Headline on the Gazette’s Web site this morning:

“Tax hikes signed by Ritter.”

Headline on the Denver Post Web site this morning:

“Ritter signs bills to end tax breaks, help balance budget.”

Are we looking at bias here? The Gazette trends right, the Post trends left. Do the headlines mirror the editorial positions of the newspapers?

I doubt it. Both headlines are factual and defensible, if not absolutely even-handed. And ideology has little to do with the craft of headline writing. If you think it’s hard to write a pithy tweet, or to compose a graceful haiku, try summarizing an 800-word story in five to nine words. It’s a delightful craft, one which can only be mastered by long practice. “Hicks nix stix flix” and “Headless body in topless bar” - two examples of reality providing an occasion for genius to meet inspiration.

But for folks who believe that daily newspaper coverage is driven by political agendas, grudge-settling and hidden biases, there’s always evidence of slanted coverage - just as there’s abundant evidence that Denver International Airport is the site of a vast, hidden secret guv’mint project, complete with subterranean tunnels to Cheyenne Mountain.

But it does appear that the Gazette has in fact launched a secret project aimed at uncovering the shenanigans of certain powerful folks in our community.

A couple of months ago, the G assigned a new reporter to cover the County Commission and, it appears, to report upon the antics of a certain Douglas Bruce.

Eileen Welsome has the kind of unthreatening persona that is so valuable to an investigative reporter. She’s quiet, persistent and unrelenting. She’s already written some great pieces about the county, and has so annoyed the commissioners that Gazette editor Jeff Thomas has had to endure a meeting with at least one indignant elected official.

But it seems that neither the Dougster nor our eminent elected officials have bothered to Google Welsome. One commissioner characterized her as “not understanding anything,” and ”asking lots of ignorant questions,” and “filing all these CORA (Colorado Open Records Act) requests.”

But maybe she understands more than the commissioners give her credit for - and maybe her employer is expecting great things from her.

A few years back, Welsome won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting while working as a reporter for the Albuquerque Tribune. The series of stories covered the experience of Americans who were unknowingly research subjects of government radiation experiments, according to the Pulitzer Prize Web site.

To find that the “G” has hired Welsome as a beat reporter is a little surprising. It’s as unlikely as seeing Jeff Beck lay down riffs with the local boys at Southside Johnny’s … but maybe it’s just a sign of the times.

After all, if the music business were as problematic as the newspaper industry, our local garage band would be fronting Clapton, not Beck.

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 25th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: Bill Ritter, Denver Post, Eileen Welsome, Gazette, Jeff beck, Jeff Thomas, Pulitzer prize

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Colleen O’Connor reported this morning in the Denver Post that Herb Fenster, a prominent Boulder attorney, plans to sue the state over TABOR, claiming that the 1992 Douglas Bruce initiative, which extensively amended the Colorado Constitution is itself unconstitutional.

“His lawsuit,” O’Connor wrote,“ will argue that TABOR deprives the state legislature of its power to tax and made it “impotent, because the most important function of a legislature is to tax and spend.”

TABOR, he argues, violates Article IV Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which says the federal government must guarantee that states have a republican form of government, which he interprets as “a tripartite government, a legislative, executive and judicial branch.”

Under TABOR, the state legislature is unable to raise taxes. That power resides with the voters.

Fenster believes this constitutes a form of popular democracy, in which the population decides everything, not a representative democracy, in which the people are represented by a legislature that decides.

“If you want to vote on tax legislation, then send people to the legislature who are going to vote the way you want them to vote,” he said.

Fenster is one of those pesky, unpredictable, fearsomely smart people who are often despised by both political parties because they can’t be pinned down, demonized and dismissed. Is he a Rino (Republican in name only) or a Dino (Democrat ditto)?

Who knows? More to the point, does he have any chance of prevailing in court?

Probably not, since courts have historically deferred to the will of the voters (Bush v. Gore notwithstanding!). But it’s interesting to speculate how the Supreme Court might rule on such a case, if it ever reached that august and eccentric body.

The court includes in its membership at least four jurists (Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas) who hold, or pretend to hold, “originalist” views.

“Originalism” is a deceptively simple legal theory, which holds that the Constitution has a fixed, knowable, and invariable meaning, which was established at the time of its creation.

It seems clear that the Founders did not envision today’s unruly democracy. The right of initiative does not appear in the Constitution and is not listed as an “unalienable” right in the Declaration. Yet less than a century after the ratification of the Constitution, Colorado’s founding document guaranteed the right of initiative.

