Face The State Staff Opinion
It’s been less than a month since the Rocky Mountain News folded, and Denver's remaining major daily already has us yearning for some competitive quality control. With its former rival gone, The Denver Post is taking strides to attract Rocky readers, but not to temper its newsroom's big-government proclivities.
Yesterday, Post reporter Tim Hoover began his report about the Colorado Supreme Court’s controversial ruling over a property tax increase with the following: “Avoiding further chaos for an already-strapped state budget, the Colorado Supreme Court today ruled that a 2007 law that allowed local property taxes to grow did not violate the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.”
The now green-lighted revenue from the property tax increase may help to stabilize the budget in the short term, but requiring a vote for tax increases isn't "chaos." It's the law. Such logic assumes the deciding factor for the Court was to help avert a politically unsavory outcome, rather than to correctly interpret the state constitution. Denver District Judge Christina Habas properly recognized this important distinction in her ruling finding the tax increase to be unconstitutional: "However well-intentioned and commendable the purpose and consequences of [the School Finance Act], this Court must be concerned only with enforcement of the Colorado Constitution," she wrote.
Hoover’s word choice and alarmist tone clearly convey that he thinks the court’s ruling was a good thing, at least as far as the state budget is concerned. And that’s fine. He’s entitled to his opinion, but the lead paragraph to a breaking news story is not the place to share it. There is no shortage of fiscal liberals who would have been happy to provide Hoover a quote about the "chaos" allegedly averted by the Court's decision, but such an unattributed assertion doesn't belong in the lede.
It is also unsettling that an editor did not catch this bias and change the lead paragraph. How many sets of eyes reviewed this article before publishing? Did the wording change throughout the editing process?
Denver Post editors have written about their increased duty to readers as the sole remaining major Denver daily. Yesterday's coverage fell short of this high bar.
Thanks to the Internet, readers do have an alternative in political news, just not in newsprint. Click here to read Face The State's coverage of yesterday's ruling in the case.