Month: August 2025

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • It’s official: Nexstar, the owner of Denver‘s Fox31 and CW2, is acquiring Tegna, the owner of 9News. So will Nexstar relegate 9News to the same second-tier role as CW2? It makes my head hurt, but that is one potential outcome suggested by Inside the News in Colorado‘s Corey Hutchins. By the way, Corey’s newsletter is a must-read for anyone in Colorado‘s journalism and public relations industries. You can subscribe for free.
  • Watchmaker Swatch issued an apology and pulled an ad campaign that featured images of a male Asian model pulling the corners of his eyes up and backwards in what critics called a derogatory “slanted eye” pose.
  • President Donald Trump has threatened Colorado with unnamed “harsh measures!!!” – using three exclamation points, so you know he means it – if Gov. Jared Polis doesn’t immediately pardon election conspiracist and felon Tina Peters. President Trump posted online: “Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election. She is an old woman, and very sick. If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!”
  • Walmart has recalled frozen shrimp in 13 states due to radioactive contamination.
  • A few years ago, ESPN was trumpeting its business relationship with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick‘s production company. This week, it withdrew from a collaboration with Kaepernick and filmmaker Spike Lee on a docuseries about Kaepernick’s banishment from the NFL for speaking out on social justice issues. I wonder what changed over the past couple of years?
  • Cracker Barrel enthusiasts are accusing the company’s new logo of being “woke” and the always-helpful Donald Trump, Jr. used his X account to suggest that the company’s new brand is linked to its inclusive hiring practices. Meanwhile, Steak ‘n Shake, lays hanging around the brink of bankruptcy, has decided that this is another opportunity to try to ingratiate itself into MAGA culture by trolling Cracker Barrel.
  •  A volunteer adviser to Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams “has been suspended from his reelection campaign after she handed a journalist an envelope of cash stuffed inside a bag of potato chips.” Now questions are being raised about whether this is a standard Adams practice with Chinese-language media.
  • With temperatures in the high 90s this week, Denver Public Schools was forced to close 13 of its schools due to extreme heat. The first week of June typically is in the high 70s to low 80s. Maybe time to think about pushing the school year back a few weeks into June?
  • MSNBC is rebranding as MS NOW following NBCUniversal’s decision to spin off its cable assets.
  • Newsmax has agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems for $67 million. That is a lot, but not nearly as much as the $788 million Fox agreed to pay for making similar false election-rigging claims.
  • James Dobson, the founder of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family that helped position the city as the cultural center of far-right religious politics, died at the age of 89.
  • Fun fact: “The White Lotus,” “The Wire,” “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones” are among the televisions shows banned in Russia. Homosexual relationships and poking fun at Vladimir Putin appear to be two gig reasons shows get banned.
  • Ari Shapiro, host of NPR‘s “All Things Considered” who will be honored as the Denver Press Club‘s annual Damon Runyon Award winner in October, will depart the network in late September. He is the latest highly visible NPR employee to leave since Congress stripped federal funding from public broadcasters.

Who won the week?

