New journalism: partisan but professional

My headline ought to get some of my journalistic colleagues' juices flowing, but according to a writer in The Atlantic's January/February issue, American journalists are going to have to make some accommodation with the concept.

In fact, I'm making an accommodation to the notion with this ongoing blog. I'm writing about small business and politics from a very liberal perspective. And I hope to attract advertisers to my readership.

Paul Starr, a professor at Princeton, wrote the Atlantic piece. In "Governing in the Age of Fox News," Starr states toward the end: "Although most American journalists assume that professionalism and partisanship are inherently incompatible, that is not necessarily so. Partisan media can, and in some countries do, observe professional standards in their presentation of the news."

I have always questioned the journalistic principle of so-called "objectivity" in news coverage because I know as a writer the way you put words to paper (or on a screen) is inherently subjective. What nouns you use, what adjectives are colored by the writer's choice of words.

There's no escaping the tinge except by the samurai editor's butchering sword.

Unfortunately, quality of writing often slides away with the fat of a trim; occassionally, however, the cuts can actually make the writing better.

I take my journalistic principles and professionalism to the writing of this blog. I mean for my profiles of small businesses to carry the good and the bad about a firm, although my advocacy for small business will emphasize the good over the bad in most cases. And I will always give a business owner the benefit of the doubt.

I will not, however, give business as a community a pass when it comes to the harsher side of issues. Colorado's current debate over the elimination of tax exemptions for business is an example.

The tax exemptions should be removed in an attempt to balance two state budgets (fiscal 2010 and 2011) despite any damage to the state's reputation as "business friendly." A "people friendly" business community will recognize it must contribute to fiscal austerity that requires Colorado to reduce services to all its citizens.

At the same time, legislators should not forget that business owners are citizens, too, and already share as much as anyone else in the general pain.

Tax exemptions can be restored as well as removed.

If the state would correct its budgeting problems, if it can regain some economic steam, and refuel its revenue streams, exemptions and incentives can be given back as easily as they can be taken away.

Business and the business lobby knows that. They should begin working for the common good rather than their own self-interest.

Ritter campaigns on too many fronts

Gov. Bill Ritter campaigned all over the Denver Post on Thursday, from a piece he and Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien planted on the op-ed page defending their proposed cuts to public school funding, to a news story at the top of the Denver & The West cover reporting Ritter backed down from taking drunk-driving crackdown funds away from local police departments.

Campaigns were waged against the governor, too. His name was mentioned on the front page of the newspaper as the villain of budget cutbacks to state-funded health clinics, and on page 4B for being the architect of the $260 million batch of cuts overall in order to backfill a $320 million shortfall of revenues in the current fiscal year.

He was praised by the Post's editorial page for both regulating (read: limiting) and promoting the natural-gas industry in the state, and in Susan Greene's column he was the wizard behind the curtain drawn over tragic cost cutting at the state's Fort Logan mental health facility.

One thing you have to say about the governor in all those situations is that he has chosen to govern the people of his state, making tough decisions required of him by state law.

The move to restore funds to pay for drunk-driving arrests was something you might have expected from a former prosecutor once people complained that it would leave more drunks on the road and more victims of drunks in hospitals.

But the Ritter also has stayed firm on cuts that go against his law-and-order grain by releasing some convicts early in order to save prison money, and allowing other convicts shortened parole supervision, also to reduce state spending.

The general impression of Ritter I got after writing a piece in the current ColoradoBiz magazine was that he is doing his job. The report focused on the governor's political prospects for keeping votes in the Colorado business community during his 2010 re-election campaign, specifically by promoting the growth of clean/green industry in the state.

When I briefly interviewed Ritter for the article last July, I asked him if he was already campaigning for re-election given harsh reactions to some of his decisions among his natural supporters. He unabashedly responded that he has been campaigning for re-election ever since his inauguration.

That's the nature of politics today. Campaigns are always on, 24-7.

It's also the nature of being a governor in a state that is divided somewhat evenly between liberal and conservative voters, although large margins of those voting concentrations hone to the moderate center of their groups rather than the outer fringes.

Ritter campaigned as a somewhat undefined moderate and won the day in 2006, but the intervening three years have been hard on his continued efforts not to be pinned down.

He doesn't seem to be brave enough to decide against conservative factions in the state, and yet not liberal enough to provoke them and take his chances. Under that cover, he can claim to be serving the largest number of Colorado citizens, and he's basically right.

