STATE BILL COLORADO

Its longtime statehouse reporter Steven K. Paulson is still here, but the Associated Press is shifting reporter Kristen Wyatt to Colorado’s capitol.

She succeeds Colleen Slevin, who’ll be deputy to AP Colorado-Wyoming News Editor Jim Anderson, he confirmed.

Wyatt comes having covered congressional races as AP’s local political reporter. A story she filed today talks about U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter’s review of grocery store constituent meetings in the wake of the shooting over the weekend of Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.

According to the story:

Rep. Ed Perlmutter typically holds meet-and-greets twice a month at grocery stores in his suburban Denver district. The three-term Democrat has had 70 such meetings and likes them so much he aired campaign ads last fall that showed him with folks in a store’s vegetable aisle.

But Perlmutter’s spokeswoman, Leslie Oliver, said it was unclear whether Perlmutter will hold his next two meetings at stores, a Jan. 30 gathering at a King Soopers in Wheat Ridge and another planned for Feb. 12.

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Should Reeves Brown and John Salazar start worrying?

Denver PR man Pete Webb begins a new column this week in The Colorado Statesman. His first effort advocates doing away with both the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

No one can really define why we need Local Affairs. If it’s providing support to cities, counties and special districts — let their trade associations, the Municipal League, Colorado Counties and the Special Districts Association, pick up that role. …

Agriculture’s mission is outdated and superfluous. Its regulatory functions (weights and measures) and consumer services can be handled by Reg Agencies.

For the current fiscal year, the Agriculture Department has a budget of $38.7 million and 287 employees. Local Affairs has a $318.3 million budget and 176 employees. Both agencies get virtually all of their funds from fees, not from the state’s General Fund budget, Joint Budget Committee documents indicate.

Gov.-Elect John Hickenlooper already has weighed in on the issue indirectly, naming Brown, executive director of Club 20, to run Local Affairs, and Salazar, the former congressman, to run Agriculture.

Webb’s other ideas? Sell the Colorado Lottery, or at least redirect the Lottery proceeds to support higher ed.

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The ColoradoPols.com website has shrunk its nameplate apparently to accommodate more advertising during a busy political year.

The changes, which took effect overnight, have the ColoradoPols banner occupying a small quarter of the left-side of the page, down from a more prominent position at the very top of the page.

The adjustment allows for the site to display three simultaneous advertisers at the top of the page, up from one previously. Current advertisers are Bernie Buescher, AARP and the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The Pols website recently had a dustup with The Denver Post over copyright issues that led the site to mostly discontinue linking to the newspaper’s web page.

New look

Former look

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Here are the headlines from this week’s Colorado Statesman, the leading Capitol political newspaper.

Hickenlooper’s bipartisan supporters convene under one big tent
John Hickenlooper has always had his share of GOP supporters, but rarely have they so publicly deified the Denver mayor as they did Wednesday at a bipartisan fundraising luncheon where the Democratic candidate for governor raised a cool $100,000 at a local hot spot.

Suthers, Dem challenger clash on role of AG
The two lawyers vying to be Colorado next’s attorney general clashed Tuesday over the role of the office at a debate before a business group in Centennial. John Suthers, the Republican incumbent seeking his second full term, and Democrat Stan Garnett, the Boulder County district attorney challenging him, each accused the other of wanting to expand the scope of the state position in ways they said should concern voters

Revenue forecasts spell more budget cuts
Gov. Bill Ritter is back to the drawing board this week to find more ways to cut the 2010-11 budget after new revenue forecasts show this year’s books are once again out of balance.

A political pulse on CD 1 race
The 1st Congressional District candidates, Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette and Republican challenger Dr. Mike Fallon, might agree on their diagnoses of economic and health care ailments — but they each recommend very different cures.

Move under way to change how votes are tabulated
A diverse group of election advocates want to change the way Fort Collins elects city officials.

Proponents of Personhood Amendment feeling blue about current ‘Blue Book’
Supporters of Amendment 62, the “Personhood” amendment that voters will decide in November, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Denver District Court asking for a temporary injunction to stop the state from printing and mailing out the statewide voter’s guides, known as the Blue Books.

