The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

by amyoliver | 9:42 pm, March 17, 2010

The Good: Late this afternoon Major Diggs Brown dropped out of 4th CD GOP race and endorsed Cory Gardner. Diggs is an officer and gentleman — and a statesman. Just a suggestion, but how about a Draft Diggs campaign to challenge Rep John Kefalas. Diggs for HD 52?
The Bad: Denver Post reports “Democratic moderates in [...]

Clear The Bench Colorado editorial urging “NO” vote on four Colorado Supreme Court justices in Sunday Pueblo Chieftain

by Director | 7:07 am, March 1, 2010

The Clear The Bench Colorado message is spreading around the state…
Following the recent Denver Post front-page, above-the-fold coverage of the “tough vote” facing Colorado Supreme Court justices in the upcoming statewide elections this November and the resulting domination of the Post’s “letters” section the following week, Sunday’s Pueblo Chieftain published a guest editorial by Clear The [...]

Post puts K-12 spending under microscope

by amy | 6:49 am, March 1, 2010

Facing substantial budget cuts, Colorado’s K-12 education establishment may have to rethink how it spends money courtesy of the transparency movement we have championed. Using transparency Web sites from Jeffco and Douglas County Schools as well as information from Denver Public Schools, the Denver Post found “found millions of dollars being spent with limited oversight [...]

Weekly Wrapup – “Dirty Dozen” tax increases signed into law, Amendment 54 overturned, school districts sue – taxpayers?

by Director | 9:12 am, February 28, 2010

It’s been an eventful week in Colorado – unfortunately, so eventful that it’s been hard to keep up.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to give any one of these issues the attention (and analysis) they deserve this week – particularly the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling on Amendment 54, which calls for a thoughtful (and time-consuming) [...]

Judging Colorado Supreme Court justices – more response to front-page news on “tough vote” in November elections

by Director | 7:47 am, February 22, 2010

This Sunday the “Letters to the Editor” section of the Denver Post was dominated by comment on last Monday’s Denver Post’s front-page, above-the-fold coverage of the “tough vote” facing Colorado Supreme Court justices in the upcoming statewide elections this November.
Much of the letter-writing was devoted to the obligatory rants bashing Jon Caldara and John Andrews, [...]

Colorado Energy Jobs Summit – Clean Ideas On Wasting More Taxpayer Dollars

by Chuck Moe | 12:10 pm, February 21, 2010

A Colorado Energy Jobs Summit was held at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Friday, Feb 19, 2010. The organizers included U.S. Senator Mark Udall, the University of Colorado, Third Way, and the Keystone Center. The highlight of the event was Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s speech to the Colorado politicians and interest groups. As the Denver Post reported, Secretary…

Colorado Supreme Court retention elections gain coverage and commentary around the state

by CTBC Director | 11:45 pm, February 18, 2010

Following the Monday Denver Post’s front-page, above-the-fold coverage of the “tough vote” facing Colorado Supreme Court justices in the upcoming statewide elections this November, other media outlets around the state are picking up on the issue – which may become among the hottest political topics in Colorado this year.
Shamelessly mixing metaphors, Monday’s Denver Post front-page story [...]

Colorado Supreme Court justices face a tough vote in upcoming statewide retention elections this November

by CTBC Director | 4:11 pm, February 15, 2010

It’s taken a while, but the Denver Post has started to take notice of those other statewide elections (the four MOST important votes Colorado citizens can cast in this very important election year). Appearing above-the-fold on the front page (print edition) and top news story (online edition), the article (”Four Colorado Supreme Court justices face [...]

Evaluating the Performance of Colorado Supreme Court Justices

by Director | 11:11 pm, February 14, 2010

It’s Valentine’s Day, but the Denver Post is not feeling the love…
Between a weekend social calendar and attending several events (including One Sweet Fundraiser for Clear The Bench Colorado – a great success! Thanks to all who attended and contributed!) yesterday, I almost missed the publication of the following guest commentary article on judicial performance [...]

The “news” and the truth rarely intersect

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 4:35 pm, January 30, 2010

Compare these two headlines about the same meeting:

“Gloves off for GOP, Obama

A forum meant to tone down rancor instead turns up the ill will”

“Off script, Obama and the GOP vent politely“

The first is the Denver Post headline of an Associated Press story. The second is from the New York Times’ coverage of the same event.

