Pueblo Chieftain’s Reporting Bias Getting National Attention

?Media Matters for America picks up our criticism of a recent Pueblo Chieftain story, regarding an "ethics compliant" filed against Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo by an out-of-district Republican detractor ahead of her recall election next month:

Colorado newspaper The Pueblo Chieftain is credulously reporting on an alleged "ethics complaint" by Democratic State Sen. Angela Giron, which, according to a Colorado ethics watchdog group, will be "almost certainly dismissed as frivolous."

The Chieftain's reporting on the complaint — that Giron posted her state email address and phone number on her campaign website — is latest piece of questionable Chieftain coverage of the recall campaign targeting Giron over her support for stronger gun violence prevention laws…

According the top local news story in the August 3 edition of the Chieftain, "An Avondale man sent an ethics complaint in an email to the Colorado Secretary of State's office Friday" alleging that Giron "is using her state-provided email address and phone number on her campaign website." The complainant reportedly does not live in Giron's district, but contacted the Secretary of State because "he is not a fan of her politics, especially her votes on the state's gun control laws." The story also quoted Becky Mizel, chairwoman of the Pueblo County Republican Party, who falsely claimed that "Angela Giron has chosen to use state resources and taxpayer money for her own political gain," and added that she was "disgusted" by Giron's actions.

In response to the Chieftain article, left-leaning political blog Colorado Pols noted that a number of Colorado state legislators — both Republicans and Democrats — feature state contact information on their campaign websites. In fact, a Media Matters review of Colorado's 100 General Assembly members' campaign websites found that 53 members listed a state phone number, e-mail address and/or mailing address. [Pols emphasis]

After reading about this complaint, it was a simple matter for us to find plenty of Republican legislators who commit the same "infraction" on their own websites. Media Matters found more than half the Colorado legislature lists their official contact information on their campaign websites. The Chieftain reported the original complaint, and a silly, over-the-top response from Pueblo GOP chair Becky Mizel–never bothering to check if this is actually an uncontroversial standard practice. Which, big surprise here folks, it is:

In an interview with Media Matters, Colorado Ethics Watch Director Luis Toro called the allegations against Giron "extremely thin" and predicted that the complaint would "almost certainly [be] dismissed as frivolous." Toro noted that his assessment of the complaint was based on the contents of the Chieftain article as the complaint has not yet appeared on the Colorado Secretary of State website.

Toro told Media Matters that the allegations in the Chieftain article are not properly described as an ethics complaint, but would instead be correctly termed a campaign finance complaint as the complaint concerns Giron's conduct as a candidate, not as a legislator. He added, "The paper would do well to understand the difference between an ethics complaint and a campaign finance complaint" and that it "would be helpful for them to understand the underlying law" so that its readers could be informed as well.

Asked about the permissibility of using state contact information on a campaign website, Toro explained that "the reason everybody does it is because it's legal," and — noting that no money is involved in the allegation against Giron — added that "what's illegal is using state funds to contribute to a campaign."

Bottom line: of course, factuality was not what this Chieftain story was about. The sole purpose of this was to provide a headline for a completely frivolous complaint, ignoring or downplaying all the reasons it is frivolous. It's virtually certain that this "news" story about nothing will find its way into a mailer against Sen. Giron in the coming weeks, with the Chieftain's masthead, the headline and scandalous selective quotes.

That's why credible newspapers check to see if a story is worth writing. But it seems the Pueblo Chieftain is no longer interested in such basic journalistic best practices where the story concerns Angela Giron.

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Attention Pueblo Chieftain: You’re Not Helping Anybody

Colorado Senate District 3.

We've been talking for the last week (and longer) about ethics problems at the Pueblo Chieftain, whose news reporting has shown a troubling bias against Democratic Sen. Angela Giron as she faces a recall election next month. These concerns were underscored by disclosure that several top employees of the Chieftain had in fact signed the recall petition against Giron. Media Matters for America summed up the situation last week:

Despite the seriousness of the allegations, the Chieftain dismissed the charges of unethical behavior in an editorial titled "Unethical? Nope," which claimed that despite writing politically conservative editorials, it has endorsed Democrats and Republicans and even supported a number of Giron's legislations. It further dismissed the conflict of interest inherent in its executives signing the recall petition of a legislator it covers as "another freedom guaranteed ALL Americans in the Bill of Rights."

Further evidence of the Chieftain's partiality came Friday in an absolutely ridiculous story about an "ethics complaint" filed against Sen. Giron–breathlessly reporting on the presence of Giron's capitol phone number and state email on her personal website. A brief tour of legislator's websites reveals the same "infraction" on the websites of Senators Bill Cadman, Randy Baumgardner, Kent Lambert, Scott Renfroe, Ellen Roberts, Kevin Grantham, and probably most of the rest of the GOP caucus, but that doesn't stop the Chieftain's Anthony Mestas from letting Pueblo County GOP chair Becky Mizel prattle on unchallenged about how "disgusted" she is. If you understand the facts, which likely most readers of the Chieftain do not, the story was simply laughable–but the headline arguably was the whole purpose.

Today, the Chieftain's editorial board weighed in with a strongly and unabashedly pro-recall message to its readers. To be clear, the editorial board is the right place for opinions, as opposed to news coverage. But there's another, much more basic problem with today's editorial:

The immediate cause of those who signed the petitions was Sen. Giron’s support of a package of gun control statutes which caused many gun owners to seek a redress of their grievances. We agree with most of the opposition to those statutes and we stated that stance when the Legislature was debating the bills…

We urge voters living in Senate District 3, which includes all of the city of Pueblo, Pueblo West, Beulah, Colorado City and Rye, [Pols emphasis] to study the issues — and not all are gun-related — beginning now, because mail ballots will be sent out by Mr. Ortiz’s office on Aug. 19. Please become informed.

We'll do our part by "informing" the Chieftain that fully three out of the five cities they mentioned in the above editorial are not located in Senate District 3. Senate District 3 includes the urban area of Pueblo and Pueblo West. Beulah, Rye, and Colorado City are in fact part of Larry Crowder's Senate District 35. We have no doubt that the pro-recall Chieftain would like for those redder locales to take part in this recall, but they can't. In a special election already fraught with misinformation, piling on with more really does no one any favors.

Above all: if you're going to proudly go in the tank, make sure you have basic facts straight.

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