Strict originalism might suggest that the exercise of direct democracy via the process of initiative is of doubtful constitutionality. It’s clear, however, that no court in the land would dare strike down what voters in many western states regard as a fundamental right.

But are there limits to the rights of voters to tinker with the fundamental structure of government? Does TABOR violate those limits? It seems to me that Fenster has a pretty good argument - but I thought that Lindsay Fischer had a pretty good argument when he sued the city over its supposedly illegal uses of certificates of participation to fund the USOC deal. The court disagreed, and the deal went through.

But just suppose the Colorado Supreme Court agreed with Fenster? We’d have a delightful political/legal donnybrook on our hands. And if it made it to the Supreme Court, it’d be fun to watch the four most conservative justices wriggle and squirm, as they sought to find some justification for preserving TABOR. Is it an icon of the kind of limited government that the Founders sought to create? Or is it an example of the devolution direct democracy to mob rule, governance handed over to ignorant masses who are routinely deceived by demagogues of left and right?

Who knows? But if the Supremes were to issue a sweeping ruling empowering states to have whatever kind of government they might choose, we’d be on our way to fixing local government.

I can see it now - a simple proclamation from the mayor, altering our parochial city manager form of government to something a little more sophisticated - a kingdom!

King Lionel the first, Rex et Imperator! Ruling by decree, the king would establish a hereditary aristocracy, with dukes, earls, counts, lords, and a landed gentry. There’d be one catch - if you wanted a title, with the rights and privileges attendant thereto, you’d have to pay tribute. In fact, you’d have to pay tribute if you were the lowliest peasant. And if you didn’t pay, the king’s soldiers would come and squeeze it out of you. Taxes too low? The King would decree higher taxes! Taxpayers complaining? Off with their heads!

It’s simple, efficient and exactly what the Founders intended. Justice Scalia, read your Constitution!

Article 1, Section 9: No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.

That may seem simple, but that just applies to the states! We’re a home rule city, Mr. Justice Smartypants! We can do what we please! Just ask Douglas, Lord Bruce …

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 11th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: Antonin Scalia, Bush v. Gore, Clarence Thomas, Colorado Supreme Court, Denver Post, Douglas Bruce, Herb Fenster, John Roberts, Lindsay Fischer, Lionel rivera, Originalism, Samuel Alito, Tabor, the Constitution, United States Supreme Court

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There’s nothing better than a good, old-fashioned left/right bloodbath, especially when it involves our own fair city.

Lefty commentator David Sirota started the ball rolling with a bitingly snarky column in the Post, which also ran in the Gazette, characterizing Colorado Springs as “a shining example of what happens to a community when conservatives’ anti-tax policies are distilled into their most pure form …”

And if you think that’s a little mean, he was just getting started. He continues: “The next time you hear a conservative prattle on about how much he/she hates taxes and how the solution to all problems in America is to cut taxes, remember Colorado Springs. It is the anti-tax zealot’s nirvana - and it shows what America would look like if our politics continue to be dominated by the me-first, screw-everyone-else crowd and their tax-hating ways.”

Former Gazette editorial page editor, and present city councilmember Sean Paige promptly rose to the defense of our cruelly maligned, not-quite metropolis.

No doubt inspired by the absence of editorial constraints (“Paige, you have 800 words, and that’s it!”), Sean’s indignant piece in the Huffington Post ran on for nearly 1,900 words.

Characterizing the city’s current funding crisis as “a budget crunch…no different than (those currently experienced by) most American cities,” Paige claimed that the city is “…leagues ahead, in terms of livability and quality of life, of most places from which the ideological sniping comes.”

And Sirota? “Typical of the slams was this post by David Sirota in the Denver Huffington Post, which shows that he doesn’t know anything more about Colorado Springs than he knows about the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Here’s Sirota, spewing stupid.”

After listing all of  the “best places” awards that the city has won, and taking aim at those pesky, ill-informed lib’ruls, Sean concludes by saying, “Maybe what really infuriates liberals about Colorado Springs is that it demonstrates that you can have a great American city without the need for a great big government running things; that you can keep taxes in check and still deliver an outstanding quality of life; that people here will step up to do for themselves, the things government can’t or shouldn’t be doing for them. This town remains a magnet for transplants because it keeps the American dream affordable and attainable, by actually putting America’s limited government ideals into practice. Take all the pot shots you want, liberals, but Colorado Springs will get through this fiscal crunch and emerge on the other side stronger and better than ever.”