One legal hurdle down, about a dozen more to go
Last week’s ruling that Tom Tancredo could stay on the ballot as a gubernatorial candidate meant Secretary of State Bernie Buescher had one less legal case on his plate. That only leaves about another dozen left.

Hillman: Cory Gardner Should Have Gotten NRA Nod
To anyone who still believes the National Rifle Association cares more about protecting your Second Amendment rights than it does about kissing up to powerful politicians, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Kogovsek: Good Work, Frank. Thank You
In the current era of divisive and downright nasty politics, it’s a pleasure and a delightful reminiscence to think of Frank E. Evans, Third Congressional District representative for 14 years.

Senate debate divisive — from the candidates to the cheering sections
Divisive sums up the second U.S. Senate debate between Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican candidate Ken Buck that drew several hundred folks to the Centennial Hall auditorium on Friday evening in El Paso County. The exchange between Buck and Bennet was cordial compared to the cheering — and booing — fans mostly seated in separate sections in the Pikes Peak Center.

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Editor’s Note: One day after this post, The Denver Post published a correction acknowledging that State Bill Colorado broke the Masters campaign-contribution story. This post has been updated to reflect this development.

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Two more incidents have surfaced involving The Denver Post not immediately attributing stories broken first by other news media. One involves this publication.

Today’s printed Post carries a front-page story about a wrongly convicted one-time murder suspect, Tim Masters, giving $2,000 in campaign contributions to an effort to oust two current judges who, then prosecutors, brought the case against him. The story was published earlier in the week on both State Bill Colorado and Law Week Colorado, a Denver-based newspaper for lawyers. Circuit Media LLC operates both publications.

But neither The Post’s printed nor online stories initially credited either publication. The Post has since revised its online story to credit State Bill Colorado; the print edition 24 hours later clarified the story’s source. As of 2 p.m. Friday, the Masters story was the third-most clicked daily story among The Post’s Colorado readers.

Post reporter Monte Whaley wrote today’s Masters story after seeing a report on the Fort Collins Coloradoan website, a Post editor said by e-mail Friday. That Coloradoan story gave story credit to Law Week; the Circuit Media publications first reported the news Wednesday.

The second incident occurred earlier this month and was reported by The Colorado Independent.

It concerned similar stories written by Huffington Post reporter Amanda Terkel and, one day later, Post reporter Allison Sherry. The stories centered on U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck’s apparent moderation of some controversial political positions.

Terkel, reached today by State Bill Colorado, didn’t know whether her story served as Sherry’s inspiration or whether Sherry had been working on the story independently. She also has not spoken to Sherry. Generally speaking, Terkel said, “I think it’s a good journalism practice if you get a story idea from another source to give them a courtesy hat tip or credit; if you’re working independently, you don’t need to.”

The blogosphere, Terkel added, “is good at giving hat tips.”

E-mails returned by The Post didn’t address questions related to the stories by Sherry and Terkel.

Last week, The Post modified a Penny Parker column about the sale of former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan to acknowledge that the news broke originally on the real-estate website InsideRealEstateNews.com. But The Post declined to give credit to a blogger who broke a story about the Colorado Republican Party potentially losing its majority-party status in the November elections. A Post editor said the reporter didn’t rely on the blogger’s story for her report.

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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include comments from Post Public Affairs Editor Chuck Murphy.

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Today’s Denver Post seems to be sending mixed messages about what media it’s attributing stories to.

Attribution became an issue earlier this week when a local blogger claimed a Denver Post political reporter, Lynn Bartels, took a story idea without giving proper credit. Bartels later said that attribution was unnecessary because she was unaware of the earlier report.

Today, The Post’s news section and specifically reporter Karen Crummy credits KMGH-TV Channel 7 with breaking a story about Colorado gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper’s IRS penalty on a conservation easement in Park County. But The Post’s business section and columnist Penny Parker don’t credit local blogger John Rebchook with breaking the story about the local businessman taking a loss on former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan’s home sale.

