By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
After 42 years in media, including 15 years as the chief of the state”s trade association for journalists, Ed Otte is ready to stop the presses — for now.
“My wife has a short list of house projects that I’ve been able to successfully stall with good alibi at the time, so I’m going to do those and then probably be bored and look at something else to do,” Otte joked in a recent interview with the Denver Daily News.
Otte will celebrate his retirement with friends, family and colleagues tonight at the Denver Press Club. The celebration — or condolences, as Otte quips — will begin at 6 p.m.
Journalists in Colorado know Mr. Otte as more than just a man who signs their press credentials as the executive director of the Colorado Press Association. He is a man who fought for greater public access to government records, for effective open meetings laws, and for reasonably priced copies of public records.
He guided local media through many storms, including the continuously changing landscape of journalism. Since 1995 when Otte took over at the Press Association, the Internet has drastically cut into classified ads, crushed revenues, decreased readership and forced closures. It was just in December 2008 that the Rocky Mountain News — Colorado”s oldest newspaper at the time — announced plans to close because it was unable to envision a world in which it could get in the black.

Optimistic about future
Despite the grim reality for many in media, Otte remains optimistic about the future, suggesting that community and local niche papers — such as the Denver Daily News — will continue to find ways to thrive, providing essential news to their communities.
“I’m optimistic about newspapers in general, especially community newspapers — whether they’re weeklies or small dailies in ranching and farming communities, or a paper such as (the Denver Daily News), which has carved out a niche in a larger metro market — because I think small papers are more in touch with their readers, they’re more relevant,” said Otte.
Over the course of his 42 years in media, Otte has worked at the Greeley Tribune, Alamosa Valley Courier, Colorado Springs Sun, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Bellevue (Ohio) Gazette, Santa Fe (N.M.) New Mexican and El Paso (Texas) Times. It’s safe to say Mr. Otte knows a thing or two about the newspaper business.
Journalists and ordinary citizens in Colorado owe a great deal to Otte”s efforts protecting access to open records and meetings.
The veteran journalist says he is most proud of his freedom-of-information efforts. His work led to some of the toughest freedom-of-information laws in the nation, including open meetings and open records laws. It’s relatively easy in Colorado to gain access to information related to executive sessions and public meetings thanks to Otte’s efforts.
He took Colorado from having some of the highest per page costs in the nation for copying public records to having a reasonable cost of 25 cents per page.
Small newspapers may want to kiss the ground Otte walks on for going to bat for them year after year, fighting the Legislature on efforts to eliminate legal publication requirements. Many smaller newspapers rely on legal notices as a significant revenue stream.
Otte laughed when asked by the Denver Daily News if he has a favorite publication or broadcast in Colorado, joking, “What is your publication?” But the Press Association chief then got serious about the question.
“There are so many good newspapers in this state, both dailies and weeklies,” said Otte. “The people I admire the most are the ones who day in, day out put out a really good publication with smaller resources, and a lot of operations have always been that way, and now more and more are in the same situation because of budget cuts. But they don”t want to back off and lower their standards and compromise on quality and the scope and depth of their coverage, they want to maintain that because their readers expect that.”

New executive director
Samantha Johnston will take over as the Colorado Press Association’s new executive director. She will start the job Sept. 13. Johnston comes from The Memorial Hospital in Craig. Prior to her work as the service excellence officer at the hospital, Johnston was regional director of advertising for the Steamboat Pilot & Today, Craig Daily Press and Hayden Valley Press. She also served as publisher, general manager and advertising manager for the Craig Daily Press.
Meanwhile, for his first house project following his retirement, Otte says he will tackle his continuously growing cluttered desk.
“My office at my house looks like a landfill because I just kept dumping papers and stuff in there — always with the excuse that I know which stack it”s in,” joked Otte, who said permanent retirement is not on his agenda.
“It’ll be a few months of doing things around the house, and I’ve got four grandchildren who live close by,” he said. “But then sometime around the end of the year, early next year, I’ll be bored and looking for something to do.”

Ed Otte Retirement Party
WHEN: Tonight, 6 p.m.
WHERE: The Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm Place
INFO: Cash bar and hors d”oeuvres

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

By Andrea Rael, STATE BILL COLORADO

DENVER — Who first noticed the similarities between Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis’ and now-Justice Greg Hobbs’ research papers on water?

It’s a mystery. But it probably wasn’t a reporter.

