News Miner 1

Notes on a bill to support local journalism, a bill on abortion, and animal care at Sea Quest.

Welcome to my first “News Miner” for Colorado Pickaxe. (Initially I called it a “Roundup,” but I figured I’d stick with the mining theme.) If you’re not subscribed (signed up via email for the articles), I hope you’ll hit the button. I plan to keep articles free to read. Paid subscriptions also are very welcome! I’ll limit comments on articles to paid subscribers.

Basically, I plan to comment on the news and views of the times, interjecting original research as appropriate. Let’s get to it.

Tax Assist for News Publishers

Coloradans are fortunate to have Corey Hutchins tracking and reviewing Colorado media. In his latest newsletter, Hutchins gives an update on the bill for “Supporting Local Media” winding its way through the legislature. Basically the bill (as amended) seeks to encourage more advertising with local media by giving limited tax credits to businesses that buy the advertisements. Hutchins notes, “A new amendment would require a local news organization to qualify for an advertiser tax credit only if the majority of its newsroom employees are based in Colorado, [Democratic sponsor Lisa] Cutter said during the hearing.”

As I noted in my column on the topic for Complete Colorado, this is a strange bill for Democrats, as it will largely benefit the hedge fund that owns the Denver Post and the billionaire who owns the Gazette. But it will also, goes the thinking, benefit smaller and more-local publications, such as the Colorado Sun (for which I used to write) and its collection of local papers.

Here’s the line in Hutchins’s review that caught my eye: Cutter said, “We’ve put a lot of thought into crafting this so that it supports true local journalism.” My main problem with the bill is that it puts legislators in the position of determining what is and what is not “true” (or “true local”) journalism. Do we really want to go down that road? By the standards of Cutter’s bill, Colorado Pickaxe is not “true local journalism.” But I figure no true journalist wants to be patted on the head by a politician like some court supplicant.

Even if we presume here that Cutter meant merely “genuinely local journalism” rather than “true journalism that is local,” she clearly does wish to weed out publications based on perceived quality. That is the point of various exclusions in the bill. That is why, for example, Rep. Kerry Tipper said (quotes Hutchins) that she wants to include only publications that are “actually news outlets,” as opposed to publications with “highly problematic” contents. So, yes, we are talking about legislators trying to decide, if only by proxy, which publications are legitimate and which are not, which get special government treatment and which do not.

Cutter also raises the thorny issue of point-of-view journalism. The context is that the bill excludes publications by 501(C)(6) groups. Here’s the legal definition:

Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code provides for the exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.

What’s the rationale for the exclusion? Hutchins quotes Cutter (ellipses omitted):

So, if you’re a chamber, you have a point of view, right? And a really credible journalistic outlet does not take a point of view. They may have an editorial page where they have a perspective, but their business is to present news in a factual way. And if you’re an organization that has an interest like that then that would create bias, so I imagine that that’s what’s behind that.

It is possible that a publication by a business league or the like might have an agenda of promoting the businesses behind the publication. It is also possible that it might not. After all, Cutter is not worried about excluding the publications associated with Philip Anschutz, even though Anschutz has very obvious business interests (not to mention an ideological agenda). Moreover, various publications very obviously do have an agenda. I love Colorado Newsline. But anyone who claims that publication does not have a hard left political agenda is delusional. So, again, Cutter’s bill is picking winners and losers based on largely arbitrary standards.

The broader problem is that there is no such thing as journalism without a point of view. Hutchins says that “presenting news in a factual way and having a point of view [are not] mutually exclusive,” but that’s not strong enough. Journalists might try to hide their point of view or pretend they don’t have one, but they do, necessarily. At the broadest level, if you think facts matter, you have a point of view. Of course there is a distinction between merely having a point of view and promoting a particular narrowly self-serving agenda. Cutter is right to worry about the latter. But her presumption that the legislature might favor or ideally favors only journalists who lack a point of view is just wrong.

There also is a distinction between a news story that presents the relevant facts fairly and a news story that cherry-picks or distorts facts to favor the writer’s narrow political agenda. But Cutter’s bill does not, cannot, and should not address the problem of media bias. (Note: A bias is not the same thing as a point of view.)

I don’t think Cutter’s bill is a good way to help local journalists. Generally I don’t think politicians should be in the business of trying to help particular industries through political favoritism. What, then, should “we” do to help support local journalism? Publications including the Sun and Colorado Public Radio have had a lot of success with subscriptions and donations. My advice to legislators who want to help local journalists is the same as my advice to everyone else with that aim: Go subscribe or donate to the papers you like, and encourage your friends to do likewise.

What Does Colorado’s Abortion Bill Do?

Recently Colorado Democrats passed a bill to affirm women’s right to get an abortion. As far as I can tell, the bill entrenches the status quo. On Twitter, though, a much-liked Tweet claims that the bill allows “for the murder of babies outside of the womb.” Of course it doesn’t. The (amended) bill states:

A public entity shall not . . . deprive, through prosecution, punishment, or other means, an individual’s right to act or refrain from acting during the individual’s own pregnancy based on the potential, actual, or perceived impact on the pregnancy, the pregnancy’s outcomes, or on the pregnant individual’s health.

