Please take a look at the paragraph below, from Dean Singleton’s introduction to a speech by President Barack Obama, and tell me if “liberal media bias” leaps out at you.

“He inherited the headwinds of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression,” said Singleton, who’s a former Chair of the MediaNews newspaper chain and of the Associated Press. “He pushed through Congress the biggest economic recovery plan in history and led a government reorganization of two of the big three auto manufacturers to save them from oblivion. He pursued domestic and foreign-policy agendas that were controversial to many, highlighted by his signature into law of the most comprehensive health care legislation in history. And the budget plans proposed by the president on the one hand, and Republicans on the other hand, aren’t even on the same planet.”

Do you see anything offensive in Singleton’s words here, delivered prior to a recent speech before hundreds of journalists in Washington.

All I see is facts.

A big recession. That’s true. Yes, he saved two of three auto companies. Yes, his agenda was controversial and distinct from the GOP agenda. And yes, his economic recovery plan was one of the biggest in U.S. history.

Everything Singleton said was factual. He wasn’t being balanced, but Mitt Romney was on deck to address the same group of journalists the next day.

Besides, are you really going to recite the leader of the free world’s failures after he’s doing you the favor of speaking to your luncheon?

That’s rude.

But conservatives saw Singleton’s introduction as evidence of the liberal bias that they find everywhere in professional journalism, from The New York Times to CBS News and beyond.

“I’m surprised Singleton wasn’t wearing an Obama button,” Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said about Singleton’s introduction. “I mean, come on. The president understands that most in the media will back him.”

Conservative Washington Times columnist Charles Hurt wrote that Singleton sang Obama “an icky love song in which he reminisced about all their hot dates and then pledged his undying love forever.” Actually, Singleton told anecdotes about Obama speaking at previous luncheons.

Not to be outdone, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh told listeners that the AP’s CEO “stood up and just lauded Obama as one of the greatest human beings ever, one of the greatest presidents ever, one of the greatest quotes ever, one of the greatest guys ever.”

Clearly, the fact that Singleton is a Republican escaped these guys, as did the fact that he does things like belch out front-page, anti-union editorials. Once, he even demanded that The Denver Post editorial board reverse its unanimous decision to endorse John Kerry, insisting that the newspaper back Singleton’s buddy George Bush.

Singleton ended his introduction of Obama by saying that these days “the only thing anyone seems willing to compromise on is….well, I can’t think of anything.”

Here’s a suggestion.

Let’s agree to acknowledge the facts.

When a journalist says something like, Obama saved two of the three big U.S. automakers and he came into office during the worst recession since the Great Depression, let’s not cry media bias.

Let’s just say, yes, those are facts, and honor them as such, so we can have an honest debate about what we truly disagree on.

A version of this post was distributed by the OtherWords syndicate.

No matter what you thought of Dusty Saunders during his 54 years at the Rocky Mountain News, it’s hard not to love him after reading his memoir, which came out late last year.
The book, Heeere’s Dusty: Life in the TV and Newspaper World, is perfectly timed to chronicle an era that already seems like ancient history, even though Saunders ended his career at the Rocky just five years ago.

Jason Salzman :: TV critic’s memoir chronicles newspaper era that seems like ancient history, but it wasn’t long ago
Using unadorned language, which you’ll recognize if you saw his work over the years, Saunders takes you through his life at the Rocky as a wide-eyed copy boy, a wide-eyed reporter and editor, and a wide-eyed TV-and-radio columnist.
One success followed another in a profession that seemed limitless and excitement-packed for a hard-working guy like Saunders. He started his own section of the Rocky.

The bulk of the 300-page book recounts his interviews with Hollywood and news celebs of all types, national and local. The name dropping runs cover-to-cover, and it’s more entertaining than you might think because Saunders himself is so excited by meeting all the people, including Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Howard Cosell, Katie Couric, Peter Jennings, Tim Russert, Mary Tyler Moore, Dustin Hoffman (in the bathroom), and many more.

On the broadcasting beat, which he was inventing as he went along, Saunders flew around the country (often with his wife), covering national entertainment stories, looking for Denver angles. (Once, he tells us, he packed his wife and two kids in a hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena.)