Three weeks after The Denver Post and 7News nearly simultaneously broke the plagiarism story, neither organization will say who made the connection between nearly identical portions of the two papers — Hobbs’ written 26 years ago.

McInnis was paid $300,000 by the Hasan Family Foundation in 2005 and 2006 to produce what became his now-controversial “Musings on Water” papers.

‘We don’t discuss that’

The Post’s Karen Crummy, who published her first online story at 4:47 p.m. July 12, would not reveal her source to State Bill Colorado. “It goes against everything we do in reporting,” she said. “We don’t discuss that.”

John Ferrugia, who co-wrote 7News’ online story appearing at 5:58 p.m. the same day, responded similarly. “I’m not going to go into that,” he said.

Neither took credit for making the discovery on their own, prompting others to guess that it was provided to them.

The people who had the most to benefit from such a disclosure insist it wasn’t them.

Asked if he knew where the suspicions came from, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes — McInnis’ primary election foe — said the same thing other gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidates said: He didn’t know.

“Trust me we don’t have the time or the resources to play those kind of games,” Maes said. “So it didn’t come from us.”

Democratic candidate John Hickenlooper issued a similar response through his spokesman, George Merritt.

Roy Teicher, spokesman for Senate Democratic candidate Andrew Romanoff, said, “I’ve been reading the articles. We had no inside knowledge on this, and we became aware of it after reading media accounts.”

Post deserves credit

A Huffington Post blogger and the founder of Rocky Mountain Media Watch also didn’t know who leaked the information. The blogger, Jason Salzman, began following the story after the foundation’s big payment to McInnis was reported.

He credits The Denver Post with asking the hard questions that led to the news of the alleged plagiarism.

“The way I see it was The Denver Post asked McInnis to release his tax records, and he didn’t,” Salzman said. When McInnis finally did, Crummy looked through his records, saw the payments from the Hasan Family Foundation and inquired about the reason for the payments.

Ultimately, the foundation released the water articles written by McInnis, and finally the similarities were exposed.

“This story never would have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for The Denver Post,” Salzman said.

However, the person or people who tipped off The Post and 7News have so far managed to stay in the shadows.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

Some Democrats cheered when they heard Face the State had shut down so you can imagine the look on their faces when learned the conservative blog is coming back. Expect a new, improved version of Face the State to debut in a few weeks, managing editor Brad Jones tells The Denver Post.

The site has hired John Schroyer as a reporter. Schroyer worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette during the 2009 General Assembly. He also was a reporter for the Colorado Statesman, and he served fora time as a spokesman for U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

Bob Mook

STATE BILL COLORADO
The Denver Business Journal, which added a second legislative reporter after the Rocky Mountain News closed in 2009, will go back to a single reporter — at least for now — with the departure of health-care reporter Bob Mook.
Mook, a Capitol presence for four years, wasn’t at the legislature full-time in 2010, according to DBJ Editor Neil Westergaard. “He did cover health care and insurance so he was up there often,” Westergaard said. “(Former Rocky Mountain News reporter) Ed Sealover is our main legislative reporter.”
The DBJ won’t immediately replace Mook but expects to later this year, Westergaard added.
Mook took a position at the Colorado Health Foundation.
Colorado’s capitol press corp has dwindled in the recent past as papers including The Pueblo Chieftain, The Fort Collins Coloradoan, The Longmont Times-Call and The Colorado Springs Gazette have closed their statehouse bureaus or cut back. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel went without a legislative reporter for the second half of the 2009 session after Mike Saccone joined the Colorado Attorney General’s office, but it has since replaced him.
The Denver Post, which had four reporters at the end of the last legislative session with the addition of News reporter Lynn Bartels, has fallen back to three reporters for 2010.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