These disparate views of a singular meeting gives one pause. Do not trust the “news” until you have had the opportunity to review as many different accounts of the event as possible.

Then doubt it some more.

(I didn’t link to the Post story because the online version has a different headline now. I have picture of the headline in the hard copy of the paper that was delivered to my house.)

Denver Home Prices Rise – There is No Bubble…Look Over There!

by Chuck Moe | 6:40 pm, January 28, 2010

The Denver post printed an article written by Adrian Sainz of the Associated Press that Denver was “among four metropolitan areas in a 20-city survey…that saw home prices increase in November compared with the same period a year ago.”
Mr. Sainz quotes economist Jeff Thredgold of Vectra Bank Colorado, “In Denver, it’s no boom, no bust, at least as far as…

Legislators exploit recent Colorado Supreme Court ruling to push “Dirty Dozen” tax hike bills

by Director | 9:12 am, January 28, 2010

The Colorado Legislature received public testimony yesterday (continuing into today) – overwhelmingly in opposition – to the “Dirty Dozen” stealth tax hike bills exploiting a recent Colorado Supreme Court ruling to avoid the TABOR requirement that tax increases receive prior approval by a vote of the people.
It was readily apparent from the tone of the committee [...]

Yet another partisan spin on recent statement by AG Suthers that he will vote “NO” on 3 Colorado Supreme Court justices

by Director | 5:15 pm, January 25, 2010

Just when it appeared that the attempts to spin the recent statement by Attorney General John Suthers that he would vote “NO” on retaining 3 of the 4 Colorado Supreme Court justices on the ballot this year (Justices Michael Bender, Alex Martinez, and Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey) had finally run their course, yet another left-wing blog (titled, appropriately, Left [...]

Theater Smoking Ban Violates Free Expression

by Ari | 12:05 am, January 25, 2010

The January 10 Denver Post published my letter under the title, “Why smoking ban shouldn’t apply on stage.” The letter replied to a January 4 editorial.

The Post argues that, because actors can use fake cigarettes on stage, the state smoking ban should apply. But just because The Post is capable of publishing fake news and commentary doesn’t mean it should be forbidden from publishing the real thing. The owners should decide policy, and patrons should decide which plays to see. It is a matter of property rights as well as free expression. By inviting politicians to set policy in the playhouse, The Post invites them to do the same in the newsroom.

Free association is also a critical right under assault by the smoking ban, in the theater as well as other private establishments. Actors too have a right to reach mutually agreeable terms for working. A play properly involves the mutual consent of theater owners, actors, and patrons. Politicians violate the rights of all those parties by interfering.

The Post is schizophrenic regarding the First Amendment (which is odd given that free expression is what enables newspapers to do business). Thankfully on January 22 the Post stood with free speech by declaring that individuals retain their rights when they join an association to promote ideas with their financial resources.

Colorado Supreme Court declared “open season” for Governor, Legislature to target tax credits and exemptions

by Director | 10:01 am, January 24, 2010

A recent Denver Post article noted that leading Colorado business groups oppose the Governor’s and Legislature’s latest proposals to “balance the budget” by targeting several long-standing tax credits and exemptions for “suspension or elimination.”
The article cited a letter from a coalition of groups expressing concern that increasing the tax burden on business would delay economic recovery and [...]

Westword weighs in on Colorado Supreme Court non-retention movement spearheaded by Clear The Bench Colorado

by Director | 8:40 am, January 23, 2010

The widely circulated alternative weekly Westword weighed in Friday with an article about the grassroots movement to hold the Colorado judiciary (particularly, the Colorado Supreme Court) accountable – and bring back balance to the bench – spearheaded by Clear The Bench Colorado.
Aside from not actually having used the word “bums” to describe the current majority on the [...]

I’m a Fightin’ Red

by amyoliver | 5:00 pm, January 22, 2010

Not really. My son plays varsity baseball for the University Bulldogs in arguably the most difficult league — the Patriot League in Northern Colorado. I am no fan of the Eaton Fightin’ Reds because they win all the time. They are like the New York Yankees. But I’ll be darned if I am going to let [...]

Friday Funnies – Colorado Supreme Court ridiculed by the Onion

by Director | 4:11 pm, January 22, 2010

At the close of a week dominated by news reports inserting partisan spin, additional partisan spin, misrepresentations, and ad hominem attacks, and yet more partisan spin and misrepresentations and finally a correction to the partisan spin surrounding the recent statement by Attorney General John Suthers that he would vote “NO” on retaining 3 of the 4 Colorado Supreme Court [...]