Sirota, no slouch as an incendiary, opinionated writer, replied in kind.

In yesterday’s Huffington Post, Sirota leveled both barrels at Paige, characterizing everything he said as arising from the “eternal delusions of the right-wing mind.”

“Paige says Colorado Springs attracts new residents and economic growth ‘by actually putting America’s limited government ideals into practice.’ In this, he asks us to forget that one of the city’s biggest employers is the defense industry - that is, an industry that has absolutely nothing to do with ‘limited government’ and everything to do with the hugest of Huge Government. Whether you support this Huge Government or not - whether you think it is a good or bad thing - it’s size and centrality to the Colorado Springs economy is undeniable, as is its antithesis to the concept of ‘limited’ or small government. You don’t have to trust me, the guy who Paige calls a ’statist’ (do people even use that red-baiting McCarthy-esque word anymore?). You can look at the $700 billion annual defense budget.”

OK, you two - just shut up. You’re both wrong.

You both see this city as through the distorting lens of your particular and quirky ideologies, and make the facts fit your own preconceptions.

Sean: David’s right. We contributed to this mess by embracing Doug Bruce’s taxophobia. And those “best places” rankings are highly dubious. For example, are we really one of the most drunken cities in America, as a recent survey seemed to show? And is Boston the least drunk? Or are the rankings derived from dubious metrics? And yeah, we’re more dependent upon guv’mint payrolls than any city in America … except Washington, D.C.  Volunteerism is fine - but who’s gonna patch the potholes?  Not me.

David: Sean’s right. With all its faults, the city’s a great place to live, and despite our current travails, is likely to stay that way. You can rant all you want about our problems,but we’re very far from being the poster child for American urban dysfunction. And besides, we’re the city every journalist dreams of - a city run by newspaper guys!

Journalists are former city councilmembers, and city councilmembers are former journalists. And we know that Colorado Springs taxpayers have always wised up eventually. They may load the gun, cock it and aim at their foot - but they never quite squeeze the trigger. And you may think that Sean’s a crazed, delusional right-winger, but he’s changed.

He used to be a crazed, delusional right-wing journalist, but now he’s a respected, comparatively moderate community leader … a role model for you!

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 9th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: Colorado Springs, conservatives, David Sirota, Denver Post, Douglas Bruce, eternal delusions of the right-wing mind, Gazette, Huffington Post, liberals, Sean Paige

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So what if those picky lib’ruls at CNN and ABC took advantage of our transitory problems to make us a national laughingstock?  So what if those jealous, overpaid big-city reporters at the Denver Post pointed out a few minor imperfections?  So what if those snarky, aggressive uber-lib’ruls at Colorado Pols made fun of us, speculating that our present very minor, very insignificant dilemmas are “the consequences of anti-government ideology run amok.”

“You wanted to know what Grover Norquist meant by ‘drowning government in a bathtub?’” That’s the question that Pols posed.  Well yes, that would be us!  But just why is it such a bad idea to terminate all of these marginal government programs, such as parks, streetlights, museums and community  centers?

It all depends on how you spin it - and I have to say that the folks over public communications, aided and abetted by the pro-government lib’ruls at the G, or the Telegraph, or the Gazette - whatever they call themselves these days - have only presented one side of the story.

We ought to tell the world in no uncertain terms that these are strong, positive and forward-looking steps that ought to be emulated by every progressive municipality in the country!!

Consider streetlights, for example.

When was the last time you sat in your backyard on a clear summer night and gazed in awe at the Milky Way, at Orion’s Belt, at red Antares, or blazing Sirius?  Fess up -  you wouldn’t know Antares from Antarctica, because you’ve never seen it.  You have no idea what’s in the night sky, because glaring orange streetlights have blotted out the celestial firmament!  Other cities, in thrall to streetlight manufacturers and energy providers, may choose to flim-flam their residents by substituting glowing sodium vapor for God’s majestic creation, but not us!  And let the criminals worry about crime - do the words “night-vision scope” and “laser sight” mean anything to you, Mr. Burglar?  Our new motto: take back the night!

And so what if we’re not watering our parks!  Has occurred to all of you lib’rul global warming believing, sustainable economy supporting, native-fish preserving environmentalists that we live in an artificial oasis here in Colorado Springs?  We try to conserve water in a truly significant way, and you make fun of us.  I know, I know - our parks are going to deteriorate, and all of that Kentucky bluegrass that we never should have planted will dry up and blow away…but we’ve figured out how to solve that little problem.