STATE BILL COLORADO
Law Week Colorado and its sister news service, State Bill Colorado, were honored Saturday by the Colorado Press Association with awards for public service and news coverage.
The public service award, second place, was for “The Capitol Game.” The two-part series focused, in part, on technological and practical inconveniences at Colorado’s capitol that reduce citizen participation and make it harder for Coloradans to understand the legislative process. A second installment focused on how partisan capitol press offices sought to compensate for a decline in traditional media coverage by creating new outlets for distributing press releases. The series’ reporters were Neela Eyunni, Peter Rossi, David Accommazzo, Caddie Nath and Courtney Sparks. The stories were edited by Don Knox, State Bill and Law Week editor, and Cara DeGette, former Law Week managing editor.
Knox received the news-story award, third place, for his “A License To Conceal? Colorado DMV Takes Squishy Stance On Vulgarities.” The story examined Colorado’s inconsistent application of “personalization standards” on vanity license plates issued by the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The story appeared simultaneously in Law Week Colorado and on State Bill Colorado. The data were obtained by the news organizations through a request made under the Colorado Open Records Act, or CORA.
The stories were judged in the press association’s category for Class II weekly newspapers.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
DENVER — A committee of journalists that meets secretly to advise top legislative leaders on which journalists should be allowed floor access at Colorado’s Capitol has favorably recommended The Colorado Independent.
The Independent, an online news project of the left-leaning Washington, D.C.-based Center for Independent Media, is believed to be the first electronic reporting site not tied to a print publication to win the association’s recommendation. Others that had close ties to Denver-based reporters and editors were certified.
However, the CCPA didn’t encourage full membership for The Independent. Instead, it recommended a “provisional credential” lasting one year. Such provisional credentials were never addressed in the association’s rules or bylaws, nor are they discussed on the General Assembly’s Web site.
It wasn’t immediately known whether Senate President Brandon Shaffer or House Speaker Terrance Carroll had granted the credentials. In virtually all cases, however, current and former legislative leaders have rubber-stamped the CCPA’s work since the association’s creation in 2007.

Closed-door meetings
The Independent’s editor, John Tomasic, confirmed in an e-mail to State Bill Colorado that the committee made its decision behind closed doors and that The Independent’s editors and reporters weren’t in attendance.
Tomasic said the online news organization thanks the committee for its confidence.
“We see it as recognition of the hard work we have put in over the last three years covering Colorado policy and politics,” Tomasic told State Bill. “We see it as an acknowledgment of our I hope notable redoubled dedication to deliver information to readers necessary to improve public life and to fill the news hole opened up in Capitol coverage by the changing media landscape. We see the capitol credential as part of a new productive phase for the site. We look forward to making good on the committee’s confidence.”
Tomasic called the provisional credential “a selling point, I think” to anyone who might be concerned about giving new media privileges enjoyed for decades by old media: print, TV, radio.
Asked whether the provisional credential was redundant, since any press credential can be pulled at any time by the House speaker or the Senate president, Tomasic said, “Probably. But for (the above) reason and others, I have no complaints.”
The CCPA has recommended credentials for two sites — INDenverTimes and Rocky Mountain Independent — that were created by former reporters of the defunct Rocky Mountain News. Another electronic site that garnered credentials, PolitickerCO.com, was owned by the company that publishes The New York Observer. A fourth side, Education News Colorado, won full credentials: Its staff includes former Denver Post journalist Todd Engdahl.
Proving the dynamism of today’s media market, the Rocky Mountain Independent and PolitickerCO.com are now shuttered. And INDenverTimes no longer pursues on-site coverage of the Capitol.

A turning point?
The association’s decision in The Colorado Independent’s case is a shift from 2008.
Back then, the CCPA’s five-member “standing committee” recommended against approval for the organization, then called Colorado Confidential.
At the time, Joe Hanel, one of the committee members and a reporter for The Durango Herald, cited three foundations who donated money to Colorado Confidential’s nonprofit umbrella organization – the Washington-based Center for Independent Media – as the deciding factors, Colorado Confidential reported then. Those organizations cited were the Gill Foundation, the Service Employees International Union and the Open Society Institute. The foundations often provide funding to progressive causes and candidates.
Neither Hanel, who still sits on the CCPA standing committee, nor the association itself responded to questions from State Bill Colorado about its decision this year to recommend a provisional credential for the The Colorado Independent.
State Bill Colorado, which is not credentialed and did not apply for Capitol credentials this year, has previously reported that the CCPA’s secret meetings are unusual for state-sanctioned bodies that advise top government leaders. Besides Hanel, the current members of the standing committee are Charles Ashby of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel; Bente Birkeland of Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a consortium of public radio stations; Adam Schrager of KUSA-TV; and Eli Stokols of both KDVR-TV and KWGN-TV.
The standing committee, unlike similar organizations operating at the U.S. Congress, is self-perpetuating and doesn’t stand for elections.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
Now we know why The Denver Post’s PoliticsWest.com website was a virtual ghost town over the past two months.
Denver’s largest newspaper has walked away from its politically themed website, originally undertaken by former Business Editor Stephen Keating. After Keating left the paper last year, PoliticsWest.com became less immediate and less creative, and its already thin traffic trailed so badly that a blog site, ColoradoPols.com, crowed that it had more Web visitors.
So now The Post gives its readers The Spot, which, unlike PoliticsWest, isn’t a standalone site — so there’ll be no more woeful traffic comparisons with Pols, or any other site (State Bill Colorado among them).
What is this new site? In the words of the site’s editors …

The aim is to create a single site for people from all over the world to keep up with public affairs in Colorado and nationally.