Denver Post issues correction to partisan spin on AG Suthers statement on (non)retention of Colorado Supreme Court justices

by Director | 12:34 pm, January 22, 2010

Earlier this week, the Denver Post published an article (AG Suthers may not back 3 on state Supreme Court) which put a partisan spin on the recent statement by Colorado Attorney General John Suthers that he intends to vote “NO” on retaining 3 of the 4 Colorado Supreme Court justices on the ballot (Justices Michael Bender, Alex Martinez, and Chief [...]

More partisan spin and misrepresentations of Attorney General Suthers statement on Colorado Supreme Court justices

by Director | 10:21 am, January 21, 2010

Political enemies of Attorney General John Suthers are attempting to use his recent principled (albeit uncharacteristically bold) statement that he would vote “NO” on retaining 3 of the 4 Colorado Supreme Court justices on the ballot (Justices Michael Bender, Alex Martinez, & Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey) as a political club with which to rhetorically beat him.
Some of [...]

Partisan Spin, Misrepresentation, and Ad Hominem attacks mount against Clear The Bench Colorado

by Director | 4:11 pm, January 20, 2010

Demonstrating the axiom that “if you can’t win on the facts, attack the messenger”, the left-wing attack machine is coming out in force to spin, misrepresent, and attack Clear The Bench Colorado.
After months of attempting to pretend that the important matter of judicial retention elections for the Colorado Supreme Court is a non-issue and suppressing any mention [...]

Post article puts partisan spin on Attorney General John Suthers statement on Colorado Supreme Court retention elections

by Director | 5:56 am, January 19, 2010

An interesting spin on some remarkable news…
After being scooped by The Business Word newsblog, State Bill Colorado, and Greenwood Village News, the Denver Post has caught up on reporting about an issue of extreme significance to Colorado voters.
An article in today’s Denver Post (AG Suthers may not back 3 on state Supreme Court) puts a [...]

Why I’m MAD (Mothers Against Debt)

by amyoliver | 9:20 pm, January 11, 2010

Just about the time I think pompous members of Congress and other elected officials at the state level have done everything possible to infuriate me, I read something like from the CBS News: “Copenhagen Summit Turned Junket?”
Fifteen Democrat and six Republican members of Congress, their staff and their families spent hundreds of thousands of our dollars going to Copenhagen, [...]

How the Colorado Supreme Court is “Killing the Golden Goose” of Colorado’s Economic Prosperity

by Director | 4:11 am, January 5, 2010

A recent report by Americans For Prosperity Colorado (Colorado in Transition: Killing the Golden Goose – A Report on Colorado’s Economic Future)
“says Colorado is only one generation away from a California-type fiscal crisis, thanks to what it calls excessive taxation, uncontrollable spending and an environment hostile to job growth.“
According to the Denver Post, the report [...]

“Platform for Prosperity” / “Contract for Colorado” waffling on Car “Fees” reversal poses conflict for voters

by The Peripatetic Pundit | 4:11 pm, November 27, 2009

The troubled launch of the “Platform for Prosperity” (aka “Contract for Colorado”) by “some Colorado GOP leaders” at the beginning of this week in an attempt to foster party unity behind Scott McInnis as the gubernatorial candidate seems to have generated more skepticism with each passing day. Although the pre-emptive criticism by Governor Bill Ritter [...]

Dear Dean Singleton, Please Charge Me

by Ari | 12:04 am, November 25, 2009

Westword’s Michael Roberts reports that “Dean Singleton… plans to start charging readers for lotsa online content at select MediaNews papers in California and Pennsylvania beginning in 2010.” This is relevant to us in Colorado because Singleton also publishes the Denver Post. Are fees for the online Post in our future?

God, I hope so.

Good journalism is hard work. Good investigative journalism is especially hard and time-consuming work. People tend not do do a lot of hard work without compensation. (I imagine Roberts would confirm this.) Thus, journalism needs to pay.

Journalism can pay in one of three general ways: advertising, philanthropic contributions, and reader payments. Advertising can be direct or indirect; for example, Michelle Malkin runs direct advertising, and her entire blog serves to advertise her books. (You’ll notice that I advertise my own book, Values of Harry Potter, on my web page. And it makes a fine addition to the tree or stocking!) I would be interested in learning how much of the Incredible Shrinking Westword’s revenues come from print versus online advertising. (While the weekly’s print edition has gotten noticeably smaller, its online content has expanded dramatically.)