When Denver Post Editor Chuck Green hinted that he might want to hire Saunders, Rocky Editor Ralph Looney found out, called Saunders into his office, and handed Saunders a slip of paper with a counter-offer salary figure on it, even before Green had made his offer.

“Will that keep you?” Looney asked Saunders.

“Yes,” Saunders told him.

“I can’t even remember, frankly, what the figure was that Looney gave me,” Saunders told me. “But in that day and age, with my financial position and my professional position, it was a reason to stay at the Rocky.”

I asked if he’d have jumped ship for The Post.

“I don’t know what their offer was,” he said. “I probably would not have left, because the Rocky was treating me very well. Why would I have wanted to leave?”

See what I mean by ancient history?

Rather than facing layoffs and furloughs, like reporters nowadays, while working 24/7 in three or more platforms, Saunders dabbled in radio and a bit on TV, mostly on weekends.

From 1994 to 2001, he co-hosted a Sunday KHOW radio show with his “friendly Denver Post competitor” Joanne Ostrow.

The show was canceled when a “major” executive of Clear Channel, which owned KHOW and KOA (and still does) came through Denver and heard Saunders and Ostrow criticizing good old Mike Rosen.

I wondered what Saunders, who pulls his punches, espcially by today’s standards, could possibly say about Rosen that would be considered over the top.

So I asked Saunders what he and Ostrow were saying about Rosen that was so offensive, but he didn’t remember specifically.

“Joanne and I had a very good thing going,” he told me. “We didn’t get on the radio Sunday morning and say, ‘Gee, did you hear what Mike Rosen said about this.’”

“That’s what I’d do if I had a radio show,” I told Saunders.

“It wasn’t that type of show,” he replied. “We’d just go with the flow. If someone would call in and criticize a TV performer, we’d voice our opinion. This particular day we sided with the callers. We agreed Rosen shouldn’t have said that. A guy named Randy Michaels, who is now with the Tribune Company, was the big programming honcho out of Cincinnati for Clear Channel, and he happened to be in town. And he heard us. I guess he went ballistic. We’re paying these print guys to get on our radio stations and criticize our work.”

Shortly after this, and after Saunders and Ostrow refused to make “on-air commercial pitches, something we obviously couldn’t do,” their radio show was canceled.

Saunders’ book veers between his innocent and personal encounters with media stars, which are described, and hints of wild partying, which aren’t. I g0t the feeling Saunders could have told a lot of after-hours stories, but he side-stepped my question about this when I interviewed him.

As it is, the book as an unreal simplicity and quaint quality to it, buy that’s no doubt partly because of the contrast in the newspaper biz between then and now.

Saunders took a buyout in from Scripps and left the Rocky in 2007, two years before it closed.

“I felt at the time, this was the beginning of the end,” said Saunders, who’s 80 years old and lists his speaking engagements about his book on his website. “I didn’t have any inside information on what Scripps was going to do. I would have been more shocked had I’d still been there [when the Rocky was closed].”

“Writing the book, and even now, I still have wild dreams about my working at the Rocky,” he said.

I spend a lot of time criticizing conservative talk-radio hosts, and some people think I’m beating my head against the keyboard.

Too bad for me. Here I go again.

I can’t accept that KLZ host’s Ken Clark and Jason Worley agree with Sen. Ted Harvey when he says, on the radio, that Rep. Morgan Carroll’s bill requiring hospitals to post a list of services that they do not provide is like “putting yellow stars on the door of religious hospitals.”

Even if you disagree with her bill, proposed legislation like Carroll’s and Nazi Germany have zero in common with one another.

You may think it’s ridiculous that I even write the above paragraph, but that’s what we bloggers have been reduced to, particularly because the legacy media is mostly ignoring the Colorado GOP’s Nazi talk this year.

The Nazis killed people and Carroll’s bill informs them. Carroll’s bill would’ve helped consumers make a purchase. That’s it.

Even if you’re anti-abortion, Carroll’s bill can’t be remotely linked to genocide in any way.

So, if you’re Ken Clark and Jason Worley, how could you possibly listen to this exchange without objecting?

