(Courtesy of Jessica Hagy)

GroundFloor Media and Weise Communications were the big agency winners at the 2008 Colorado Healthcare Communicators Gold Leaf Awards. GroundFloor picked up the Grand Gold Leaf and a Gold Leaf for its work with The Children’s Hospital, and a Gold Leaf and Best Non-Profit for its work with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Weise picked up five awards: Two Gold Leafs for its work with CCRM and Centennial Medical Plaza (CMP), the Best Hospital Award for its work with CMP, a Silver Leaf for its campaign for Bonfils and a Bronze Leaf for its work with Swedish. Welch Creative Group also won a Gold Leaf and a Silver Leaf for its campaigns for The Children’s Hospital, and Linhart PR won a Bronze Leaf for its campaign for New West Physicians.

You can see the complete list of winners here.

From Mattie Silks and Soapy Smith to Brenda Stewart and Joe Nacchio. You’ve come a long way, Denver.

(Cook’s Restaurant, 1715 Lawrence Street, circa 1890)

A reminder to the NYSE that symbolism still matters. So in the current economic environment that has left the reputations of many of Wall Street’s leading brands in tatters, you might want to avoid having a clown ring the bell.

We think it is Goodwill Industries.

The New Denver Ad Club is sponsoring its version of “The Dating Game,” where local client and agency representatives will talk about “what makes a match made in heaven and how to avoid bad breakups.” Panelists include employees from MillerCoors, Village Inn, Rainbow Rewards, Cactus, TDA and The Media Team, and Bob Taber of Thomas Taber & Drazen will moderate. Details are:

Thursday, October 9, 6-8 p.m.
Denver Newspaper Agency Auditorium
101 West Colfax Ave.
Denver, CO 80203
$25 for NDAC members; $40 for others
(join or renew a membership before or at the event to get in free)

The Denver Police Department is getting raked over the coals nationally for the officers’ DNC commemorative T-shirt. 

Screw private-sector agency life. We want to work for the Department of Interior in Lakewood. No wonder former USA Today reporter Patrick O’Driscoll took the job with the National Park Service.

U.S. News & World Report is out with its latest college rankings, just in time to make the poor freshmen moving into dorms rethink whether they should have gone somewhere else. The Colorado/Wyoming results:

77.       University of Colorado at Boulder
80.       Colorado School of Mines
89.       University of Denver
125.     Colorado State University
Tier 3   University of Colorado at Denver
Tier 3   University of Wyoming at Laramie 
Tier 4   University of Northern Colorado 

And, even though it isn’t Colorado-related, Elaine Ellis would want you to know that Notre Dame is ranked 18th.

UPDATE: And Colorado College ranked 30th in the magazine’s rankings of Liberal Arts schools (thanks, Bree.)

Greyhound has dropped its new ad campaign that touted the relaxing virtues of bus travel following last week’s incident in which one of its passenger stabbed, beheaded and then began eating the pieces of a fellow bus passenger. The ad campaign’s tagline was, “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage.’ ”

We were reminded of the old Sesame Street song/game “One of these things is not like the others” when we read about the “Rocky Mountain Roundtable,” a series of 10 discussions of public issues coinciding with the DNC. Our favorite: a roundtable that will feature “Tom Brokaw, Ben Affleck and Madeline Albright (discussing) international relations.” Presumably it will go something like this:

Brokaw: “Sen. McCain questions why Sen. Obama would be willing to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who he says has pledged to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America’s enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons.”

Albright: “There’s nothing controversial about meeting with leaders of rogue states, and history supports this. President Kennedy met with Nikita Khrushchev at a time when the two nations were on the brink of nuclear war, and President Nixon met with China’s Mao Zedong knowing that Mao had murdered millions of people.”

Affleck: “RED SOX RULE!!!”