Think of it as a high-tech version of the Justice League of America. Superman was great on his own. And so was Batman and Wonder Woman. But when they joined forces, they were unbeatable. We know you’ll continue to visit those partisan, Legion of Doom websites, but we hope you’ll come back and visit us when you’re looking for a little truth, justice and the American way.

Ugh.
The first 48 hours of The Spot haven’t exactly produced groundbreaking political journalism — more like sappy snippets of legislative insider-isms proferred by Lynn Bartels (she filed eight such dispatches before 2 p.m. today.) One of those was a reminder that the annual legislative feed-fest, the Colorado Restaurant Association reception, “points out how valueable (sic) the industry is to Colorado’s economy.”
She adds: “Not to sound like Penny Parker here, but the crab cakes are to die for.”
Perhaps The Post’s editors will become more creative in the coming weeks, taking advantage of video, audio and analytical tools that are being embraced by emerging news orgs. Until then, readers will have to decide whether this is The Spot for them.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

The Denver Post will no longer host its “Gang of Four” Politics West commentary blog. The gang included self-styled libertarian Ross Kaminsky, former Colorado senate president John Andrews, progressive pundit and writer David Sirota and progressive activist, campaign worker and self-described “muckraker” Nancy Watzman, The Colorado Independent reports.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
A panel of journalists that plays a crucial role in deciding which reporters get face-to-face access to legislators on the floor of the state Capitol is again gearing up for business — and causing controversy.
The standing committee of the Colorado Capitol Press Association has met once so far this legislative cycle, committee member Joe Hanel of The Durango Herald confirmed Tuesday. And as in previous years, the CCPA’s standing committee convened behind closed doors.
The CCPA’s preference for secret meetings isn’t just rare for journalistic organizations, which normally press for governmental transparency. It’s the exception for official bodies advising public figures in Colorado’s executive and legislative branches, a recent State Bill investigation determined.
Hanel disclosed that at its first meeting for the 2010 session, which begins Jan. 13, the standing committee approved credentials for reporters at newspapers including the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Statesman and The Pueblo Chieftain.
Asked why the panel chooses to meet privately, Hanel turned and walked away without saying a word.
The standing committee — dominated by traditional journalists including newspaper, TV and radio reporters, — has been criticized by other journalists, including the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, for essentially preventing face-to-face floor coverage by so-called “new media” organizations, including State Bill Colorado.
The CCPA has said that it makes only recommendations. Nevertheless, its decisions are almost always accepted by the legislature’s highest leadership.
The five-member CCPA was created in late 2007 by then-Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald and then-House Speaker Andrew Romanoff to issue credentials to journalists with an eye toward ensuring that journalists weren’t lobbying or otherwise inappropriately influencing public policy. Current House Speaker Terrance Carroll and Senate President Brandon Shaffer, both Democrats, have so far left the credentialing panel in place.
Besides Hanel, the current members of the standing committee are Charles Ashby of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel; Bente Birkeland of Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a consortium of public radio stations; Adam Schrager of KUSA-TV; and Eli Stokols of both KDVR-TV and KWGN-TV.
The standing committee, unlike similar organizations operating at the U.S. Congress, is self-appointing and doesn’t stand for elections.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >

STATE BILL COLORADO
The Colorado Statesman, the state’s political weekly newspaper, has hired veteran writer and editor Scot Kersgaard as its managing editor.
Kersgaard had his first byline in today’s paper.
Kersgaard may be best known as a former press secretary to former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo. His bio also includes time spent as director of public relations for a Fortune 400 high-tech firm and experience as a newspaper owner, editor and reporter.
For the past 10 years, Kersgaard worked as a freelance writer/editor/PR person and as a real estate agent. His freelance clients included Ford, GE, IBM and Microsoft.
Kersgaard hails from Sun Valley, Idaho. He moved to Vail in 1987, and then to Denver in 1990.
The Statesman bills itself as Colorado’s weekly nonpartisan political newspaper. It was founded in 1898 and is owned and edited by Jody Hope Strogoff.

Stay ahead by signing up for State Bill E-News! >