Month: May 2025

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 2 Comments
  • The Denver Post is shuttering its hyper-local YourHub section effective this week. The paper claims the move “is part of our effort to focus our resources on other areas of news coverage.” What it didn’t mention is that it has also laid off a deputy sports editor, a part-time photo editor and a part-time breaking news reporter. Corey Hutchins‘ “Inside the News in Colorado” newsletter has those details.
  • Bridges generally are designed to get people from point A to point B as efficiently as possible, but a bridge proposed for Civic Center Park wanders a bit aimlessly, perhaps in a subconscious nod to the drunk people who would no doubt be among its biggest users. The CEO of Historic Denver was more succinct, saying the bridge is “completely unnecessary” and “does nothing right.”
  • A Christian school in Tennessee banned a senior from graduation after she announced online that she is gay.
  • NPR, Colorado Public Radio and two other Colorado radio stations have sued the Trump administration arguing that an executive order cutting millions in public funding violates their free speech and relies on an authority that he does not have.
  • Starbucks baristas in South Korea have stopped calling out customers’ names for completed drink orders after customers were using political insults as part of their “names.”
  • An employee in the Washington Capital‘s corporate sales department may have accidentally shared star player Alex Ovechkin‘s plans to play one final year before retiring.
  • Two Secret Service agents were caught on video brawling outside the home of former President Barack Obama. Both have been suspended pending an investigation.
  • Speaking of brawling, a group of parents attending a kindergarten graduation in Arkansas fought in full view of kids in the school’s hallway.
  • President Donald Trump loves handing out insulting nicknames, but he isn’t very happy to be on the receiving end of one. When asked about the nickname TACO – Trump Always Chickens Out – that has been used to describe his tariff policy, President Trump was … less than pleased. One political analyst believes that the TACO insult may have legs.
  • Analysts are blaming repeated missed quarterly earnings and overall bad publicity for Vail Resorts‘ decision to dump its CEO Kirsten Lynch and replace her with former CEO Rob Katz.
  • A judge has ordered Twitter/X to pay $8 million for breaking its office lease in Boulder in 2022.
  • Southwest Airlines this week officially ended one of its most-beloved perks – free checked bags.
  • Former gymnast Mary Lou Retton, the darling of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, was arrested for DUI.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • A Colorado Rockies fan is suing the team after he was hit in the eye with a foul ball. In his suit, he alleges that the team is so bad that it encourages fans not to pay attention to what is happening on the field. He almost certainly isn’t going to win the suit, nor should he, but the absolute shade he throws at the inept Rockies makes it one of my favorite lawsuits of all time.
  • Speaking of the Colorado Rockies, their 8-42 record after the first 50 games is the worst in MLB history.
  • A Lufthansa flight from Germany to Spain flew about 10 minutes without a pilot at the controls after the pilot left the cockpit to use the restroom and the co-pilot lost consciousness. Newark air traffic controllers were like, what’s the big deal?
  • The U.S. Supreme Court was unable to achieve the required six-judge quorum required to hear a case in a lawsuit against a publisher who has book deals with four of the justices. The inability to hear the case left standing a lower-court ruling for the publisher, so maybe those book deals were a really good investment.
  • The news division at CBS continues to reel after several high-profile resignations. This time it was the division’s CEO Wendy McMahon, whose resignation was blamed on CBS’s and parent company Paramount‘s willingness to capitulate to Trump administration demands. A month ago the executive producer of “60 Minutes” resigned for the same reason.
  • The Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer published syndicated content that they were unaware was created by generative artificial intelligence. The material included “unidentifiable quotes from fake experts and imaginary book titles.“
  • Denver is laying off employees, instituting a hiring freeze and requiring employees to take unpaid furloughs to address a $50 million budget shortfall this year that is forecast to grow to $200 million next year
  • Slip-and-fall law firms Frank Azar & Associates and Bachus & Schanker are locked in a legal battle, with Azar accusing his rival firm of illegally using Google keyword ads to trick litigants trying to find Azar’s firm. Fun fact: Azar has turned to the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister to represent it.
  • Salt-N-Pepa are suing Universal Music Group for the rights to their master recordings from the 1980s, including their hit “Push It.”
  • Walmart is cutting approximately 1,500 high-paying corporate positions.
  • If you are a North Korean ship builder, now would be a good time to make run for the China border. The country’s newest warship capsized during its high-profile launch ceremony. Kim Jong Un called the incident a “catastrophic failure” and a “criminal act,” and promised to punish those responsible.
  • Speaking of naval mishaps, two sailors died when the mast of a Mexican naval ship navigating the East River in New York City struck the Brooklyn Bridge.

Who won the week?