“During pregnancy” does not mean “after pregnancy.” Gee, I wonder where the ridiculous misreading of the bill came from.

If we look to the definitions, “reproductive health care” includes (among other things) “abortion care” and, as a separate category!, “prenatal, postnatal, and delivery care.”

I do think this is a potentially confusing line in the bill: “A fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent or derivative rights under the laws of this state.” I take that to mean that a fetus cannot be said to have rights against the woman carrying the fetus.

Colorado has statutes on the books against the “unlawful termination of pregnancy,” defined as “the termination of a pregnancy by any means other than birth or a medical procedure, instrument, agent, or drug, for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf, has been obtained, or for which the pregnant woman’s consent is implied by law” (18-3.5-101). I take this to protect fetuses (and the women carrying them) from criminal harm without conferring “rights” to the fetus.

It’s hard to call a bill that doesn’t change anything “extreme.” So of course that’s what leading Republicans say about it. Heidi Ganahl, the leading Republican candidate for governor, calls the bill “the most extreme abortion law in the country” and says “Colorado is not a state of extremists.” Kristi Burton Brown, chair of the state GOP, says the bill is “barbaric,” “extreme,” and “on par with China and North Korea.”

Notably, Brown is the very same person behind an effort some years ago to outlaw all abortions and all killing of embryos from the moment of conception. So, according to Colorado’s leading Republicans, a bill that doesn’t change anything is “extreme,” but an absolute ban on all abortion, from the moment of conception, even in cases of rape, and the outlawing of in-vitro fertilization that results in discarded embryos, is not extreme. Huh.

I will tease a point here that I plan to explore in much greater detail down the road. I am on record as saying that abortion should be legal at any point during pregnancy up to the point of birth. Now I think that some late-term restrictions on abortion are appropriate. I’m still thinking this through. That is a very big topic that will take me a long time to sort out and explain, so please bear with me.

Does Sea Quest Treat Animals Well?

I’m a homeschooling dad, so I end up taking my kid to a bunch of homeschool-related events. I figured I’d share my thoughts to a local homeschool Facebook group about the Denver Aquarium and Sea Quest in Littleton:

Denver Aquarium vs. Sea Quest: DA has bigger and better tanks but not by a lot. DA is ~$15/person entry (online homeschool deal), plus $8 parking, plus optional $3.50 to feed the stingrays. SQ is $8/person entry (online homeschool deal), free parking, plus optional "tokens" for special access and feedings. These tokens can add up. Basically it's a minimum of $20, which gets you either 12 feeding portions or 3 special entries (or some combo). The animals include a savannah cat and a toucan. If you're on a budget I'd say do SQ and prepare to deny your kids the "tokens." Alternately, you can just skip all that nonsense and go to the Denver Zoo, which has its own very-nice aquarium (although you can still spend extra on sting-ray feedings).

What I didn’t realize at the time is that I was inviting a very heated online discussion about animal welfare specifically at Sea Quest. In 2018, Fox31 reported that, according to Colorado Wildlife and State Agriculture documents, “SeaQuest failed both its initial inspection and the state’s follow-up inspection two weeks later.” One inspector wrote:

I failed their PACFA (Pet Animal Care Facilities Act) inspection today. They had multiple back rooms where they were keeping birds and animals that had unsealed concrete floors as well as areas where Macaws were tearing into drywall. All three Macaws were in makeshift cages that all had violations. . . . I have concerns regarding the parakeet/lorikeet/finch enclosures as they lend themselves to potentially dangerous situations for birds.

That was four years ago. I personally did not witness mistreatment of animals when I was there. One employee was very emphatic about the need to limit the number of people around the savannah cats and to give the animals time to rest. I will note that a marsupial (I think a wallaby) seemed stressed and sought escape in a cage at the edge of its (small) roaming area. I’m confident saying that this was far from the best possible life for a wallaby. Generally, I trust the Denver Zoo more than I trust Sea Quest to take excellent care of its animals (and it does have a very fine aquarium).

Behind the discussion about Sea Quest is a broader debate about animal welfare and the use of animals for entertainment. If you think animals never should be used to entertain people (even if people also are learning about them), then you’d be against Sea Quest, the aquarium, and the zoo. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, clearly takes the view that people ought not use animals for entertainment. A PETA UK page is very explicitly against zoos. So I fear that two discussion can be confused. The question, “Does Sea Quest treat its animals badly, relative to other comparable operations?” is a lot different from “Is any use of animals for human entertainment immoral?”

At any rate, I figured I’d check in with the Department of Agriculture about the most recent inspection. I emailed on March 14 and got a reply back the next day. Inspector Kathryn Kirk reported:

05/20/2021 - This was an unannounced inspection due to a complaint. A routine inspection was also done. The inspection was done with David Slater. There were no violations observed. The complaint was closed as there was no evidence of any animal suffering and not receiving the care they need.

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I was going to include several other topics in this inaugural post. But I already hit two thousand words, and I’m not the crazy youngster I once was who could stay up all night typing madly with coffee-jittering fingers. (I composed most of this on Thursday evening.) I’ll plan to put together another News Miner early next week. Colorado is a bustling place these days; I’ll do my best to keep up.