Sen. Kevin Grantham (at 16:30 in the podcast):  “Ken, I kind of wonder if Patrick Malone would have made the same statement, or did even ask the same question to Rep. Carrol when she was running her Senate Bill 93, wondering whether she is going to have a legacy… or she’s worried about her legacy as a bigot for what she’s doing to hospitals and to private religious hospitals.  Doesn’t that make her a bigot as well?” 

Asked to explain, Grantham said that SB 93 would require “religious hospitals to post the services they do not provide,” which would be a requirement targeted specifically at catholic hospitals. This is not correct, since it would apply to all hospitals, but Grantham maintained that the bill was targeted specifically at abortion issues and other life issues.

Later, in a discussion about how the Democrats’ strategy on civil unions will backfire, Harvey said:

Sen. Ted Harvey (at 39:32): I don’t like to repeat the negative and talk about what their talking points are.  And what my talking points are is that this is an attack on religion.  This is [an] attack on the right of conscience, and the ability of people to exercise their faith the way that they believe is best for them. And I think that the people of faith are seeing this for what it is, and it’s a direct attack on them and they are now not sitting on the couch, not sitting in the pews, and just trying to live their lives and take their kids to school, and go to work and do those kinds of things. They are truly scared of what this is we’re talking about. We’re talking about an entire party in the United States that thinks it’s okay to force people of religious faith to do something against their religion. And that’s never happened in the United States before.  You heard Kevin [Grantham] talking about Senate Bill 93 where it forced hospitals to put on their door a yellow star, for all practical purposes.  To say, ‘this is who we are, and we have to tell you who we are.’  Never in American history have we had a major political party say that that’s okay.  And that is what you are seeing right now. And people of faith across the country  are rising up and saying, ‘No, not in our country.’ SB-93 is like putting yellow stars on the door of religious hospitals.

KHOW talk-radio host Peter Boyles spent the morning saying that, despite his apology, Coffman really does believe that Obama, “in hisheart,” is “not an American.”

“The only reason he backpedals is because he got caught,” Boyles told his listeners during the 7 a.m. hour.

“Tragically, or luckily, whatever way it goes, I’ve spent almost five years listening and reading, and there’s more holes in [Obama’s] story than you can drive a truck through. What if Coffman had said, as a U.S. Congressman, we know more about the life of George Washington than we know about Barack Obama. That would have been a bombshell…

If [Coffman] had schooled himself on all the right questions, when Channel 9 came to him and said, hey, we have this recording of you, he could have said, yeah, and plus, let me add to that.”

Boyles continued:

“Coffman writes an apology letter to Channel 9. It’s weenie. Dude, you could have said, by the way, what about that social security number, how about that draft number. … [Coffman] says, ‘I misspoke.’ Come on.”

In 9News’ story yesterday about Rep. Mike Coffman’s statement that “in his heart,” Obama is “just not an American,” Political Analyst Floyd Ciruli was paraphrased as saying Coffman’s comment is a “blow to his moderate image.”

I’m tainted, I know, and possibly unable to fathom the mainstream image of Coffman, but my perception is that Coffman is pretty far to the right on the political spectrum, a far cry from a “moderate.”

So I called Ciruli to find out if, indeed, he thought Coffman had a “moderate image.”

Ciruli said the 9News’ paraphrase was accurate, but his view wasn’t based on any polling he’d seen on Coffman.

“Coffman’s major image comes from some his statewide offices, which have essentially been of the administrative type and have not led him to be known as a person of intensely right-wing views,” Ciruli told me. “He’s been the Secretary of State. He’s been the Treasurer. Those are administrative jobs that don’t lead you to have a particular image.”

Ciruli also said his view of Coffman’s image is partially based on the fact that Coffman replaced Tom Tancredo.

“And under those circumstances, you’re always a moderate,” Ciruli said, adding also that Coffman is “not really a favorite of the Republican establishment.”

I told Ciruli that I hadn’t seen any polling either, but I did notice that Coffman repeatedly called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” that he supported Colorado’s personhood amendment, that he wanted to pull the Peace Corps out of China, and that he said the flat tax has “tremendous value.” (I forgot to mention that Coffman supported Rick Perry for President and Paul Ryan for Vice President.)

“I don’t disagree with you,” Ciruli told me, adding that Coffman’s immigration views are out of the moderate range.

