Daily

Wendy Kale.​This week, the local journalism community is mourning the loss of Wendy Kale, longtime music writer for the Colorado Daily, who died at age 58 of still-undetermined causes -- although her death is not seen as suspicious. Her passing ends an era for the Boulder music community -- an ... More >>

Scottie Ewing on Finca Bellavista: "Right On"

​There's no denying that what Crested Butte couple Erica and Mateo Hogan is doing in Costa Rica is pretty cool: Spurred by their love of the rain forest, they bought up some 300 acres of it and created a fully sustainable Swiss Family Robinson-style tree-house community complete with zip-lines ... More >>

Reader: Michael Hancock prostitution story example of journalism at its worst

Hancock.​A Comment of the Day from last week condemning the media for overcovering the Michael Hancock prostitution story spurred a strong opinion from another reader distressed by the press' approach to the sensational (and unproven) allegations. Here's what he had to say.

Christopher Braider, French & Italian prof, on job overseeing CU journalism faculty

Braider.​CU's journalism school officially closes June 30 in favor of what's being called a Journalism-Plus program. And now we know who'll be overseeing the transition: Christopher Braider, an Italian and French professor. Braider, who's been appointed to a two-year term as director of the jo ... More >>

Westword editor Patricia Calhoun wins a top SPJ award for her story on Kristen Stillman

Michael Hancock has shortest honeymoon ever thanks to ex-Denver Players king Scottie Ewing

​When I picked up the Denver Post yesterday, with the big headline "Nothing incriminating in Hancock cell records" across the top of the front page, I was quickly transported back to the first edition of the Cornell Daily Sun I helped edit, when the night editor insisted the headline on a sto ... More >>

David Harsanyi thinks Glenn Beck's The Blaze will "do better" in future than Denver Post

David Harsanyi.​David Harsanyi was hired as a Denver Post columnist in 2004, eventually moving to the editorial page -- and the bookshelves via his well-read 2007 effort Nanny State. He also contributed to Glenn Beck's Arguing With Idiots -- and he's now on Beck's payroll as a major player for ... More >>

Arianna Huffington at MapQuest party on "frivolous" blogger suit, "useful" Drudge design

Arianna Huffington.​Internet years are like dog years, which makes fifteen-year-old MapQuest more like 105. But this old dog can learn directions home if you believe Arianna Huffington, now a player in the old-money empire of AOL, which owns the company headquartered in LoDo. She talked about ... More >>

CU journalism school to close June 30: Read critics' take on why it's a bad idea

Bruce Benson.​Last August, CU journalism school dean Paul Voakes insisted that reports about the impending death of the J-school were hysterical and premature. Not anymore. Yesterday, at the urging of CU prez Bruce Benson, regents voted for a shutdown by a 5-4 vote -- one closer than anticipat ... More >>

CU Journalism School, good riddance

​The University of Colorado at Boulder decided to shut down its journalism school and is looking to reboot the program, with President Bruce Benson is seeking feedback from media-industry pros. It's a peculiar question in the Westword office, since many past and present writers never went to ... More >>

The Daily: Five ways it could fail

​Rupert Murdoch's News Corp unveiled The Future of Journalism this morning in an elaborate, hour long event at the Guggenheim in New York. The product: The first tablet-native newspaper, a 14 cents per day, iPad-only publication called The Daily. There was some amount of fervor surrounding it ... More >>

Medical marijuana advertising revenue greening local papers (like this one), says New York Times

William Breathes.​I overheard someone call our fine publication Weedword not too long ago, referencing the eight-plus pages of medical marijuana ads in the back of our print edition. Funny, and also true. As Jeremy Peters points out in today's New York Times, that greening of advertisements ha ... More >>

I-News: Can Laura Frank's journalism project slow the disappearance of investigative reporting?

Laura Frank.​With resources and revenues for print and broadcast news operations continuing to shrink, investigative journalism -- a vital form, but among the field's most expensive -- is becoming more rare with each passing day. But former Rocky Mountain News reporter Laura Frank thinks she's ... More >>

With The FILTH and the FURY!! game you can pretend to be a music journalist

​Back in the 1980s, music journalism was a field people were falling over themselves to get into. This was hot on the heels of the Lester Bangs era, when DIY and punk movements started taking over and bands were coming out of every small town in America. It also marked a surge in music 'zine p ... More >>

CU journalism school possible-closure headlines went from premature to inaccurate, dean says

Paul Voakes.​Nothing gets journalists more hysterical than perceived attacks on journalism. It's no surprise, then, that an announcement the University of Colorado at Boulder was considering discontinuing its journalism school in favor of a new media entity prompted big play for panicky pieces ... More >>

Medical marijuana reporting "press vape" prize at Caregivers' Cup: Top that, Pulitzers!

The most practical prize ever.​Today, there's a dwindling number of journalists (or at least journalists getting paid for practicing their profession). But there are still plenty of journalism prizes -- although none quite like the one to be awarded to Westword at Sunday's Caregivers' Cup: a " ... More >>

Miles Moffeit, reporter who helped break Tim Masters case, to leave Denver Post

Miles Moffeit is heading back to Texas.​For the past eight years, Miles Moffeit has been one of the most consistently outstanding reporters for the Denver Post. "Trashing the Truth," a series co-written with now-columnist Susan Greene that documents the failure of law enforcement agencies in r ... More >>

Phil Anschutz attacked on website he owns

An illustration of Phil Anschutz from a NowPublic screed.​Citizen journalism has a lot of attributes -- but its mainstreaming can be messy. Case in point: A spelling-challenged attack on Denver gazillionaire Phil Anschutz published earlier today on NowPublic, a Canadian citizen-journalism site ... More >>

An early look at Colorado Public News, the latest online news experiment

Photo by Joe Mahoney"You said it wasn't going to hurt!": A photo from Colorado Public News' beta site.​After the closure of the Rocky Mountain News earlier this year, groups featuring former staffers launched not one but two high-profile online news projects, neither of which revolutionized th ... More >>

HDNet's Greg Dobbs talks about Life in the Wrong Lane

​"A lot of people consider the practice of journalism with a lot of scorn, and sometimes it's deserved," says veteran newsman Greg Dobbs, who'll talk about his new book, Life in the Wrong Lane: Why Journalists Go in When Everyone Else Wants Out, at 6 p.m. tonight at the Denver Press Club. "But ... More >>

Market Watch

Truth is stranger than fiction -- and even reality TV.

Tube Time

A columnist's latest dirty secret? He watches TV to get his news.

Lights, Camera...No Comment

Two years after the shootings, 60 Minutes brings Columbine back to prime time -- and local officials get camera-shy.