Catfight alert: Denver’s own Andrew Cohen vs. PRSA. And it is hard to figure out who to root for. Cohen loses points for saying on the CBS Morning Show, “Show me a PR person who is ‘accurate’ and ‘truthful,’ and I’ll show you a PR person who is unemployed” and for making us wait an extra 10 minutes to watch the segment about the Filipino guy Journey hired to replace Steve Perry after the band saw him on YouTube.

But PRSA started it all by linking Scott McClellan to public relations in the first place. McClellan was an administration spokesman, and nobody outside the industry even thought of him as a PR guy until PRSA injected itself into the debate. 

As for the fallout, we think everybody should lighten up. Cohen’s a lawyer, for God’s sake. After all the lawyer jokes he’s endured, of course he’s going to take a shot when he gets the chance. And given that politicians, used car salesmen, journalists and pedophiles are about the only groups that people trust less than lawyers, we think everyone can cut him a little slack.

The May sweeps data are in, and 9News remains the 800 lb. gorilla in the Denver local news battle.

The Rocky Mountain News isn’t the only media outlet in town using reporters outside the realm of their experience. KCNC/CBS4 is getting into the act as well with murder trial news brought to you by the traffic reporter. Westword has the details.

The Rocky Mountain News finally covers some public relations industry news. Unfortunately, it’s about a Baltimore agency.

The good news? Fox & Friends mentioned you. The bad news? Well, uhh, just view the clip. 

If you are looking for a pro-bono opportunity, Jeff Peckman needs your help. 

Nielsen Online/E&P Rankings for Newspaper Web Sites

Site — Unique Audience (000) — % Change (YoY)

NYTimes.com — 18,869 –30%
USATODAY.com — 10,709 — (-2%)
washingtonpost.com — 8,929 — 13%
Wall Street Journal Online — 6,850 — 99%
LA Times — 5,729 — 22%

New York Post — 4,677 — 31%
Boston.com — 4,184 — (-1%)
Chicago Tribune — 3,825 — 31%
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle — 3,793 — (-10%)
Daily News Online Edition — 3,314 — 54%

Newsday — 3,240 — 44%
Village Voice Media — 2,814 — 139%
DallasNews.com – The Dallas Morning News — 2,727 — 96%
The Houston Chronicle — 2,690 — (-26%)
International Herald Tribune — 2,587 — 33%

Atlanta Journal-Constitution — 2,384 — 28%
Chicago Sun-Times — 2,206 — 8%
The Politico — 2,095 — 58%
Azcentral.com — 2,016 — (-4%)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer — 1,967 — (-8%)

tampabay.com — 1,908 — 6%
Star Tribune — 1,763 — 18%
MercuryNews.com — 1,662 — 36%
Orlando Sentinel — 1,642 — (-31%)
Philly.com — 1,554 — (-12%)

Sun-Sentinel — 1,524 — (-9%)
Detroit Free Press — 1,484 — 38%
Cleveland.com — 1,460 — 89%
MiamiHerald.com — 1,451 — (-17%)
The San Diego Union-Tribune — 1,432 — (-19%)

Then spend some time creating your own church signs. Hat tip to Pure Thinking.

Layoffs and buy-outs have been rampant at Denver’s media outlets over the past year, so we all knew consequences would be coming. We blogged about the Rocky Mountain News jamming its local section with articles from other newspapers because it has fewer reporters, and now Joanne Ostrow at the Denver Post has the details of KUSA/Channel 9’s efforts to do more with fewer people.

Says KUSA GM Mark Cornetta, “In the old world, one person shot a story, another edited  it, a third told the story. In the new world, one person would be reporter/photojournalist/editor and producer for TV and the Web.” So what is next for KUSA/Channel 9? Maybe this:

Deep down, we all knew that news anchors hate reporters. This clip gets fun at the one-minute mark.

 

UPDATE: The video now must be viewed at YouTube.

He is being inducted into the Colorado Blacks Hall of Fame Saturday, joining the likes of Wellington Webb, Penfield Tate, and Daddy Bruce Randolf.

The report is here, and Bela Lugosi look-a-like Richard Edelman provides context here.