“They are relatively new issues,” Ciruli said. “They reflect to some extent his new environment, which is a very conservative Congress.”

“I assume [the Obama comment] was a faux pas, and he wisely apologized very quickly,” Ciruli told me, pointing out that Coffman’s mostly Arapahoe-County district is one of the most competitive in the country.

“He had not apologized when I did my interview last night at 5:30,” said Ciruli. “I specifically asked because I thought, my gosh, he should get out from under this, unless this is actually what he thinks, and he did.”

by Michael Lund

When was the last time a sitting president greeted Denver on the airwaves of a Spanish language radio station?

This was the first question that popped into my head when I saw KBNO Fernando Sergio’s Facebook post that he’d be interviewing President Obama Tuesday morning at 10 am.

Obama spoke to Colorado Hispanics … in English. And what did he say?

Campaigns, political consultants, wonks and analysts use a single word for a community that factors heavily in determining their fates in this upcoming presidential election. Whether it’s “Hispanics”, or “Latinos”, one word is used to identify an extremely diverse community, represented by entire spectrums of social, geographical, professional, cultural, socioeconomic, and generational identities. Hispanics, contrary to what our oversimplified nomenclature might suggest, are not monolithic as a cultural group. So, as an interviewer, which questions do you ask? And as a candidate, how do you connect?

Obama chose the right venue – a locally respected and established radio station, chatting with a familiar and well-known host.

Fernando Sergio’s interview followed the expected talking points, and Barak Obama responded articulately and personably, off-script and on.

Here’s a quick summary of the highlights:

The Economy:

Conservatives will not be disappointed with President Obama starting his response by blaming the previous administration for the mess he inherited, with some prompting by Mr. Sergio. But Fernando pressed Obama for specific examples of policies which improved the economy in his first term. Obama cited saving the auto industry, “doubling down on clean energy”, and creating and saving American jobs by passing the Recovery Act. He gave statistics which demonstrated successes, while reminding the audience of the hard work remaining, and warning of the lingering effects of depressed housing markets, continuing foreclosures and the looming European economic crises.

Healthcare

The President boldly promoted the Affordable Healthcare Act as a needed relief to families, which often lack health insurance despite holding multiple jobs. He highlighted the extended coverage for children (extended to 4 million more immigrant minors, and coverage up to age 26 on parents’ plans). He also cited improvement for seniors, particularly in coverage for prescription medications, and prohibiting insurance companies from excluding coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Jobs, Education, and Wall Street reform

Obama warned against returning to policies in the financial industry “where Wall Street Banks get to do whatever they please”. On jobs, Obama noted the need to get construction jobs back on line, “rebuilding our homes, rebuilding our schools”. He noted that in Colorado, we have “some great schools” in substandard buildings, because the growth of the population hasn’t been matched with new school construction. He spoke about his goal for educational opportunity and affordable college for all children.

Immigration reform and drug trade

Fernando Sergio suggested that executive order by the President could resolve the current political stalemate on immigration policy. Obama pointed to his administration’s increasing success in securing the borders and directives to ICE in targeting criminals for arrest and deportation instead of students and hard working families. But he also pointed to the lack of cooperation from Republicans to formulate comprehensive, compassionate, and permanent solutions to U.S. immigration policy, and he criticized Mitt Romney for praising Arizona’s immigration laws as a model for the country. In a lighter moment of the interview, the President commiserated with Fernando Sergio about their personal liabilities should profiling become a keystone of federal immigration reform.

Obama also called for maintaining cooperative efforts with neighboring countries to curtail organized illegal drug trade and violence while respecting their sovereignty, and curtailing the demand for drugs in the U.S. and the transportation of arms over our border.

Support for Small Businesses

President Obama noted that small business growth among Hispanics is three times faster than in the general population, and he recognized the entrepreneurial spirit of the Hispanic community. His policies would bolster financing and training programs for small business owners, increase opportunities for small businesses to bid on government contracts and focusing on minority owned businesses. He said his tax policy has allowed for 17 tax cuts which were favorable to small businesses in his first term.

