{"id":1550493,"date":"2022-07-12T11:35:14","date_gmt":"2022-07-12T15:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1550493"},"modified":"2022-07-12T11:35:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T15:35:19","slug":"colorado-politicians-try-to-bully-local-newspaper-into-submission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/colorado-politicians-try-to-bully-local-newspaper-into-submission\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Politicians Try To Bully Local Newspaper Into Submission"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcolorado-politicians-try-to-bully-local-newspaper-into-submission%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1550493&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/media\/\">Media<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Aspen Times publisher decries brazen use of power and influence to &#8216;control a community newspaper&#8217;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\"><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tA man grabs a stack of newspapers \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/robert-schmad\/\" title=\"Posts by Robert Schmad\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Robert Schmad<\/a> \u2022 July 12, 2022 11:20 am<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Eighteen Colorado politicians are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-times-publisher-responds-to-politicians-criticisms-demands\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">threatening<\/a> to use their power and influence to compel a small local newspaper to hire their preferred editor, to republish a column the paper pulled from its website, and to disclose the terms of a settlement the paper reached in a defamation lawsuit in June.<\/p>\n<p>Failure to acquiesce to their demands, the politicians are warning, will cause them to use power to &#8220;pull advertisements and notices from the paper,&#8221; to encourage local businesses to divest from the paper, and to refuse the paper access to local officials. The publisher of the paper, the <em>Aspen Times<\/em>, is pushing back, arguing that it is &#8220;shocking to see elected officials so brazenly threaten to use their positions of power to control a community newspaper.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The fracas comes in the wake of legal settlement between the paper and Russian-born billionaire Vladislav Doronin. Doronin sued the <em>Times<\/em> over its coverage of his purchase of a prime piece of land at the base of Aspen Mountain, which referred to him as an &#8220;oligarch&#8221; and suggested he is an ally of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n<p>The<em>\u00a0Times<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2022\/06\/03\/aspen-times-lawsuit-settlement-vladislav-doronin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">settled<\/a> the dispute with Doronin out of court, agreeing to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/new-aspen-investor-has-luxury-hotelier-connections\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">issue<\/a> a correction to its coverage of the billionaire. Many defamation cases are settled out of court, and it&#8217;s not uncommon for settlements to be kept private.<\/p>\n<p>The lawmakers, however, say the newspaper&#8217;s actions doubt over its &#8220;ability to freely achieve the high journalistic standards which you purportedly profess and which our community has come to expect of this local institution.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We would like to see clear action,&#8221; the lawmakers wrote in a June letter, including the &#8220;reinstatement of Andrew Travers as the editor in chief; republication of [Roger] Marolt&#8217;s June 10 column \u2026 and public clarity about the settlement that was reached in Doronin&#8217;s lawsuit.&#8221; The signatories also accused the paper of censoring stories about\u00a0Doronin&#8217;s real estate acquisitions, which have been covered by other papers,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspendailynews.com\/news\/vladislav-doronin-opens-up-about-recent-gorsuch-haus-purchase\/article_4f0e1818-b0a1-11ec-bcbe-0ba0d16cd149.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">including<\/a> the <em>Aspen Daily News<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The situation in Aspen is rare in the United States, where politicians generally avoid making explicit demands about the staffing and editorial decisions of media organizations. Polling has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medill.northwestern.edu\/news\/2020\/survey-reveals-that-americans-overwhelmingly-support-freedom-of-the-press.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shown<\/a> that Americans overwhelmingly support press freedom, despite their distrust of the media.<\/p>\n<p>Of the people who signed the letter, at least 12 are Democrats, 3 are Republicans, and 3 appear to be unaffiliated.<\/p>\n<p>Allison Pattillo, the publisher of the<em>\u00a0Times<\/em>, rebuked attempts from government officials to control the press in the name of preserving freedom. &#8220;This chilling precedent is certainly not representative of our democracy nor the Aspen Idea our community touts,&#8221; she wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The letter&#8217;s signatories include some ambitious Colorado politicians. Adam Frisch, a former Aspen city councilman, secured the Democratic nomination to run against Rep. Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.) in the 2022 midterm elections. &#8220;Protecting our Democracy&#8221; is one of the top priorities listed on Frisch&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adamforcolorado.com\/issues\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">campaign website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats in recent years have condemned Republicans for allegedly eroding freedom of the press. The American Civil Liberties Union\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/blog\/free-speech\/freedom-press\/donald-trump-thinks-freedom-press-disgusting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">painted<\/a> former president Donald Trump as the enemy of the free press. Several left-leaning publications\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2020\/12\/07\/the-cost-of-trumps-assault-on-the-press-and-the-truth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>\u00a0Trump was engaging in a prolonged assault on press freedom.<\/p>\n<p>The letter&#8217;s signatories did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Media Aspen Times publisher decries brazen use of power and influence to &#8216;control a community newspaper&#8217;  A man grabs a stack of newspapers \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":894,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1550493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1550493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1550493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1550493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1550493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}