We’re going with “The Code of the West.”  Remember all those movies and TV shows about the brave homesteaders fighting the evil ranchers and railroad tycoons, ruthless predators who didn’t care about their homespun American values?  In the movies, the little people won .. .but that’s not the way life works.

Only the strong survive.  And that’s why, if we want more water, or more electricity; we’ll just take it. How about sending a few thousand undocumented workers up to Dillon Reservoir, and building a pipeline to our reservoirs, and just taking all the water we need for our parks from those Denver lib’ruls?  They may not like it, but we’re the ones with Fort Carson and NORAD.  You think that Mayor Hickenpooper, or whatever his name is, will risk nuclear attack over a few thousand acre feet of water?  And the same thing goes for Xcel Energy - if we want some power, we’ll just take it!

So here’s the message to Colorado and the rest of the nation.  We’re not some broke, pathetic, delusional little burg in thrall to right-wing, anti-government crazies.  No sirree - we’re creating a new model for American municipalities.

Colorado Springs, the Warlord City, where it’s always darkest just before dawn … and where you can check out, but you can never leave - because you can’t see the street signs to find your way out.

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 3rd, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: ABC, Antares, CNN, Colorado Pols, Denver, Denver Post, Fort Carson, Mayor Hickenlooper, Millky Way, Norad, Pueblo, Sirius, streetlights, Xcel Energy

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If you’ve ever considered subscribing to the Gazette, now’s the time … maybe.

My subscription ended on New Year’s Eve, since I had ignored several missives advising me to re-up or no longer get the G tossed on the porch every morning. Tried to renew online - no luck, since the site wanted my “subscription number” and my password before it would allow me to subscribe. No answer at the 800 number, so I gave up.

But I persisted! Yesterday, I plunked down $1.50 and picked up a copy of the paper at my neighborhood convenience store, expecting that the Sunday newspaper/coupon delivery system would have a subscription offer therein.

And it did - not just one, but two.

If you want to subscribe for 13 weeks, you can get just the Sunday edition for $1.61 per week - 11 cents more than the newsstand price. You also get access to something they call the Green Edition, which is a slightly enhanced version of what you can already get for free online.

Another, completely separate offer card gives you the option of having the Gazette delivered every day for $1.92. If the Sunday paper accounts for $1.61 of the package, you’re getting the other six days for 31 cents.

So rejoice! Happy days are here again! You can buy a daily newspaper for a nickel!

Or so it seems. Just as the circulation war between the Rocky and the Post, which featured offers of 52 weeks for $3.65 (a penny per day!), foreshadowed the end of the Rocky, so too may the Gazette’s latest promotion signal an uncertain future.

A local businessman with long experience in Colorado print media, speaking off the record, gave this assessment of the Gazette’s prospects.

“Ten years ago,” he said, “The Gazette had real circulation of more than 100,000, and revenue of around $90 million, with EBITDA as high as 39 percent. Today, the circ is closer to 60,000, and the stated margins might be 6 percent - but those margins aren’t real, because they’ve degraded the product so much to maintain any margin at all. There’s still value there - but for how long? All the indicators are moving the wrong way.”

Maybe so - but I need my G! One problem - the fine print says that the $1.92 offer is only “for those who have not been a scubscriber [sic] in the past 30 days.”

Oh well …

<- Back to csbj.com

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on January 11th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: Denver Post, Gazette, New year's Eve, Rocky Mountain News

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If you missed Dave Philipps’ superb two-part series in the Gazette, “Casualties of War,” go to the daily’s Web site and read it.

It’s a thoughtful, carefully researched, and beautifully written account of the violent and terrible lives of soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, part of the Fort Carson-based 4^th Brigade Combat Team. Many of them, returning from Iraq, committed crimes ranging from murder to drug dealing. In one year, Philipps notes, the murder rate for the 500 members of the unit was 114 times the rate for Colorado Springs. It’s a deeply saddening story-and one that we all need to read, if only to better understand the world we live in.

It’s the kind of story that wins Pulitzer prizes, that illuminates and informs, and that delights all of us who work for and/or love newspapers. Like “Final Salute,” Jim Sheeler’s Pulitzer-winning piece in the Rocky Mountain News four years ago, “Casualties of War” shows us what a metro daily can achieve.

Such a story takes time-lots of it. The reporter has to conduct dozens of interviews, spend months researching the piece, and finally write it. Historically, only dailies, with their vast editorial and financial resources, could fund and support such efforts.