Connection with the Hispanic Community

Obama distinguished himself from Romney as a candidate who cares about and believes in Latinos. He cited his appointments of Hispanics to cabinet positions in the Labor and Interior Departments, as well has his appointment of a Latino women to the Supreme Court of the United States. He summarized his stances, while reiterating his awareness of the issues which affect Hispanics most.

And of course, to make the connection with Colorado Hispanics all the more personal and real, President Obama predicted that barring injury, Peyton Manning would complement the Broncos’ lineup and bode well for a winning season.

Journalists, like Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard, speculated that House Majority Leader Amy Stephens’ primary fight against Rep. Marsha Looper might play a role in the fate of the civil unions bill.

Stephens would want to show voters in her El Paso County district that she’s the uncompromising conservative that she claims to be, versus Looper, who reportedly supports civil unions.

If this turned out to be true, you’d expect House Speaker Frank McNulty and Stephens to start bragging, especially in the Colorado Springs area, about how Stephens stepped up to the plate and batted away the civil-union proponents.

And that’s exactly what McNulty did on the Jeff Crank Show on KVOR Saturday. KVOR broadcasts from, you guessed it, Colorado Springs.

Reporters should take note of this exchange, as they explain what in the world happened to the civil unions bill today:

Crank said that he was hearing rumors that Stephens was for civil unions. But Crank complimented Stephens and McNulty for putting their political lives on the line to stop civil unions.

McNulty responded to Crank with this:

McNulty: “Well, thank you.  And it’s absolutely true that Amy Stephens was the rock that we came back to throughout the debate.  It wasn’t easy, and there were times when the pressure was great, when you have advocates for [civil unions] piling into the gallery, and you’re looking up there wondering what’s going to happen next.  And Amy is so strong in her faith, and is absolutely rock solid, and she just has a measure of calm about her in crisis and that’s one of the things that we relied on.  And our goal is to head into this Special Session.”

Listen to the audio clip here: McNulty On the Jeff Crank Show 5-12-2012.

CBS4′s Shaun Boyd should let her viewers know that Mitt Romney is misrepresenting an interview Boyd had with Romney when he was in Denver May 10.

In an interview last week, a radio host asked Romney: “I saw that you got a little testy with one reporter who wanted to talk about marijuana and same-sex marriage yesterday. Has this been a real curve ball for ya?”

Romney replied: “She asked two or three questions about same-sex marriage and civil unions and then about medical marijuana, and I finally laughed and said, You know, there are some really big issues out there, like if Iran is going to get a nuclear weapon, how to change leadership in Syria, and what it’s going to take to get this economy moving again, one after another. Why don’t you ask about those? We finally got around to that.”

Two problems here, one is that Romney never mentioned Syria in his response to Boyd.

But more importantly, Boyd asked Romney about civil unions and marijuana, and she still had over half of the five-minute interview remaining.

Romney interjected after about two-and-a-half minutes and asked Boyd why she was asking him insignificant questions, which, as Boyd pointed out, aren’t insignificant in Colorado anyway.

Listening to Romney’s recounting of his interview with Boyd, when he says Boyd “finally” got around to economic issues, you’d think Boyd used most of her time on civil unions and marijuana, when in reality, there was plenty of time left for other important issues.

I can think of a couple reasons why Mitt Romney chose to take questions from local TV reporters and KOA radio hosts yesterday, while blowing off all those “print” journalists in Denver.

The most obvious reason is that Romney thinks local TV news is watched by the swing voters he needs to win. This approach would be in line with what he did when he came to Colorado the day before the GOP caucus. Then, his target was Republican caucus goers. So Romney blew off all real-life journalists, TV and print, and took loving questions only from friendly, conservative talk-radio hosts, whose listeners were likely to be heading out to caucuses. So Romney got to talk directly to his target audience.

An alternative explanation for Romney’s local TV tour yesterday is that he was scared pesky print reporters would ask him tough questions while mayhem-and-fluff loving local TV news journalists would have one eye on the incoming rainstorm and therefore be unable and/or uninterested in asking him substantive questions.

If this was Team Romney’s thinking, they got it wrong. Denver’s local TV news didn’t suck up and ask softballs. They asked real questions about real issues in Colorado, including the most obvious question, given the drama in the State Legislature, about his view on civil unions.

