Colorado newspapers turned into nonprofits, researchers mapped news in each county, and more
Colorado Media Project
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Hutchins’ year in review: Here’s what happened in Colorado’s media world in 2021
If 2020 was a bruiser for the local media business with layoffs, furloughs and deep cuts from COVID-19 thinning our news scene, 2021 ushered in a kind of “new normal.” The local media industry tentatively bounced back as the year produced a bumper crop of digital news startups from Boulder and Denver, Broomfield and Franktown, […]
Posted inColoradans, Crime and Courts, News
How a rural Colorado traffic stop left a man dead and a sheriff’s deputy facing criminal charges
KIOWA COUNTY – Nearly a year has passed since a traffic stop ended with Undersheriff Tracy Weisenhorn and Deputy Quinten Stump shooting Zach Gifford, the unarmed passenger, in a nearby field, three bullets in his back. In the 11 months since the 39-year-old handyman’s death in Brandon on April 9, 2020, a state criminal investigation has concluded, […]
Posted inNews, Opinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Some Colorado newspapers are rethinking criminal justice coverage
In 1864, when U.S. cavalry troops slaughtered more than 100 Cheyenne and Arapaho in what became known as the Sand Creek Massacre, The Rocky Mountain News didn’t report it as a mass murder on behalf of white settlers. Instead, the newspaper heralded the soldiers for what it called a “needed whipping” — and it slurred […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Voluntary, piecemeal actions by online companies to cut down on misinformation are not enough
Ever since the attack on the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists on Jan. 6, social media and online platforms have been scrambling to take action. Twitter permanently suspended and Facebook blocked President Donald Trump’s accounts, while Amazon removed Parler from its cloud hosting service. Stripe, Apple, Venmo, Paypal, YouTube, Telegram, and more deleted and suspended […]
Posted inBusiness, News
Hutchins’ year in review: Here’s what happened in Colorado’s media world in 2020
Dumpster fire, clown show, a glitch in the simulation, whatever you want to call it, 2020 was a kind of something else we should have seen from the start. In Colorado, think of how it began: Around this time last year, residents and law enforcement were reporting troubling nightly sightings of mysterious lights in the […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Health
On Edge: A coronavirus survivor in Denver finds her footing amid her fears
Until this year, Elizabeth Torres would not have called herself a particularly anxious person. Stressed, sure. Who wasn’t? Everyone has ups and downs. Torres was working a couple part-time jobs, taking care of her elderly grandparents, raising three kids on her own. Her son, the middle child, has been diagnosed with autism and he likes […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Coloradans, Environment, Health
On Edge: In a rural Eastern Plains community plagued by drought, stigma won’t be easy to overcome
EADS – “The Splotch,” as some here call the brown mark on the map they check weekly, is the color of scorched earth. Here in Kiowa County, farmers have always relied on whatever moisture happens to fall from the sky rather than on irrigation. In August, this 1,300-person community bordering on Kansas was the first […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Health
On Edge: First, COVID took this Colorado man’s friends, then it took his health
Eddie Kemm found the pool table early in the pandemic. It was the second one he had scouted after the governor’s order shut down the bars — including Kemm’s favorite pool hall — in late March. When the halls went dark, so, too, did a significant part of the social life of an 81-year-old man […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Colorado’s small-town newspapers connect communities – and deserve community support
Imagine, for a moment, that you live in a rural Colorado community of, say, 1,000 people. Then imagine a major news event happening in your town. You know, like a dangerous pandemic, invisible and deadly, that threatens your neighbors, your friends, your family. Where do you go for the latest information on health guidelines, on […]