Stay Classy, Pueblo Chieftain

UPDATE: For what it's worth, the Denver Post's Lynn Bartels:

Former Sens. Ken Gordon, Joyce Foster, both Jewish, say Bloomberg ad wasn't anti-Semitic. #copolitics http://t.co/rgr11V3rzY

— Lynn Bartels (@lynn_bartels) September 9, 2013

—–

Media Matters:

A Colorado newspaper has repeatedly run an anti-Semitic ad depicting New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is Jewish, as a puppet-master who controls a state senator the ad's sponsor is seeking to recall from office for supporting stronger gun laws.

The September 8 and 9 editions of the Pueblo Chieftain featured the half-page advertisement. The group responsible for the ad, Pueblo Freedom and Rights, is credited with starting the campaign to recall the ad's target, State Sen. Angela Giron, over her support for legislation that expanded background checks on gun purchases and imposed a 15-round limit on firearm magazine size. Early voting is underway with the election concluding on September 10.

The depiction of a Jewish leader as a puppet-master is widely acknowledged as anti-Semitic imagery because of its relation to conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the political process or global economy. [Pols emphasis]

To wit:

Evidently, nobody screening ads at the Pueblo Chieftain knows history. At least that's the charitable explanation.

View the original article here

Pueblo Chieftain managing editor falsely writes that recall candidate’s abortion views are “irrelevant”

(Seriously? Is this a joke? – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

You want a columnist to have an opinion but only if the facts supporting it are actual factual facts.

Pueblo Chieftain Managing Editor Steve Henson got the opinion part of the columnist's job right on Sunday, but he dropped the ball when it came to the facts.

In his column, Henson asked if it should matter to Pueblo voters that Republican George Rivera, who's running to replace Democrat Angela Giron in a recall election, opposes all abortion, even after rape or incest.

In explaining why abortion shouldn't matter, Henson wrote:

First and foremost, the entire issue of where a candidate stands on abortion is irrelevant. The courts have controlled this issue for more than 40 years and that’s where the debate will end up in the future. Plus, no one state-elected official will have any control over what is a national issue.

Anyone who follows abortion issues knows that it's actually factually false to say that no state lawmaker has any influence on abortion issues.

States across the country have passed a volume of laws restricting a women's right to obtain an abortion. I mean, did Henson miss the drama in Texas just last month? The Guttmacher Institute has a handy dandy chart that Hansen might want to take a look at, summarizing the 9 categories of laws passed in each state. 

One category, for example, is "state-mandated counseling." The Guttmacher Institute chart states:

17 states mandate that women be given counseling before an abortion that includes information on at least one of the following: the purported link between abortion and breast cancer (5 states), the ability of a fetus to feel pain (12 states) or long-term mental health consequences for the woman (8 states).

Waiting periods in nine states effectively require women to make two trips to a clinic prior to having an abortion. Some states mandate abortions to be performed by a licensed doctor at a hospital; states prohibit abortion at various stages; state laws restrict public funding and private insurance coverage of abortion; and states require different types of parental notification.

Whatever you think of these state laws, you'd have to agree that abortion is not irrelevant to voters anywhere, even in the far corners of Pueblo. (It's relevant at the federal level, too.)

A phone message to Henson at the Chieftain was not immediately returned.

You can see on the Guttmacher chart that Colorado is less restrictive than many states when it comes to abortion laws, and the state Leg is controlled by pro-choice Democrats.

Still, the makeup of CO state government could easily change. So stuff like the five bills introduced during the last legislative session (HB-1032, 1033, 1131 and SB-55, 56), which would have restricted access to abortion services or banned all abortion, could become law in Colorado–as well as other restrictions passed in other states. (See Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado's legislative scorecared for more on this.)

Henson concluded his Sunday column with a pledge that the Chieftain would be cover the recall election fairly:

For our part, we are working very hard to present our coverage of this recall issue in a fair, balanced fashion.

I predict that will become much more difficult in the days ahead, but we want you to know that every story we do will be done with fairness to all candidates and all sides of the issues foremost in our planning, our writing and our published reports.

Henson could put substance behind this airy promise by explaining in a future column why abortion issues are, in fact, relevant to state lawmakers.

And why it matters that recall candidate Rivera is opposed to giving a girl, raped by her father, the option of having an abortion.

View the original article here

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.

View the original article here