State Bill Colorado contacted Rebchook by e-mail. He acknowledged that he broke two stories involving the Shananan home sale. Asked whether the business story should have cited his work, Rebchook said, “I think so.” Rebchook indicated he recently gave credit to the same Post reporter for breaking an unrelated story.

Murphy said Thursday that The Post’s story should have cited Rebchook’s earlier reporting.

“In the case of the Shanahan house, I spoke with business editor Steve McMillan and, in fact, InsideRealEstateNews.com was the original source for that and should have been credited in the column for breaking that story first,” he said. “It was an oversight that will be fixed online.”

However, Murphy said it was unnecessary for Bartels to cite the blogger’s story, because she didn’t rely on it.

“When pursuing a story or tip for publication, our focus is on verifying the accuracy of the information and getting it published, not on checking every television station, other newspapers or blogs to see if they had it first,” Murphy explained in an e-mail that’s published in full below. “The question for us is whether we relied on another outlet to gain the original knowledge of the news that we then went out and reported out on our own. … If so, our intent is to give credit and I have tried to make reporters and editors aware of that intent.”

“Basically, we want to treat other media the way we would like to be treated by giving — and getting — credit where credit is due.”

The Associated Press recently introduced an attribution policy requiring its reporters to give story credit to bloggers. Denver media critic Jason Salzman on Wednesday discussed the earlier attribution story at his Big Media Blog. Salzman’s story includes quotes from State Bill’s editor, Don Knox.

Murphy’s note on the topic is published here:

Don,

I’m glad you wrote, I was looking for your address the other day after you published someone’s accusation that Lynn Bartels stole their story. She didn’t steal anyone’s story.

Our intent is to give credit when another media outlet made us aware of an enterprise story we followed — and the same idea applies to blogs and more traditional media. There have been times recently when we published an item on our political blog, The Spot, or a story at Denverpost.com or in the paper based solely on our reporting, only to learn after our publication that the same story or anecdote had been previously published somewhere else without our knowledge. When pursuing a story or tip for publication, our focus is on verifying the accuracy of the information and getting it published, not on checking every television station, other newspapers or blogs to see if they had it first. The question for us is whether we relied on another outlet to gain the original knowledge of the news that we then went out and reported out on our own, as was the case with the story about John Hickenlooper’s land. If so, our intent is to give credit and I have tried to make reporters and editors aware of that intent.

Basically, we want to treat other media the way we would like to be treated by giving — and getting — credit where credit is due.

In the case of the Shanahan house, I spoke with business editor Steve McMillan and, in fact, InsideRealEstateNews.com was the original source for that and should have been credited in the column for breaking that story first. It was an oversight that will be fixed online.

Regards,

Chuck Murphy
Public Affairs Editor

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Editor’s Note: Bartels on Sept. 15 responded to “Half Glass Full,” saying she was unaware of the earlier report. However, she has amended neither her story nor her blog post to note the existence of a previously reported story.

STATE BILL COLORADO

A blogger known by the handle “Half Glass Full” says a Denver Post reporter failed to give proper credit for a report suggesting that the Colorado Republican Party might lose major-party status after the November election.

The blogger posted the item on Sept. 9. Post reporter Lynn Bartels wrote about the subject four days later. No reference was made either to the blog or to the website, Coloradopols.com, where the item was published.

“Gee, thanks Lynn,” the blogger subsequently wrote under the headline “Lynn Bartels stole my story.”

Earlier this month, the Associated Press released editorial guidelines for credit and attribution. The AP, one of the world’s largest news-gathering operations, said, among other things:

We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it’s U.S. based; and whether or not it’s an AP member or subscriber.

This policy applies to all reports in all media, from short pieces, such as NewsNows and initial broadcast reports, to longer pieces aimed at print publication.

AP’s policy also contemplates giving credit to other organizations when they break a story and “we match or further develop it.”

If organization X breaks a story and we then match it through our own original reporting, we should say something like this: “The secret meeting in Paris was initially reported by X.”

The Post’s ethics policy, posted on its website, contains a far shorter section on credit and attribution, mostly having to do with plagiarism, which was not alleged in this case:

All writing and reporting in The Denver Post must be original or credited to the proper source.

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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

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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.

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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.

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