  • Margaret Fogarty and Leigh Picchetti have launched Corkboard Communications, “a collective of marketing communications veterans with expertise in brand, public relations and digital engagement.”
  • Christine Perkett and Michelle Baum have launched The Nova Method, a marketing communications and PR firm “purpose-built to move brands beyond surface-level visibility to measurable audience engagement.” 
  • Linhart PR won a PRSA Bronze Anvil for its campaign for client National Cattleman’s Beef Association, and Denver Water won a Bronze Anvil for its “Splashstreet Boys: I Water that Way” video.
  • Jaden Knowles has joined 9NEWS as weekend morning meteorologist.
  • Barefoot PR is hiring for three positions: two PR associates and a web development contributor.
  • The Denver Nuggets removed the “interim” title from head coach David Adelman. Taking over the team with just three games left in the regular season, Adelman guided the Nuggets to one playoff series win against the L.A. Clippers before losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games. Fun fact: Adelman’s record is 3-0 in the regular season and 7-7 in the postseason, making him the only coach to have more playoff wins than regular season wins.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • God may forgive, but the IRS doesn’t. Which is bad news for Pope Leo because U.S. tax law says he may owe annual $135,000 payments to the U.S. Treasury.
  • The jockey of Kentucky Derby-winning horse Sovereignty was fined $62,000 for whipping his horse too many times down the stretch during the iconic race. If you are curious about the allowable number of times you can whip a horse during a Derby, it is six.
  • Two years after taking lighter fluid and a match to billions of dollars in brand equity by dropping the name HBO from its streaming service, executives at Warner Bros. Discovery have announced that Max will now be rebranded back to HBO Max. HBO is synonymous with prestigious programming (“The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “Succession,” “Veep,” “Euphoria,” etc.), and I can only assume the same people who dropped HBO in the first place are the same marketing geniuses who named the parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.
  • A Consumer Reports investigation found that King Soopers is overcharging Colorado customers nearly 20% compared to the prices that are listed on the shelves.
  • The nonprofit National Trust for Local News is selling 14 of its 21 community papers in Colorado — including the Arvada Press, the Englewood Herald and the Littleton Independent — to Arizona-based media company Times Media Group. The Nieman Foundation calls The Times Media Group an “out-of-state, for-profit media company with a history of reducing local newsrooms.” Corey Hutchins has a deep dive into the news at his “Inside the News in Colorado” Substack.
  • Nissan announced plans to lay off 11,000 workers globally, and Microsoft is laying off 6,000 people, or about 3% of its workforce.
  • DIA joined the ranks of airports nationally that have experienced brief communications outages that prevented air traffic controllers from communicating with pilots. Enjoy your summer vacations!
  • I suspected that Gérard Depardieu was a skeevy perv ever since the first time I saw him in “Cyrano De Bergerac.” It took 35 years to be proven right, but a French court this week found him guilty of sexually assaulting two women.
  • Following encampment protests of the war in Gaza last year, the Colorado Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights plans to spend the next year investigating Denver’s Auraria campus to determine whether antisemitism exists on the downtown campus.
  • The University of North Carolina has hired a former NFL PR expert to help head football coach Bill Belichick. Here’s hoping the guy’s first piece of advice to Belichick is to stop talking about his girlfriend who is 50 years younger than he is. The second piece: he better win a lot of football games quickly to help change the subject.
  • DIA CEO Phil Washington is playing defense explaining how he and eight of his colleagues spent $165,000 on a trip to a a three-day conference in Madrid.
  • The NWSL acknowledged it should have postponed the remaining part of a recent game between Angel City and Utah after an Angel City player collapsed on the field and was taken to the hospital via ambulance.
  • Colorado Republicans are plotting a comeback in our state, and part of that path now includes a gala event hosted by Heidi Ganahl (who lost her 2022 gubernatorial race to Gov. Jared Polis by 19 points) and featuring … Eric Trump. There’s a “definition of insanity” thing that makes me think Heidi Ganahl and Eric Trump are hardly the best advocates for Republicans to “take back Colorado.”
  • Morris, the alligator from the movie “Happy Gilmore,” passed away in Colorado. He was approximately 80 years old.
  • You missed your chance to buy the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. It sold for $400 million.

Who won the week?

  • Longtime 9News journalist Tom Green announced he is stepping down from the station after 43 years in Denver. Green is arguably the funniest journalist in town, albeit in an under-the-radar way.
  • The Denver Nuggets forced a game 7 in its series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Not bad for a team that fired its head coach and GM three games before the end of the regular season.
  • Pete Rose, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and host of other baseball outcasts have been made re-eligible for the baseball Hall of Fame. They still have to be voted in, though, which is unlikely.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

  • The Denver School Board voted to extend Superintendent Alex Marrero’s contract by another two years, a move that makes it harder for board members elected in the fall to remove him.
  • Denver sports fans get a rare game-seven doubleheader tomorrow when both the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets will play series-deciding games. The only downside? The games will be played at the same time.
  • “60 Minutes” reminded everyone why it has been the most-respected television news program for decades when it closed last week’s show with an on-air rebuke of its Paramount corporate owners for trying to meddle with its content.