  • Adams State softball player Emily Sauvageau auctioned the Shohei Ohtani home run ball she caught – the 300th of his career – for $44,322.
  • Note: “Who Had the Worst Week?” will be taking the next couple of weeks off for vacation. See you in September.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Former Colorado Public Radio host and reporter Vic Vela announced he has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The diagnosis is the latest challenge for Vela, who has been open about his struggles with drug addiction and living with HIV.
  • The post-COVID hangover, ongoing rider safety concerns and an ill-advised attempt to be all things to all commuting people has caused RTD‘s ridership numbers to continue to drop. The first half of this year saw a 6% ridership decline over the first half of last year.
  • When fighting a losing battle, some participants will invoke the “Aiken Formula” by simply declaring victory and going home. The Salvation Army appears to have done just that when it announced it had informed the City and County of Denver that it would no longer manage three city homeless shelters next year. The rub: Denver had already notified the Salvation Army that its proposal to run the three shelters had been rejected in favor of other candidates.
  • Here’s a headline that wouldn’t have seemed plausible 20 years ago but today makes you think, “Yeah, that checks out…” – “Man charged with felony assault for throwing a sandwich at an immigration agent was a DOJ employee.“
  • It was a tough week in the sports world:
  • Denver City Council members are not impressed with DIA‘s proposed feasibility study of small nuclear reactors to power the airport.
  • There are about 1.5 million reasons that this is not “The Official PR Blog of the Denver Broncos.”
  • Neighbors of an abandoned landmark home on Denver‘s historic 7th Avenue Parkway are staging a “poop protest” by throwing their dogs’ used poop bags onto the front steps.
  • President Donald Trump‘s jealousy of former President Barack Obama‘s Nobel Peace Prize is well known, and President Trump dropped a not-so-subtle quid pro quo request for one during a tariff conversation with Norway‘s finance minister.
  • New financial penalties levied against the University of Michigan by the NCAA for the school’s sign-stealing scandal could cost it as much as $30 million.
  • No new details have emerged following The Wall Street Journal‘s report last week that Nexstar, the owner of Fox31 and CW2, is negotiating to acquire Tegna, the owner of 9News. FCC media ownership rules prevent a single company from owning two of the “Big Four” networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox) in any single market, but analysts suspect that the current FCC would change that rule if it were challenged. If Nexstar owned Fox31, CW2 and 9News, it is likely that a number of positions would be eliminated, including news directors, assignment editors, digital producers, engineering staff, marketing staff, creative services and back-up reporters and meteorologists, among others.
  • Bad news, Luddites. AOL announced it will discontinue its dial-up internet service effective Sept. 30. Maybe put on some acid-washed jeans and take a moment to pour out a Zima in honor of the OG of the internet.
  • I shared the results of the recent PRSA Colorado Gold Pick awards last week, but it turns out that the information provided to me was incomplete. Using the highly scientific Denver PR Blog formula (3 points for the Grand Gold Pick, 2 points for Gold Picks, 1 point for Silver Picks), the following were the agency winners:
    • Schroderhaus – 10 points
    • Sidecar PR – 8 points
    • Linhart PR – 7 points
    • Barefoot PR – 3 points
    • CIG – 3 points
    • Jumel PR – 2 points
    • Philosophy Communications – 2 points
    • ETPR – 1 point
    • Prim – 1 point
    • Root Marketing & PR – 1 point
    • Metropolitan State University was the big overall winner of the night, including winning the PRSA Colorado Grand Gold Pick award for its campaign, “Simulating the Future of Healthcare.” It also won four additional Gold Picks, and barely edged Schroderhaus with 11 points.
    • My apologies to Schroderhaus, Linhart and Metro State for shortchanging their scores on the first version.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • IPG, the parent company of mega-agencies Weber Shandwick, Golin and others, has reduced its headcount by 2,400 positions, or about 4.5%, in the first half of the year, according to regulatory filings.
  • Meanwhile, WPP reported a 10.2 percent drop in revenues for the first half of 2025, and a 47.8 percent drop in operating profit. WPP owns Hill+Knowlton, BCW and Ogilvy, among other large agencies.
  • WNBA players are enduring a new trend of sex toys being thrown from the stands onto the court. It has happened in three games over the past two weeks, and is threatening to become a regular occurrence. Now questions are being raised as to whether crypto bros are behind it.
  • Former Kansas City Chief and Minnesota Viking Jared Allen split his pants performing his signature calf-roping sack dance during his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
  • Colleagues are distancing themselves from San Francisco KOB-TV reporter Griffin Rushton after he got a little … amorous? … with a dinosaur statue during a live shot.
  • The NFL sold a host of its media assets – the NFL Network, linear distribution rights to RedZone and NFL Fantasy, among others – to ESPN in exchange for a 10% equity stake in the sports network. Bottom line – I wouldn’t count on ESPN and its journalists or analysts being particularly critical of the NFL going forward.
  • A retired Aurora police detective kept “30 boxes of investigative material in his home under his floorboards,” and Aurora’s police chief says it may not constitute a crime. He did acknowledge that the records breach was “unacceptable” and raises “legitimate concerns.”
  • Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is fighting back after President Donald Trump called for his resignation due to alleged “investments and ties to semiconductor firms that are reportedly linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army.”

