• Westword reporter extraordinaire Michael Roberts announced he is leaving, in a move that is a huge blow to the media outlet. He has spent more than 32 years at Westword, and is its most prolific reporter. His last day is today.
• Seven western states including Colorado are days away from having the federal government unilaterally implement cuts to their allotment of water from the Colorado River. As one public policy advocate said, “Think of the Colorado River Basin as a slow-motion disaster. We’re really at a moment of reckoning.”
• Coban Porter, the younger brother of Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter, Jr. and a member of the University of Denver basketball team, was arrested on vehicular homicide charges after a fatal accident near the DU campus.
• M&M’s is trolling America by placing its “spokescandies” mascots on an “indefinite pause” and replacing them with comedienne/actress Maya Rudolph. While conservatives criticized the “woke” characters and liberals then criticized M&M’s “overreaction,” the fact is everyone is talking about M&M’s. We’ll wait for parent company Mars, Inc.’s Q1 earnings report before we decide whether M&M’s marketers are geniuses or idiots.
• Meanwhile, A&W Restaurants – yes, there are still A&W Restaurants apparently – sought to steal a little of the M&M’s spotlight by announcing that its previously pants-less mascot “Rooty” would now wear them because of the current “polarizing” political environment. Winnie the Pooh, the Geico Gecko and Chester Cheetah had no comment.
• Former Colorado Rockies star Todd Helton barely missed election the Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 72.2% of the necessary 75% of votes. Early predictions had him making it.
• There has been a lot of concern recently over alleged air quality issues caused by the Suncor refinery in Commerce City. To show they are responsive to community concerns, the company’s latest environmental accident was water based – releasing 40-80% more benzene than legally allowed in Sand Creek.
• Two months after being seriously burned in a garage fire, comedian Jay Leno was involved in a motorcycle accident that left him with multiple broken bones.
• A Kansas hunter was killed when his dog stepped on and fired a rifle in the back of the pickup he was in. I guess animals stick together.
• Denver mayoral candidate Lisa Calderon’s official website is being held as part of a ransomware scheme. In her defense, IT security is not listed as part of her campaign platform.
• Scientists have moved the “Doomsday Clock” to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to the midnight metaphor for Armageddon. Presumably the war in Ukraine is responsible for the change, but I’m not sure how that is worse than the cold war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example. Nevertheless, you’ve got 90 seconds, people. Use that time wisely.
• Former Denver Broncos player Shannon Sharpe has apologized for his ridiculous behavior at a recent L.A. Lakers game. It turns out years of being a screaming voice on a hack sports TV show may actually be detrimental to your mental health.
• Richard Steadman, the groundbreaking orthopedic surgeon and namesake of Vail Health’s famed Steadman Clinic, passed away at the age of 85.

So, who won the week?

• Justin Beiber sold the rights to his 290 songs for $2 billion.
• Thirteen Colorado chefs and restaurateurs have been named semifinalists for prestigious James Beard awards.
• In a sign that its re-opening is imminent, Casa Bonita is now hiring for 550 positions ranging from wait staff to cooks to cliff divers.

Altitude Sports host Marc Moser doesn’t realize the Colorado Avalanche broadcast has started when he gets into it with a seagull.

• The University of Texas and Texas A&M are the latest universities to ban TikTok due to privacy and security concerns. The two universities join others in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma and South Dakota that have banned the app.
• Gun seizures at both DIA and in Denver Public Schools hit new records in 2022.
• Denver ranks 17th-worst for for traffic in the U.S., and drivers waste an average of 54 hours in traffic jams.
• Philadelphia Flyers player Ivan Provorov created a public backlash when he refused to participate in a pre-game warm-up wearing a Pride Night jersey, saying it violated his religious beliefs.
• It’s been a tough week at JFK Airport. Just days after two Delta and American Airlines planes almost collided at high-speed on a runway, a JetBlue plane hit a second JetBlue plane in the gate area .
• Less than a week after winning the college football national championship, University of Georgia offensive lineman Devin Willock was killed in a single-car accident. He was not wearing a seat belt.
• Harvard Medical School, perhaps you’ve heard of it, is the latest to withdraw from U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of best medical schools. Harvard’s dean said the “rankings cannot meaningfully reflect the high aspirations for educational excellence, graduate preparedness, and compassionate and equitable patient care.” 
• Boston’s new statue honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. is not exactly winning fans. “Awkward” may be the nicest adjective that has been used to describe it.
• A San Francisco art gallery owner has been arrested after spraying a homeless woman with a water hose to make her move away from his gallery. Video of the incident went viral on social media.
• Twitter has seen a 40% drop in revenue as more than 500 advertisers have paused spending since Elon Musk took over.
• Microsoft and Google are the latest tech companies to announce massive layoffs – a combined 22,000. Microsoft gets extra credit for hosting an executive event in Davos that featured singer Sting just hours before announcing the layoffs.

