This week, Gannett announced that it had won FCC approval for its purchase of KTVD-TV/Channel 20; since the company also owns KUSA-TV/Channel 9, the deal creates a television tag team known as a duopoly. The news hardly came as a surprise, given that a memo about the formal transfer of…
Galileo got crosswise with Pope Urban VIII. Robert Oppenheimer didn’t see eye-to-eye with Edward Teller. Every original thinker has a bête noire who torments and goads him. For William Gray, a lean, six-foot-five emeritus professor at Colorado State University and one of the world’s leading experts on tropical storms, the…
In the journalism racket, there’s an age-old phenomenon known as a “tip.” Someone out there in readerland calls or e-mails, “tipping” us off to an allegedly hot story. “Hey, What’s So Funny,” one of these “tips” might begin. “My brother Karl can swallow sixteen used AAA batteries in under a…
In radio jargon, “brokered” programs are shows created by folks who purchase airtime on a station or stations in order to get their messages heard. Many of them are little different from TV infomercials — they tout products or services related to wealth-generating schemes, wonder diets and the like –…
Brandon MacGillis, communications director for Congresswoman Diana DeGette, insists that his boss understood the risks when she agreed to be interviewed by Stephen Colbert for the 25th in a series of interviews with all of the United States representatives for The Colbert Report. “She knows the show and watches it,”…
Nobody wants to talk about Jennifer Marcum. Not the girls who stripped with her at Shotgun Willie’s. Not the man with whom she was living. Not the men she may have testified against. Not the father of her child. Not her incarcerated ex-boyfriend, who was the last man to see…
After seven days of deliberation in Arapahoe County — the longest trial Judge Stephen R. Ruddick’s courtroom had ever seen — Bill Stiffler was acquitted on six counts of animal cruelty on June 21. Witnesses who testified to the neglect they had seen and documented at Stiffler’s Denver-area horse rescue…
In January, it looked like the McAdam family was finally on their way to a happy ending. Denver Juvenile Court was letting parents David and Tiffany bring home their oldest son, four-year-old Martin. Once he was settled, the Denver Department of Human Services would start transitioning the couple’s six-month-old baby,…
Rock My Real World! Shake and fake: Regarding Jared Jacang Maher’s “Get Real,” in the June 22 issue: The story about the fake Real World was quite possibly the most entertaining thing I have read…ever. I absolutely loved every juicy and drunken word, not to mention the flat-out lies. I’m…
In most cities, the move of a bookstore from one part of the metro area to another would make about as much news as the average homeowner’s decision to stop mowing his lawn crosscut-style. In Denver, however, the Tattered Cover isn’t just a point of pride. It’s taken on near-landmark…
Talk about an unpleasant flashback. On the June 26 edition of MSNBC’s Live & Direct, vile hostess Rita Cosby was rasping about the unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey amid the squawking and exhortations of two (loudly) talking heads: Mike Kane, listed as a “former special prosecutor” (he was part of…
Some games, I suppose, I just wasn’t meant to enjoy. For the bulk of the past month I have been gorging on the beautiful, bountiful orgy of international football — I’m sorry, soccer — that is the World Cup. There are many Americans who may find this habit curious; to…
The page-one headline atop the Denver Post story announcing the death of onetime Boulderite Patsy Ramsey was generic in the extreme: “Slain Girl’s Mom Dies.” But despite the best efforts of Post editors, Ramsey will not slip anonymously into the grave. Her death at age 49 (she was first diagnosed…
Who knew the people of Denver were so passionate about reality TV? The response to Westword’s Real World prank has been both lovely and livid. Mere hours after the article hit the stands, the letters started coming in, with sentiments ranging from Abbe’s “brilliant, truly brilliant,” to Randy’s “yet another…
Marc Holtzman’s emotional exit from the governor’s race Thursday, after the Colorado Supreme Court declined to monkey with the established process for petitioning your way onto the ballot, was the final take on a death scene that’s been dragged out for weeks — or months, if you believe he never…
On June 22, Diane Woolwine, 65, died after being hit by a motorhome while participating in the annual Ride the Rockies bicycling tour; the accident took place outside the small community of Salida. Even though the motorhome driver wasn’t cited in the accident, the story seemed likely to get big…
In the June 22 Message column, Channel 9 sportscaster Drew Soicher revealed that he collects insulting e-mails directed at him — but due to space constraints dictated by the printed page, only a couple of excerpts were included as examples. What follow are some additional, and equally hysterical, examples of…
Waited too long at Scarlet Ranch on 6/10… Couple near the play bed/swing wearing a see-through black top and short skirt. You kept smiling at us and we were too shy to come over. We were the couple sitting on the edge of the massage table. We waited too long…
Rumors started flying after the article “Pimp” was published in last September’s issue of Skiing magazine. “A lot of gossip,” says World Cup skier Lindsey Kildow, who lives in Boulder. “I don’t remember if we figured out the deal with it.” Jon Billman’s story followed a pro big-mountain skier –…
The founding fathers and mothers of Colorado’s swingers scene meet twice a month at the Best Western Hotel at 200 West 48th Avenue. Established in 1969, the Golden Circle Social Club is considered one of the longest-running swingers clubs in the nation, and its 300 members include couples from their…
Our town, our beautiful Denver, is being hussied up in slut skirts and hair gel just so some corporate dicks can film their next season of The Real World. Our pure mountains majesty, our folksy ways, being sullied and pranced around like some martini-infused, oversexed marionette peering into the wasted…
Channel 9 sportscaster Drew Soicher is more interested in appealing to people who don’t follow sports than those who do. “The sports fans are easy,” he says. “Even if they don’t like you, they’ll watch — so why would I aggressively recruit them? But I personally think non-sports fans make…
