Decrying ‘photocopy journalism’, news watchdog spotlights Denver TV station merger

The sprawling greater-Denver metro region is in news-media crisis. In the information age, when there seems to be more and more to know, there is less and less being reported by the diminishing number of local mainstream news outlets here. So it comes as little surprise that media watchdog organization FreePress this week is highlighting the Denver news market as a negative example for the nation. The organization reports that, on top of shrinking newspaper reporting, the local TV news market is host to a “severe” form of the kind of sly consolidation that media corporations have been effecting across the country for nearly a decade. FreePress says this “covert consolidation,” where direct ownership is never transferred, is gaining momentum and that it skirts federal ownership laws and erodes market variety and competition.

AP on how to be a paid journalist: Send us your bleeding ledes

Now that digital social networks are coming to provide the bulk of actionable information on important stories– as has been the case with Boulder’s Fourmile fire– news media will continue to offer deeply unsatisfying sensational stories that skew reality…

Sarah Palin’s insta-book and the future of journalism

Sarah Palin finished her memoir four months after reaching a book deal. That’s fast. Maybe too fast. Or maybe too slow!

Roughly two weeks ago, FreePress, a nonprofit group that seeks to…