Colorado Confidential to the Rescue

Colorado Confidential, the muckraking website that’s in the midst of celebrating its first anniversary (see this More Messages blog for details), is clearly looking to grow. Moreover, it’s doing so by hooking up with journalists recently cast off by an organization that’s contracting: the Denver Post. Press releases reveal that Colorado Confidential recently added onetime Post columnist Jim Spencer (pictured), as well as Kay Jarvis, who’d been the paper’s deputy managing editor of operations.

As noted in another More Messages offering, dated June 20, Spencer and Jarvis were among the non-union staffers who were axed when the number of employees age fifty or older who accepted a buyout didn’t meet expectations. In the interim, Spencer created his own website, SpencerSpeaks.com, where he promised to continue writing. There, he shared details about his dismissal from the Post — including the broadsheet’s promise to pay for “four free trips to a psychologist.” (That info and more turns up in a third More Messages submission.) As of this writing, SpencerSpeaks refuses to load. It remains to be seen whether Spencer has decided to discontinue the project in lieu of his new gig with Colorado Confidential.

Jarvis, whose resume includes stints at the Birmingham, Alabama, Post-Herald and the Austin, Texas, American-Statesman, will serve as “the editorial mentor” for Colorado Confidential. As for Spencer, he’ll write — and in the aforementioned release, he takes a parting shot at the Post. “I know firsthand how the media environment is changing in America,” he’s quoted as saying. “ColoradoConfidential.com represents the future, not the past, and I’m glad to be a part of that future.” — Michael Roberts