By COREY HUTCHINS

Of Colorado College and Columbia Journalism Review

“We’re very much like the Chalkbeat of energy.”

That was the message publisher Mark Roberts had for a crowd of supporters at the Denver Athletic Club Tuesday about his new journalism venture Empowering Colorado.

Roberts, who has a background in journalism and PR, was talking about the successful national nonprofit with a newsroom in Denver that deeply covers education from all sides without a stated agenda. While Chalkbeat does that for education, and Kaiser Health News reports on healthcare here, there isn’t a journalistic news outlet dedicated solely to Colorado’s energy and energy-environment space. Empowering Colorado wants to become that.

In February, I reported on this burgeoning org’s efforts to raise money with hopes to launch sometime within the year. Nine months later the outfit, with a board of directors and a staff of about half a dozen, held a celebration with former Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter as a featured backer.

But this wasn’t a real here-we-are-now-cranking-out-coverage launch; it was more of a soft one. They’re still developing a detailed strategic plan and budget to present to the board in January, before they start robust reporting. They’re still raising money and developing partnerships and a proof of concept. “It’s a chicken and egg kind of thing,” Roberts told me.

The site, however, is no longer behind a splash page, has a newsletter, and has produced some recent stories, mainly about research at Colorado State University, penned by Roberts. CSU researchers “developing solutions to drilling-induced methane emissions,” for instance, or researchers “developing new methods to derive energy from algae,” and researchers “working to bring energy to regions of Sub-Saharan Africa.” Roberts says Empowering Colorado developed the stories with the Colorado Energy Research Collaboratory, which coordinates research among the Colorado School of Mines, the University of Colorado, CSU and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The outlet is building a relationship with that entity and is looking to potentially build relationships with others. It’s still in the building stage, in other words.

“We have to produce content that exhibits our ability to be able to serve in this space and do journalism,” Roberts said, adding that he hopes to do big stories with impact, not quick-churn items.

How to raise enough money for an enterprise like this could be tricky. Health News Colorado folded in 2016 when it learned funders might have wanted it to choose a side in contentious debates. “If we are to build trust in the journalism product we produce, we need to be straightforward and honest about how the journalism is funded,” Roberts said. (The ways in which nonprofit news outlets here disclose donors varies some: Aspen Journalism, for instance, lists donors by name, the date a donation comes in, and the amount; The Colorado Independent lists names but not amounts; Chalkbeat lists names of donors who gave $1,000 or more in the last two years.)

“We don’t want, nor can we take, realistically, money from, say, an Xcel or an Anadarko,” Roberts told me about the fundraising front. “It’s possible that we would engage them on, say, an event that is centered around a specific topic. But in terms of having them funding the journalism, there’s no way that they could do that.”

One such event was the one on Tuesday at the Athletic Club where former Gov. Ritter talked about his views on energy and the environment. Empowering Colorado plans to hold around 10 events in 2020 and has tiered sponsorship levels for entities featured at them. Crestone Peak Resources, “a top producer of oil and natural gas in the Denver-Julesburg Basin,” was a $2,000 sponsor for Tuesday’s event.

Empowering Colorado is seeking to emerge in this space as Colorado Public Radio ramps up its climate coverage, receiving a $1.2 million grant this spring to create a team for “fact-based reporting on the impact, solutions and political aspects of climate change.”

If there’s a state to see whether a new-media approach like this is sustainable and how, it might as well be Colorado. I wonder whether Empowering Colorado ends up looking more like Chalkbeat or like, say, Marijuana Business Daily, which is a journalistic entity that’s also kind of part of the cannabis industry in the way it hosts events.

For his part, Roberts says, “You couldn’t pick two more polarizing topics than journalism and energy. We know that.”

Colorado Trust to Pay Up to $100k for Media Landscape Survey

The Colorado Trust, a foundation dedicated to “advancing the health and well-being of all Coloradans,” is looking to spend up to $100,000 for “a consultant or consultants with demonstrable experience in conducting media landscape studies” to conduct one for them. The scope of the project is broader than these bullet points, but here are a few aspects that jumped out at me:

• “The research will include a look at local accountability journalism, and which media outlets are or have the potential of revealing and highlighting inequities, or holding public officials and/or corporate entities accountable to the people they serve”
• “Examine representation within media outlets of reporters, editors, leaders and other staff and contributors who reflect their communities’ diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, language, ability, gender and sexual orientation”
• “Provide The Trust with recommendations on one or more approaches to funding journalism that highlights the systemic factors driving inequities, connects to societal narratives, builds support for solutions, and centers the concerns of residents, organizations and the communities they serve”
• “Be inclusive of non-traditional sources of local news, information, storytelling and analysis, which may include college journalism programs, newsletters and email listservs, library or museum news, storytelling initiatives, etc.”

Why would the Colorado Trust be interested in an X-ray of Colorado’s media landscape? From the call for Request for Proposals:

The Trust believes the stories we tell ourselves and each other about why inequities exist are deeply embedded in historical and current context and lived experience. Societal stories, or narratives, are rooted in shared values and common themes that influence how people process information and make decisions. Journalism is one way that narratives are formed and maintained.

In Colorado, local news plays an important role in ensuring that people have the information they need to participate in decision-making in their communities. When people and organizations have good information about their communities, both are better equipped to advocate for policies that reflect their concerns and address their needs.

High-quality journalism can reveal new information; make crucial connections between what people are experiencing and the policies and practices that are driving these experiences; and help hold government officials and corporate entities accountable to the public. Strong, responsible reporting on local government agencies, public office holders, businesses and other powerful entities can inform communities and the organizations with whom they work. We also believe that high-quality local reporting can lead to policies that better serve all Coloradans.

The Trust says it wants a media study here “to help us understand the current reach and scope of local coverage; the role of journalism in creating, changing and/or maintaining narratives; and possibilities for enhanced and expanded coverage across the state.” The deadline for RFPs is Dec. 6.

So what would Colorado Trust be looking to do with this information? “We’re hoping to do more funding of journalism, in short,” Trust spokeswoman Kristin Jones told me. The Trust has funded journalistic efforts in the past as one-offs, like Kaiser Health News and helping Denverite cover housing and hunger. “We see journalism as really important for communities to be able to build power, especially when we’re talking about people who have been left out of decision making,” Jones said, adding, “we see journalism, obviously, as a huge role in holding powerful people accountable to the public.”

The study is a first step for the Trust to identify gaps in coverage in Colorado and to get an idea of how the Trust might help fill them. The study might inform whether they’ll fund one or multiple outlets, where, and to what extent. The budget for funding yet isn’t clear, she said. She said she would like to make as much of the study public as possible.

Denver Post Employees Still at Denver Post Building Downtown Won’t Be There Much Longer

Last month, employees with ties to Media News Group, which runs The Denver Post, were told they’d be moving out of the building and following those who worked in the newsroom to the paper’s printing plant in Adams County.

According to a memo, they’re doing so to mitigate costs, and some employees will save $2,500 in parking for the year. (Who was paying that?)

The plant might be in a polluted industrial zone, but according to a memo, it comes with this: “A pingpong table and basketball game are available in the same space with plans to add other fun arcade style games.” But maybe not a lot of windows.

[Excerpts from Hutchins’ newsletter]

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I’m Corey Hutchins, instructor of journalism at Colorado College, the Colorado-based contributor for Columbia Journalism Review’s United States Project, and a journalist for The Colorado Independent. Follow me on Twitter, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me.