Who won the week?

  • CORRECTED RESULTS: PRSA Colorado announced its annual Gold Picks awards this week, and using the proprietary Denver PR Blog formula (3 points for the Grand Gold Pick, 2 points for Gold Picks, 1 point for Silver Picks), the following were the agency winners:
    • Schroderhaus – 10 points
    • Sidecar PR – 8 points
    • Linhart PR – 7 points
    • Barefoot PR – 3 points
    • CIG – 3 points
    • Jumel PR – 2 points
    • Philosophy Communications – 2 points
    • ETPR – 1 point
    • Prim – 1 point
    • Root Marketing & PR – 1 point
  • Metropolitan State University was the big winner of the night, including winning the PRSA Colorado Grand Gold Pick award for its campaign, “Simulating the Future of Healthcare.” It also won four additional Gold Picks, and barely edged Schroderhaus with 11 points.
  • Elise Bishop has joined the PR firm Jack Taylor as a VP.
  • Real estate news service CoStar Group hired Elisabeth Slay to cover residential real estate in Denver. Slay has been with Colorado Community Media for the past two years as a reporter. 
  • Kendrick Castillo, the teen who died trying to protect his fellow students during the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting in 2019, has been nominated for sainthood.
  • Denver-based Palantir Technologies was awarded a $10 billion U.S. Army contract, yet another win in a string of them that has helped push its stock price up 600% over the past year. Great news for the company but not such great news for privacy advocates.

Who Had theWorst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • ESPN has officially cut ties with media analyst and former Denver Bronco Shannon Sharpe two weeks after he settled a lawsuit accusing him of rape. ESPN had previously suspended Sharpe when the lawsuit was filed.
  • If your favorite DUI defense or class-action attorney seemed a little giddy this week, its because a packaging mix-up caused highly alcoholic High Noon vodka seltzers to be distributed in decidedly non-alcoholic Celsius Astro Vibe energy drink cans.
  • An undetermined number of Denver city employees will begin receiving layoff notices on Aug. 18 as the city tries to close a $250 million budget gap.
  • The City and County of Denver, which has thrown some pretty sharp elbows in the past to retain the annual National Western Stock Show, has green-lighted a $3 million campaign encouraging city residents to eat less meat. That sound you just heard was the marketing team at the Aurora-based Gaylord Hotel sketching out details for an on-site arena.
  • Some bad news for local home-sellers. Denver led the nation in price cuts on for-sale listings in June, indicating that sellers are getting nervous and that buyers may hold the upper hand.
  • U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum officials may be approaching the facility’s fifth anniversary, but lower-than-expected attendance figures and declining year-over-year revenue are putting a damper on the celebration.
  • Fox31 had a weird non-story about the executive chef at Guard and Grace leaving on amicable terms.
  • The state of Colorado sued PetSmart, accusing the national pet store chain of tricking employees into enrolling in a “free” dog grooming school that locked them into a form of indentured servitude.
  • The annual Dragon Boat Festival may need to leave Denver due to “dead fish, increasingly warm and shallow water, blue algae blooms, and a lack of filtration from untreated runoff” pouring into Sloan’s Lake.
  • A 50% drop in ratings, the rising cost of materials needed for home renovations and DIY TikTokers have forced HGTV to cut costs and dump at least seven of its shows.
  • After days of rumors swirling online, The Denver Post outed three of the contributors to the DoBetterDENVR social media account, and they couldn’t back-pedal fast enough from its content that many have described as cruel to people experiencing drug addiction and homelessness. Two of the three don’t even live in Colorado.
    • (Speaking of rumors, when will the highly anticipated Colorado Public Radio story on the staff turnover and work culture at the Denver Metro Chamber finally appear?)

Who won the week?