I doubt anybody is going to make a generous gift to the Post.

That leaves reader contributions to supplement advertising revenues. These payments can be by the piece or via subscriptions.

As I suggested earlier, I think papers (and it’s funny even to still call them “papers”) should give readers a choice: watch an annoying ad, pay a monthly or annual subscription, or pay to read a single article at a time.

How is that not the best of all worlds? Cheapskates can still read content for free, except they have to pay with their time by watching a real advertisement. Regular readers can subscribe, preferably for a low annual rate (I would seriously consider paying, say, $50 per year to read the Post online). And occasional readers who value their time can pay some token amount — perhaps an amount that varies with the ambition of the piece — to read a single article. As I also mentioned before, the key to this is to figure out a very-fast way to make micropayments (else there is no time savings).

The fact is that readers who value good content and don’t want to waste time looking at ads will be prepared to pay to read that content. I absolutely hate the Post’s online ads that pop up, block text, push text down the page, and otherwise annoy the living hell out of me when all I’m trying to do is read a spot of news. I would much rather pay a little than deal with those sorts of ads.

I think it’s worth revisiting what Post editor Greg Moore said in September:

In terms of advertising being a means of supporting original [journalism]… right now advertising provides like 85 percent of our revenue. It’s still a huge, huge, huge driver. It’s a huge source of revenue. It’s going to be probably for a while. But I think our survival — and when I say survival I’m not talking about the newspaper, I’m talking about our ability to do journalism — I think we’ll have to shift to a different model. And I think that model is that the user will have to pay for the content that he or she consumes.

I don’t think that the cat is out of the bag. I think that the record industry sort of proved that, the music industry sort of proved that you can change people’s behavior. Napster, in the mid-1990s, everyone thought that would just sort of kill everything, and they put those people in jail, put them out of business, and now people pay for music. They do it differently — they don’t buy albums anymore, they buy singles, but they still pay a lot of money for music.

So I think there’s still hope for us, that we can sort of reverse this trend. As somebody said, I think the worst decision that was made by the owners of newspapers was to sort of be stampeded into giving away their content for free. But it doesn’t mean that it’s over.

Unfortunately, rather than quote somebody who knows what he’s talking about, such as Moore, Roberts quotes some clueless blog post by Rob Burgess.

Burgess quotes survey results from NewFiction:

80 percent of consumers recently surveyed by Forrester Research say they would discontinue their favorite free print content if they were asked to pay for it. Less than 10 percent of respondents would agree to subscription models; only three percent would opt for micropayments.

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner nicely summarize the problem with this in their new book SuperFreakonomics: “There is good reason to be skeptical of data from personal surveys. There is often a vast gulf between how people say they behave and how they actually behave” (page 7).

If you ask people if they want to pay for something they now get for free, what do you expect them to say? They’re going to give you some variant of “no.”

But if a person actually has a choice of reading a great article and paying, versus not reading that article, in at least some cases the person is going to pay up and ask for more. (Again, I think newspapers would be smart to offer a third option of spending time watching an ad, probably in the form of a short video. These sorts of ads are already common on a variety of web pages.)

So Burgess’s first argument is bunk. Let us turn to his second argument:

You ruined everything in the beginning by starting with giving everything away for free. It has now been almost 15 years since the Internet broke wide and you’re just NOW getting around to asking people to pay for your content? I don’t blame people for not wanting to pay for it anymore, why should they? Who would pay for something they can get for free?

The options are not “get free content” versus “pay for content.” The other option is “get no content,” at least as far as investigative journalism is concerned. With that as the alternative, paying doesn’t look so bad after all. People “should” pay, and they should be willing to, if that’s the only way to get hard-to-produce content they want to read. (Again, easy-to-produce content will remain free, and ads can help pay for hard-to-produce content.)

What Burgess seems to think ridiculous is Singleton’s comment, “We have to condition readers that everything is not free.” But Singleton’s comment is perfectly sensible. Moore uses the example of paying for music online. Today many people pay to receive television stations that they could otherwise get for free, because the reception is better and the broadcast stations are packaged with cable-only stations. Consumers change their behavior all the time, even (or especially) after they say they won’t.