So, who won the week?

• Proud CSU Ram Jane Dvorak is now an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information.
• Denver7 news director Holly Gauntt announced she will retire once a successor is found.
• Two show pigs that were stolen as part of a truck theft near the National Western Stock Show were recovered in good condition. Given our nation’s love affair with bacon, however, they may have been safer on the run.
• Marvel movies got Millennials and Gen-Zers back to the box office post-pandemic, while “Top Gun Maverick” got Gen-Xers. Now, the Tom Hanks movie “A Man Called Otto” is being credited with bringing Boomers back.

• Amtrak passengers called police claiming they were held hostage when what was supposed to be a 17-hour trip from Virginia to Florida turned into 37 hours due to freight train derailment. “Stale air, dwindling food supplies, trash piling up in the aisles and a lack of timely information from the crew” contributed to what passengers called the “train ride from hell.”
• Peloton will pay a $19 million fine for failing to “promptly report treadmill hazards and for distributing recalled treadmills.”
• Former Cleveland Browns QB Bernie Kosar learned about the NFL’s ambivalent relationship with sports betting the hard way. Kosar was fired by the Browns from its radio broadcast team after he placed a bet on the team to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. This item was brought to you by Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings, FanDuel, FOX Bet, BetMGM, PointsBet, and WynnBET, all of whom are official NFL partners.
• LSU is providing star gymnast and TikTok sensation Olivia Dunne with additional security at competitions after unruly fans overran the team’s season opener against Utah.
• West Virginia Public Broadcasting reporter Amelia Ferrell Knisely had her position eliminated after defying threats to stop reporting on the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources. Gov. Jim Justice has appointed “partisan operatives” to WVPB’s board of directors.
• You wouldn’t think there would be much new in the world of bowling, but newfangled bowling pins have caused a (7-10) split in that community. The new “string pins” are regular bowling pins “with long cords attached to the top and tethered to string pinsetters. The string pinsetters hoist fallen pins like marionettes and lower them into place.” A study found the new pins yield 7% fewer strikes than traditional pins.
• Police arrested a top executive of the Indian subsidiary of Wells Fargo for allegedly urinating on another passenger on a flight from New York to New Delhi.
• Meanwhile, six journalists in South Sudan were arrested after circulating footage of President Salva Kiir wetting his pants at an official event.
• TCU’s 65-7 drubbing by Georgia in the National Championship game was bad enough, but TCU fans endured the added insult of being rained on inside a “domed” stadium. SoFi Stadium in L.A. has a covered roof but no side walls, and heavy winds drove rain onto the upper decks that contained TCU fans.
• Closer to home, the Colorado State Rams finished the college football season at #123 in The Athletic’s end-of-season rankings, one spot ahead of #124 University of Colorado. The Air Force Falcons led the state at #40.

So, who won the week?

• GroundFloor Media | CenterTable promoted Becky Cole to Associate Vice President and Lauren Noser to Senior Director.
• Andrea Burns has been named interim CEO of Historic Denver.
• Gail Bransteitter has joined Barefoot PR as Director of Public Relations.
• Jon Ekstrom of Deft Communications has been tapped to produce a new podcast from Altitude Sports’ Vic Lombardi.
• Colorado Sun reporter Shannon Najmabadi is leaving to join The Wall Street Journal to cover issues in Midwest.
• Olympic Gold Medalist and native Coloradan Mikaela Shiffrin tied Lindsey Vonn for most World Cup ski wins with 82.
• Golden’s Lindsey Horan and Highlands Ranch’s Mallory Pugh Swanson have been named to the 24-player US Women’s Soccer Team training camp roster, the first step toward representing the U.S. this summer at the women’s FIFA World Cup.
• Former CSU Ram and current Tennessee Titan punter Ryan Stonehouse broke an 82-year-old NFL record for longest punting average over a season.