But that time has long passed. Dailies, most of them laboring under massive debts acquired by feckless parent companies, have cut editorial staff and transformed reporters into “contentbots,” turning out multiple short pieces, blogs, and video updates every day. Great stories like “Casualties of War” once appeared frequently in Colorado metros such as the Gazette, the Denver Post, the Rocky, and in many other dailies across America.

No more. The daily newspaper culture, once so powerful and pervasive, is disappearing-and with it, the sustained and powerful investigative reporting that newspapers created and nurtured for generations.

What will remain? Blogs, weeklies, and two or three national newspapers? I don’t know-but to see Dave’s piece featured on the G’s front page on Sunday was as wonderful, unexpected, and heartening as…oh, maybe reading that the Rocky was going to resume publication.

But I’d guess that “Casualties of War” does not signal a sudden rebirth of what we thought lost. In the opening paragraph of “The Guns of August,” Barbara Tuchman’s magisterial account of the outbreak of the First World War, Tuchman described the funeral of King Edward VII.

“The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”

The old world of newspapering may never be seen again-but meanwhile, congratulations to Dave Philipps, Jeff Thomas, and the editorial staff of the Gazette. We’re happy for you-and, of course, a little envious!

<-Back to CSBJ.com

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on July 28th, 2009 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: Dave Philipps, Denver Post, Fort Carson, Gazette, Guns of August, Jim Sheeler, King Edward VII, Pulitzer prize, Rocky Mountain News

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Print newspapers may be, like the Cheshire cat, slowly vanishing. Within a decade or two, the pundits tell us, newspapers will only exist online.

Does this mean big changes? Does this mean that newspaperese will disappear, to be replaced by plain English?

For readers unacquainted with the term, newspaperese is a peculiar subset of the English language. Its use came about because of the characteristics of the printed page.

Headlines had to be brief, yet informative. Two syllables=bad. One syllable=good. Short verbs=good. Long verbs=bad. A print headline has to fit into a small space, and every letter counts. People in headlines don’t praise - they “laud.” They don’t look at things-they “eye” them.

The greatest headlines are short, snappy, and self-explanatory. They may seem easy to write-but they aren’t. Headline writing, like songwriting or poetry, is both a craft and an art. Here are some favorites.

-From the Sun, an English Tabloid, reporting a North Korean nuclear test “HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE KOREA?”

-From the Sun, reporting an attempt by thieves to steal a De Beers diamond at the Millennium Dome ”I’M ONLY HERE FOR DE BEERS”

-From the Harvard Crimson, chronicling the 1968 football game when Harvard scored 16 points in the last 42 seconds. “HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29”

-From the New York Post, 1983: “HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR’

-From the New York Daily News, reporting on President Ford’s refusal to give federal aid to a broke New York City, “FORD TO CITY; DROP DEAD”

-From the Daily News, reporting a 1980 state transit rescue package “SICK TRANSIT’S GLORIOUS MONDAY”

-From Variety, reporting during 1936 that rural Americans prefer urban-themed movies “STIX NIX HIX FLIX”

Immortal prose, which will long endure! And it’s clear that newspaperese flourishes on the web- here are some run-of-the-mill headlines which appeared in the online edition of the Denver Post during the last few weeks, with newspaperese italicized.

G8 Summit: Promises to curb warming are vague – 07/09
Hit by fees, Colorado GOP official pushes gas-tax hike< – 07/09
Colorado budget complexity daunts panel – 07/09
Obama takes new tack on finding illegal workers 3 – 07/08
Blagojevich aide vows to testify in plea deal – 07/09
Sen. Penry raising funds, but for which Colorado post? – 07/09
Long-term-care policies urged for Coloradans – 07/07
Penry remains mum on Colorado gubernatorial plans – 07/08
Sebelius lauds Colo. effort with uninsured – 07/07
Angling for a rematch on personhood – 07/03
New Colorado auto fees stir shock, anger – 07/02
Obama touts health care plan – 07/02
Sanford breaks vow to release travel records – 07/02
States in budget quicksand
Two Coloradans take posts with the USDA
Obama hosts gay and lesbian leaders – 06/29
Ruling spurs Ritter campaign appeal – 06/26
Obama condemns Iran’s crackdown, lauds protesters – 06/24
Denver judge shelves donations ban - 06/24

Coming Monday: the lamentable disappearance of “bus plunges” from the pages of daily newspapers.

<-Back to CSBJ.com

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on July 10th, 2009 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: Denver Post, Harvard Crimson, headlines, New York Daily News, New York Post, newspaperese, Sun, Variety

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