👋 Welcome. I’m Corey Hutchins, a journalist and educator, and this is a special podcast edition of “Inside the News in Colorado,” my weekly inbox newsletter.
Happy Wednesday, and thanks for sticking with this special mid-week edition of your typical Friday read. This time, I’ve tried something different.
It’s an hourlong podcast edition of a conversation I had with Colorado’s Democratic attorney general, Phil Weiser, who is running for governor.
The election is June 30 and ballots are already in the mail.
Across the country, lawmakers are passing and governors are signing a spate of public policy initiatives to support local news. “Tens of millions flow into local news as public policy becomes journalism’s fourth leg,” read a recent headline in Editor & Publisher.
In Colorado, there is currently a coalition-building effort underway for more robust public support for local media. (Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter and which I advise, is supporting that effort; I haven’t been closely involved.)
So, it makes sense that I’d want to talk to someone running for governor about what they might do regarding the local media industry if they win.
In this hour, Weiser and I discussed:
His media diet and how he determines what’s real and true online and what isn’t.
Why he is suing to stop a merger between the owner of FOX31 and 9NEWS in Denver.
His comfort level for more robust state support for local journalism in Colorado.
What he did to mitigate Colorado’s “orphan counties” — places in southwest Colorado where local news came in from New Mexico instead of Colorado on satellite TVs.
How he would act as governor on some First Amendment and transparency issues when I and others might have disagreed with the way he handled them as attorney general.
Why he can’t watch videos about dogs online anymore.
His thoughts on hypothetical legislation that could support local news and taxing Big Tech or AI companies.
His relationship with the press.
Last August, Weiser spoke at the Colorado Press Association’s annual convention where he urged journalists in Colorado to let him know about any incidents involving threats or harassment. (His advice was to consult law enforcement as early as possible if it happens — and to let his office know if local police don’t appear to take it seriously.)
🙏 Thanks to Ground Floor Media for advertising in this podcast. And thanks to Seth Jahraus for producing it, narrating the ads, and composing the music.
Seems like you’ll have to find that elsewhere.
His campaign canceled multiple times after agreeing to do an interview. They just couldn’t make it happen over the course of about four months.
That’s a shame because Bennet has had a lot to say in the past about his support for local news. His dad ran NPR, his daughter is a journalist, and his brother once oversaw the editorial page pages of the New York Times.
In 2020, Bennet co-sponsored a federal bill in Congress called the “Future of Local News Commission Act” and spoke on Zoom to Colorado publishers and journalists about it. (I moderated the discussion.)
Bennet also got his first job in Colorado working for the investment company of Phil Anschutz, the conservative billionaire who owns Colorado Politics and the Denver and Colorado Springs Gazette, which makes up one of the largest news operations in the state.
I think it would have made for a fascinating, meaningful, and impactful conversation for the “Inside the News in Colorado” audience and beyond, and I’m bummed it didn’t happen.
As for the Republicans running, I’m skeptical of their chances of becoming governor in deep blue Colorado unless something earth-shattering happens between now and November. But we’ll see who wins that primary and whether they might want to talk about public policy for local media down the line.
I left our conversation encouraged about Weiser’s open mind surrounding some of the issues we talked about.
It’s not often you hear a candidate for governor name-dropping book titles like “The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications” by Paul Starr.
Because he indicated some caution about being first on public policy, I hope the conversation inspired him to keep track of what’s going on across the country on the local news legislation front from organizations like Rebuild Local News, newsletters like Community Newswire, or Inside the News in Colorado. (He said he reads newsletters!)
Weiser certainly sounded more curious about the potential for public policy around local news than our outgoing governor, Jared Polis, has. In one major contrast, he said he is skeptical about getting rid of a state requirement to place public notices in local newspapers. Polis has said if lawmakers put a bill on his desk to scrap them he would sign it.
Weiser’s campaign was also easy to work with to get this interview on the books.
“I am super strong in terms of my openness and interest in being accessible,” the candidate said, adding that he respects the role of the press, as do those who work for him.
I hope he sticks to that if he wins.
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I’m Corey Hutchins, manager of the Colorado College Journalism Institute, advisor to Colorado Media Project, and a board member of the state Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For more than a decade, I’ve reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations. Most recently, I’ve been contributing to Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab and The Conversation. I also write the twice-monthly Community Newswire newsletter for the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont. The nonprofit Colorado Media Project is underwriting this newsletter, and my “Inside the News” column appears at COLab. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter, hit me up.) Follow me on Bluesky, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.
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