Carolyn Cathey delivers a letter from 43,250 Kossacks to KRDO-TV. Photo by ProgressNow Colorado.
With the Colorado state Senate recalls slated for Tuesday, there’s a reason why the NRA could prevail and extend their
wave of fear to state legislators nationwide: the local media. But the Daily Kos activism team, along with our friends at
ProgressNow Colorado, are fighting back and today, we delivered 43,250 signatures to KRDO Channel 13, the ABC TV affiliate in Colorado Springs.
State Sen. Angela Giron’s hometown paper, the Pueblo Chieftain, has been gunning for her recall before she even voted to pass basic gun safety legislation. The general manager threatened her in an e-mail just prior to the vote, three top staffers at the paper signed her recall petition and their "news" coverage has been chock-full of hit pieces on Giron. As kos described it, "Imagine having to deal with your own personal Fox News in your state Senate district."
Now, we can't change the Pueblo Chieftain (whose owners are staunch Republicans), but we can do something about their supposed neutral partner—KRDO Channel 13, the ABC affiliate in Colorado Springs. With all the media consolidation, more TV stations rely on local newspapers for political news—and KRDO has such an arrangement with the Pueblo Chieftain.
Follow beneath the fold to find out how we put pressure on the Chieftain through this arrangement.
What this means in practice is that when the Chieftain hypes up an ethics complaint about state Sen. Angela Giron—a claim that government watchdog groups call "extremely thin"—Channel 13 will parrot its claims on the evening news. As KRDO's August 2 nightly news broadcast noted, "NewsChannel 13's Joe Dominguez is tracking [the ethics charge] live from the Pueblo Chieftain newsroom."
This would be like CNN broadcasting every crackpot, right-wing conspiracy from the Drudge Report.... live! It is unacceptable that a serious TV news station would have such a partnership. So last week, we put up this petition—and 43,250 people (including 2,300 Colorado residents) signed it—asking KRDO to dump its affiliation with the Pueblo Chieftain.
Today, the Daily Kos activism team joined with our friends at ProgressNow Colorado to deliver the 43,250 signatures to KRDO Channel 13, the ABC TV affiliate in Colorado Springs with a simple message: stop relying on the pro-NRAPueblo Chieftain for your coverage of Tuesday’s recall elections.
"Voters in Southern Colorado deserve better than blatantly misleading and biased news coverage," said ProgressNow Colorado executive director Amy Runyon-Harms. "If they can't get it from the Pueblo Chieftain, they should at least be able to trust an ABC News television station. KRDO needs to cut ties with the Chieftain for the sake of their own credibility."
"As a resident of Southern Colorado during these wasteful recall elections, I believe it's more important than ever that the truth gets out to voters under siege by campaign mailers and deceptive television ads," said Carolyn Cathey, a ProgressNow Colorado member and volunteer who delivered the petition to KRDO's office today. "The revelations about the Pueblo Chieftain's bias are deeply concerning to all of us who rely on our local media for the information we need. KRDO needs to do the right thing and sever ties with the Chieftain."
Meanwhile, the recall election is on Tuesday—and with turnout expected to be anemic, it will go down to the wire. Our Daily Kos community has raised over $300,000 to protect Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo and Sen. John Morse of Colorado Springs, nearly matching the NRA’s $350,000. Chip in $3 for these final crucial days to fight back against the NRA recall.