But serving a crowd often creates new enemies.

Voters will be making hard decisions for and against him in polling places across Colorado come November 2010. And while pissing off both sides of an argument might be appreciated in a news reporter, it usually doesn't work for an elected official.

Joe Blake steps up to statewide impact

And yet another!

... Republican-inspired headline I can be happy about, I mean.

... Following on my last post, about Bruce Benson's budget cuts for the University of Colorado.

This new headline, again from The Post, which is the only major newspaper in town anymore, was about Joe Blake, president of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, taking the post of chancellor of Colorado State University.

Congratulations, Joe.

That's two Republican Denver businessmen now holding the reins of two of the state's leading public universities. Who's next?

Colorado School of Mines is the only major public institution left to be led. Stan Kroenke? He holds his politics pretty close to the vest, but Wal-Mart execs are generally Republican, at least they run their stores that way, and Kroenke is married to a Walton.

Or how about Don Elliman, a former Kroenke exec who now is director of Gov. Bill Ritter's Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Elliman is part of a Democratic administration and has contributed to both Mark Udall's and Ken Salazar's U.S. Senate campaigns; but he has also worked for Kroenke, has been a big-time magazine publisher (who mostly are Republican), and has contributed to Pete Coors' failed Senate campaign as well.

Either Kroenke or Elliman, although not engineers, could easily be good candidates for running the School of Mines like a business. Of course, there are probably any number of Republican engineers who would be just as qualified, if not more so.

Anyway, it's good to know Joe Blake is moving up to a position with more of a statewide impact. His good cheer and business smarts will be well applied to running a university.

Colorado's institutions of public higher education have to be a priority of state government now.

The economics of the higher-ed industry -- and don't mistake me, everything has been turned into an industry in America these days, from poetry to education to sport -- are working against the best interests of all Coloradans right now, and must be corrected for the greater good.

Joe Blake is a great candidate for helping to make things right. I wish him the best of luck.

Save higher ed now, even if it is a Republican idea

Finally, a Republican-inspired headline in Colorado I can like! "CU slashes jobs, salaries," The Denver Post screamed Saturday.

The headline was inspired by University of Colorado President Bruce Benson, a Republican. Benson, anticipating like a good businessman should the funding shortfalls CU will face if the state's financial problems with higher education continue, announced budget cuts that will be inevitable once federal stimulus dollars finally get used up.

It's no shame to anticipate the worst of times when a business budgets for its future; and even though public education is a liberal and Democratic cause, the value of having a loyal opposition can be seen in Benson's businesslike attention to CU's money problems.

Now, if Benson holds true to Gov. Bill Ritter's predecessor's philosophy as governor, and maintains as low a tuition for in-state CU students as possible, Benson will have performed well in the footsteps of Bill Owens; and Colorado will be glad to thank both of them for their foresight.

This, perhaps, is the first time I can adequately explain my vote to endorse Bob Beauprez for governor over Bill Ritter way back when I was editor of ColoradoBiz magazine.

I thought then, and still think now, that Beauprez then was more qualified to be governor than Ritter, although I have to admit Gov. Ritter has done as good a job as anyone has a right to expect from a rather unexciting politician since his election.

Benson's budget cuts prove, as Beauprez did back during the 2006 race for chief executive of Colorado, that Republican-inspired frugality can be a good thing, even if Republican anti-tax philosophy is misguided -- no, ... make that insane.

Ritter signed a $17.9 billion budget bill on Friday, and, during the legislative session, did a good job negotiating toward a reasonable way to finance state government during the 2009-2010 fiscal year. "Just as families and businesses all across Colorado are doing, we made some very tough choices," Ritter was quoted by The Post as saying when he signed the legislation.

Making hard decisions is what Benson is doing as well. His actions may have some political side effects and overtones, but they also represent effective leadership in the face of dire circumstances, circumstances Ritter had promised business he would fix during his term.

Colorado higher education deserves a permanent fix of its money problems. So do Colorado college students.

"There's always next year" is no longer a face-saving slogan that can be used by the Denver Broncos or the Denver Nuggets. It seems it will always remain words to be invoked by a state lawmaker.

With the signing of the budget bill, however, next year is already here.

And once again voters may take to the polls to fix public higher education's problems in Colorado before elected officials gather up the gumption to do it themselves.

At least Bruce Benson is looking ahead.