There ain’t no such thing as free journalism. If journalists aren’t willing to work without compensation, philanthropists don’t pay, and advertising doesn’t pay enough, the only alternative is for readers to pay, if they want the benefit of the product.

Really advertising is a way of extracting a payment of time from readers. Again, I think papers should offer that alternative. I would much rather pay in dollars, as for me that would be the far less costly alternative.

$500 lunch?

by amy | 6:42 am, November 6, 2009

Apparently the state provides $500 lunches and taxpayers don’t need to know about them according to State Controller David McDermott.
The Denver Post reports that State Rep. BJ Nikkel, sponsor of the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, accuses McDermott of violating the spirit of the law, violating taxpayer trust and violating transparency.
It’s easy to see Rep Nikkel’s point when McDermott [...]

Could Micropayments Save Newspapers?

by Ari | 9:54 am, October 31, 2009

At last month’s media panel, somebody (I believe Adrienne Russell) mentioned the idea of micropayments for online media content. Such payments might help save the newspaper industry as well as help fund better bloggers.

The idea is that readers would pay a small fee — say a quarter or fifty cents — to read an article online. A popular story that drew a hundred thousand readers could do quite well for a publication.

Consider how the Wall Street Journal presents its news stories. It gives you the headline and the opening sentences, then asks you to subscribe. But I don’t subscribe to that paper, because I rarely want to read one of its news stories (and its opinions are available for free). But, if I could pay a small, one-time fee to read the occasional story, I’d probably pay that paper a few dollars per year. That’s not a lot, but multiplied by a few hundred thousand extra readers it could add up. Indeed, newspapers could offer monthly subscriptions for regular readers as well as micropayments for occasional readers.

At the media panel, Greg Moore of the Denver Post said a couple of things of particular interest to this issue. First, he said that newspapers might have to print less frequently. Second, readers would have to pay for online content, eventually, for newspapers to survive and thrive. I can envision a newspaper that goes to press, say, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. The print edition would be stuffed with ads, comics, classifieds, crosswords — stuff people like to touch and feel. They would be big, perhaps nearly as many pages as seven days runs now, so subscription rates could at least stay even while production and distribution costs dropped dramatically. This would be the answer to traditionalists, who actually enjoy getting their hands dirty reading the paper. (I would as soon eat dinosaur eggs for breakfast.)

Under such a scheme, the Post would raise revenue from print and online ads, print and online subscriptions, online only subscriptions, and micropayments for individual stories. Publications that used micropayments would probably want to make some significant portion of its content available for free.

Bloggers (the kind with actual readers) and strictly online publications might also be able to employ micropayments for more ambitious stories.

The key to micropayments, of course, is to make them easy. A PayPal account might get the job done, or perhaps PayPal could adapt its existing program to make micropayments easier. Most people aren’t going to pay a small fee to read an article unless it’s as easy as clicking a button or maybe two.

One publication that has already combined ads, micropayments, and subscriptions is The Objective Standard. The publication shows the first part of an article online for no cost. To read the entire article, one must subscribe or “Purchase a PDF of this article” for, in this case, $4.95. (Micropayments for journal articles or specialty articles can be higher than for regular newspaper stories.)

The more I think about it, the more I love the idea of micropayments. Don’t saddle me with a long-term commitment. I have enough of those. Don’t litter my screen with pop ups and flashing lights trying to sell me crap. (That said, a third option to a subscription or a micropayment might be to watch, say, a thirty second video advertising some product before reading the article. I notice that Fox already does this for online video.) Just give me the option of paying a small fee to read something that interests me.

This article has been brought to you at no cost by FreeColorado.com.

“60 minutes, Larry King, we’re ready!”

by amy | 7:48 pm, October 19, 2009

Transparency Czarina Amy Oliver Cooke showed COST, not one but two, very pretty, 4-color glossy brochures from the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF). Ms. Cooke received them when HCPF Director Joan Henneberry presented her “if money weren’t an object what would your department want” list to the Long Term Fiscal Stability Commission of which our [...]

Transparency: It’s a good question

by amy | 3:30 pm, October 6, 2009

“Why does Governor Ritter have to be dragged kicking and screaming into transparency?” asked our big boss Jon Caldara.
Investigative reporter Todd Shepherd exposed Ritter’s latest battle against transparency. Shepherd discovered that Ritter and his administration have virtually ignored a Governor Bill Owens executive order requiring that “all cabinet members as well as senior staff members [...]

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