Chris Daniels at PR Week: “It’s not surprising to learn that PR pros, as a profession, are statistically more progressive than the U.S. population. Many communicators are also more liberal than the general population on issues of politics, society, economics and safety. That difference is massive, especially when it comes to political ideology.”

“Practitioners overwhelmingly self-identified as ‘progressive’ (68%), followed by ‘centrist’ (25%). Only 7% identified as ‘conservative’ when it comes to their politics. That’s a stark difference from the U.S. population. Only 26% of the general populace identifies as ‘progressive.’ More of them self-identify as ‘conservative’ (34%), 27 percentage points higher than PR practitioners.”

“’That measure on political ideology indicates the most risk for PR professionals and campaigns,’ says … Jennifer Scott, a clinical assistant professor for PR and corporate communication at NYU’s School of Professional Studies. Scott spent 17 years at Ogilvy, including in thought leadership, comms counsel and research and insights roles, and three years at Edelman. She says PR pros understand they’re operating in a politically polarized environment in the U.S., and audience research can lead them down a dangerous path.”

“’The danger is they see that Gen Z and Millennials, in particular, want brands to take a stand, and so even research into target audiences isn’t necessarily likely to temper the tendency to go very progressive,’ says Scott. ‘It may take a brand to a place that seems mainstream, but that, in fact, triggers a momentum of polarization. Then the brand is in trouble.’” 

• Actor Jeremy Renner was airlifted to a hospital after suffering “a traumatic injury” while plowing snow at his home near Lake Tahoe. Renner reportedly lost a significant amount of blood when his 14,000 lb. Sno-Cat ran over him.
• An American Airlines ground crew worker died when he was “ingested into the engine” of an Embraer 170 aircraft at the Montgomery, Ala., airport.
• Rolling Stone ranked the best 200 singers of all time and Celine Dion was notably not included, much to her fans’ outrage.
• Slip-and-fall attorney Frank Azar has “settled” a 20-month-old $716,000 IRS tax bill for $769,270. Fun fact: Azar’s 2017 taxable income was $3.9 million.
• Tennis legend Martina Navratilova announced that she has been diagnosed with both throat and breast cancer.
• Former Denver Broncos running back Peyton Hillis is in the ICU after a Florida swimming accident where he saved his children from drowning.
• Radio conglomerate Bonneville International, which owns KKFN 104.3 The Fan and KEPN 1600 ESPN Denver, introduced a new “Denver Sports” brand this week whose name and logo are suspiciously similar to the existing DNVR Sports brand. Not surprisingly, DNVR Sports is threatening a lawsuit. Fun fact: Bonneville International is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mormon Church.
• A Park City, Utah, resort employee died when he was ejected from a chairlift whose line was severed by a fallen tree.
• The Texas A&M-University of Florida men’s basketball game was delayed when the Aggies forgot to bring their game jerseys to the arena. Trainers retrieved the jerseys from the team’s hotel, but not before the officials assessed a technical foul against A&M for delaying the start of the game.
• One of the largest personal injury firms in Colorado, the Sawaya Law Firm, is now the Wilhite Law Firm. A spokeswoman said the name change was unrelated to allegations that founder Michael Sawaya sexually assaulted and sexually battered a client in his office.
• Southwest Airlines is offering passengers whose flights were cancelled or delayed during the holidays 25,000 frequent flyer points. The move represents the airlines’ first tangible step toward trying to repair its reputation.
• If you have a 20%-off coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond, you might want to use it this weekend. The retailer warned that it is running out of cash and may file for bankruptcy soon.

So, who won the week?

• Gil Rudawsky and Skip Thurman have been named partners at Rockford Gray.
• Former Denver7 anchor Mitch Jelniker has joined M&C Communications.
• A GoFundMe campaign by Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin to raise money to buy kids holiday toys has grown from less than $2,500 to nearly $8 million as fans horrified by his on-field cardiac arrest made contributions in a gesture of support.
• Greeley Hat Works is getting a lot of love for its work outfitting the cast of the hit show “Yellowstone” with authentic cowboy hats.
• “Today Show” meteorologist Al Roker returned to the show after a two-month hiatus to address blood clots in his leg and lungs.