As The Post put it: Benson couldn't "wait and hope everything will turn out OK."

Colorado's elected officials ought to follow his example.

Roar of the crowd saves Pinnacol money

Gov. Bill Ritter must have been listening to the crowd of anti-tax demonstrators outside his window when he pulled his administration away from taking the $500 million of Pinnacol Assurance surplus assets on the negotiating table for the state budget.

Ritter made clear that he doesn't want the state's institutions of higher education to suffer $300 million in cuts proposed by the Joint Budget Committee, but he ducked under the desk, as it were, when it came to taking the money from an employer favorite, Pinnacol.

It will be interesting to see if the governor will sign a bill that remains that would make clear Colorado state government controls Pinnacol surplus money, if indeed that law is passed by the legislature.

But in the meantime there are those anti-tax folks who were outside his window.

Democrats, progressives and liberals ought to take note of the crowd, which was estimated at more than 5,000 outside the Capitol. The Denver Post, the only major newspaper in town anymore, said the anti-tax "tea party" was one of a dozen held throughout Colorado and 750 reportedly held throughout the country. That kind of turnout cannot be ignored by incumbent politicians, even if their incumbency is as "young" as the Obama administration's.

What the rallies showed is conservatives -- from the now less-influential Christian right and Moral Majority, to the blathering talk show hosts who can still whip up a frenzy -- still hold power over some people, and the millions of voters who cast ballots for John McCain didn't lose their voices or their ability to make placards with Obama's election.

It was fun to read the Post's quote of demonstrator Bertha Holland from the rally. "It's pretty sad that I've lived 65 years and never had a reason before to protest something," Holland told the Post. But what is sad is that Holland never had the guts during 65 years of life to oppose her government on an issue before Wednesday.

Ritter is right to heed the demonstrators, and put the budget-balancing act on the backs of doctors and other less powerful special interests, like state employees, who are going to lose money in the budget deal no matter how it falls. He'd be wrong if he raises fees paid by the general public to the point they create their own opposition to his politics.

But balance is a critical skill for a politician.

Balancing on a razor's edge is dangerous, but always entertaining folly.

Give and take, Part II

It's no surprise, nor improper, for Colorado Attorney General John Suthers to order up an opinion on the legislative plan to balance the state budget with surplus assets of Pinnacol Assurance. It is inaccurate to call the opinion a ruling, however, as The Denver Post did in its Saturday morning editions.

The opinion is just politics; how one plays the game. And, yes, Republican AG Suthers is trying to influence the Democratic majorities in both houses of the General Assembly.

If Suthers can keep the Democrats from passing a law to take $500 million in employer-paid workers' comp insurance premiums from Pinnacol, the AG's office won't be forced to defend the law when some taxpaying or insurance-premium-paying Republican businessman or woman challenges it in court.

As The Post pointed out in its coverage, which started on its front page, the challenge to the Pinnacol law before it is even enacted echoes Suthers' challenge of a Ritter administration policy last year that allowed the state to collect more tax money from school property taxes. That law passed despite a negative Suthers opinion of it; it was challenged and upheld by the state Supreme Court; and the tax money that was collected helped fund Colorado schools.

The same result probably would be repeated in the Pinnacol situation.

Pinnacol is a quasi-government entity created by the state to offer employers low-cost workers' comp insurance and it has done such a good job of that it has built up a surplus of assets -- some might call the money surplus business taxes -- that serve to overprotect Pinnacol's ability to pay claims as well as serve as equity to support Pinnacol's ability to offer the low rates it charges private businesses.

Pro-business people naturally suggest the money should be kept by Pinnacol to enable it to continue the business tax breaks they get via the low insurance premiums.

Democrats who argue the money belongs to the state are essentially suggesting it be used for the common good of all Coloradans, not just to enhance the state's business environment.

Still, Suthers' opinion has weight and ought to be considered.

Democratic lawmakers, however, need not treat it like a ruling, and probably ought to do the same thing with it they did with the property-tax law: Pass it; get the governor to sign it, let the law be challenged, and then collect the money after the Colorado Supreme Court rules it's okay. Pinnacol might even have more of a surplus by the time that all happens, and new funds could help cushion the pre-set hit.

It may be that the Supreme Court could throw its own opinion into the legislative debate and save a lot of people a lot of wasted time.

But the Court's decisions can be just as political as the AG's, and, in politics, timing is everything.