CBS4 reporter Shaun Boyd introduced her piece by saying, “As you can see, Romney seemed a bit flustered by the questions viewers posted on our Facebook page, trying to steer the conversation back to topics he was comfortable with.”

I would say Romney was less flustered and more irritated with Boyd’s news judgment after she posed questions about civil unions (answer: no), college-tuition reductions for undocumented high school graduates (no), and medical marijuana (no).

Sounding like Colorado GOP chair Ryan Call who recently said birth-control issues were “small issues,” Romney told Boyd:

Romney: “Aren’t there issues of significance that you’d like to talk about?

Boyd: This is a significant issue in Colorado.

Romney: The economy. The economy. The economy. Jobs. The need to put people back to work. The challenges of Iran. We have enormous issues that we face, but you want to talk about, go ahead.”

Boyd picked up where she had left off, telling Romney matter-of-factly, “Marijuana.”

And Romney said, “I oppose the legalization of marijuana….”

Boyd, along with her counterparts at Fox 31, 9News, and 7News, all asked Romney serious questions, perhaps the kind he wasn’t expecting from local TV reporters.

I’m hoping the tough questioning continues through the election season because it’s informative and it makes interesting television, as opposed to happy-talk questions like, “Hey, how’s your dog.”

But I guess in Romney’s case, that would be considered a hardball query as well.

Mitt Romney promised to sit down with real-life reporters (yes, they’re still out there) during his visit today to Colorado, according to a report yesterday by Fox 31 political correspondent Eli Stokols, and it looks like he did, as 7News is teasing its interview for the 3 p.m. news.

Stokols, you recall, called Romney out for NOT meeting with real-life Denver reporters last time Romney came to Colorado, preferring the cozy confines of conservative talk radio. So you have to wonder whether Romney would have stayed mum, had it not been for Stokols.

Stokols’ report that Romney plans to meet with TV reporters caught the attention of Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard who tweeted, “Do Obama/Romney have stones to talk to print media? Apparently not.” (Now would be a good time for The Post to throw a public fit over Romney’s favoritism toward TV news, if he, in fact, avoids print reporters during his Colorado swing. Same with Obama, next time he comes.)

I’m looking forward to seeing the local TV interviews with Romney, but meanwhile (and maybe this will piss Hubbard off even more) Romney took questions from radio hosts at 8:30 this morning. Listen to Mitt Romney on KOA Radio May 9 2012 at 17:15.

Tubbs: “How do you handle the criticism that Mitt Romney flip flops on issues…because you’ve certainly been accused of not sticking with one message, the most recent, your comments about the auto bailout?”

Romney: “Well actually, I had the same position on the auto bailout I had from the very beginning. I actually wrote about it. So nothing has changed there. I do understand that the nature of an opposition campaign is to try and create a narrative that is harmful to the opposition. And that’s been used against me by my opponents, and frankly, it is not accurate. There is one place where I did change my view, and when I became governor, I became solidly pro-life, wrote an op-ed to the effect that I was going to be a pro-life governor, and that’s been my position ever since. By the way, that was seven or eight years ago, and I continue to have that view. I’m happy to defend the things that I believe in. And by the way, if I were going to change positions, you would have seen a very different candidate than you have. My view is I’m sticking true to the things that I believe. I hope people are willing to understand that.”

If I’m a radio host, or if I’m just about anybody at this point, I’d be thinking, “One flip flop?”

First, there’s health care reform, which Santorum, among others, pointed out. Romney was complimentary of Obama modeling national reform after Massachusett’s model, but later he was against Obamacare.

With respct to the auto industry, Romney said he wouldn’t sit back and let the auto industry die, in apparent contrast with an op-ed he wrote saying the feds shouldn’t intervene.

Then there’s the stimulus, solar energy, climate change, immigration, the tax pledge, gun issues, and more, as widely documented.

Reporters shouldn’t let Romney get away with saying he’s a one-time flipper. Even if you just look abortion, he’s a serial flipper, as his position has changed back and forth. Throw in the other stuff, and you understand the Jimmy Kimmel joke, featured in a video produced by Democrats:

“Experts are predicting kind of a tough battle between Mitt Romney and his biggest ideological opponent, Mitt Romney from four years ago. Those guys don’t agree on anything.”