Tag: Crisis Communications

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Before I get into this week’s edition of “Who Had the Worst Week,” I wanted to share that a Celebration of Life for Dawn Doty is scheduled for Monday, February 23, at 4 p.m. at the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Community (SEEC) Auditorium. It is located at 4001 Discovery Drive on the University of Colorado Boulder’s East Campus. Members of the community are invited.

Now, on to the list.

  • The documentary “Melania” about First Lady Melania Trump is projected to bring in about $3 million in its first week, a disappointing total for a movie that Amazon‘s MGM Studios paid more than $75 million to produce and promote. Meanwhile, approximately two-thirds of the crew has requested they not appear in the credits at the end of the movie.
  • The decision to spend more than $75 million on “Melania” looks even worse given that Amazon announced this week that it will lay off more than 16,000 workers.
  • Amazon wasn’t the only one announcing big layoffs. UPS said it will cut as many as 30,000 jobs this year as part of a continuing effort to reduce costs and shore up profits, in part because it is delivering fewer packages for … Amazon. UPS eliminated 62,000 positions last year.
  • Staff members at the Denver Zoo killed two rare Malayan tapirs when they misdosed them with copper, a common dietary supplement for tapirs. The zoo did not say how the mistake happened or whether anyone had been disciplined for causing the deaths.
  • Former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick won six Super Bowls as a head coach and another two as an assistant coach – more than anyone else in NFL history. So, naturally he was a lock for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, right? Nope. The voters rejected him as part of this year’s class.
  • Scientists are warning that an influenza virus informally called “Canine Coronavirus” could evolve to pose a similar threat as the recent COVID-19 virus.
  • The Trump administration has made clear who it is making the scapegoat for the ICE killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis: Gregory Bovino, the U.S. Border Patrol commander who had been put in charge of the city’s immigration operation.
  • The United States will host most of the 2026 World Cup matches this summer (Mexico and Canada will host the others), and calls are mounting globally for a boycott. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter is the latest to join the chorus.
  • The NCAA continues to pretend that college football players are not professionals, but bit by bit that veneer is disappearing. The latest example: University of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders is now fining players as much as $2,500 for missing practices without approval. It’s only $500 if you are late.
  • The latest batch of Jeffrey Epstein-related materials released by the U.S. Department of Justice includes a claim that Microsoft founder Bill Gates asked Epstein to help obtain prescription drugs to treat an STD he caught from “Russian girls.”
  • Dom Testa is out at KOOL 105, apparently ending his more than 30-year reign as one of Denver‘s most recognizable radio personalities. Prior to joining KOOL 105, he spent three decades at KIMN Mix 100.
  • The board of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association voted to pursue moving its headquarters from Colorado Springs to Cheyenne, Wyo., but there is still at least one obstacle: conservative Wyoming legislators who are balking at public funding for a private enterprise.
  • An unexpected feud has erupted between Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and QB Bo Nix. Nix was unhappy that Payton spoke to media about the QB’s history of ankle injuries and described the latest injury as something Nix was “predisposed” to have. Said Nix, “I don’t think (Payton) really should share how many surgeries I’ve had in the past, to be honest with you, he doesn’t even really know that.”

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • Go big or go home, they say. Aurora City Councilman Rob Andrews embraced that philosophy when he tested at more than three times the legal limit for alcohol – a 0.252 – while being arrested for DUI this past weekend. Inexplicably, his sober son was in the car with him when he was arrested, and police turned Andrews’ car over to him while taking his dad to jail. Which begs the question, why was the drunk guy driving?
  • Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to join President Donald Trump’s “peace board,” but could not attend the signing ceremony because he’s wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.
  • A tech glitch caused a shelter-in-place warning intended for a two-block radius in Denver to be sent city-wide.
  • British troll broadcaster Piers Morgan tripped and fell so hard at a London restaurant that he suffered a broken femur and had to have his hip replaced.
  • Denver native Lindsey Halligan was removed from her role as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after a judge ruled her appointment invalid and called her efforts to remain in the office “a charade.”
  • Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot flooded Twitter/X with millions of sexualized images in a period of just nine days, according to a new analysis. Of the more than 4.4 million images, more than 40% were sexualized images of women, many without their consent.
  • Two Denver executives – Thomas Sandgaard and Anna Lucsok – with now-bankrupt Zynex, Inc. have been indicted for conspiracy to commit health care fraud, securities fraud and mail fraud. The most illuminating paragraph in the DOJ press release: “When financial reporters raised questions about Zynex’s business practices, … Sandgaard hired an individual to attempt to disrupt the reporters’ personal lives. These efforts included signing reporters up for therapy sessions and (sending) used female underwear to a reporter’s spouse at the reporter’s home with a thank you card addressed to the spouse, detailing the reporter’s alleged ‘illicit behavior’ – all apparently with the intent to convince the spouse that her husband was being unfaithful.”
  • Denver Broncos second-year QB Bo Nix helped carry the team to the AFC Championship this past weekend by beating the Buffalo Bills, but the jubilation was short-lived. Approximately 45 minutes after the game ended, head coach Sean Payton announced that Nix had fractured his ankle at the end of the game and would miss the rest of the playoffs.
  • Speaking of the Buffalo Bills, if you thought their overtime loss to the Broncos in the playoffs would be their lowest point this year, team owner Terry Pegula managed to top that by firing adequately performing head coach Sean McDermott, promoting underperforming GM Brandon Beane, and holding a train-wreck of a press conference where he – unprovoked – attacked one of his own wide receivers. Anyone thinking about taking the head coach role is probably reconsidering.
  • “60 Minutes” correspondents Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi are reportedly close to being fired for pushing back against CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss‘ attempts to influence their coverage.
  • Patagonia had negotiated a truce with drag queen Pattie Gonia that allowed the performer to use her stage name, but Pattie’s recent attempt to trademark and sell merchandise under the “Pattie Gonia” brand was a bridge too far. Patagonia has sued Pattie Gonia, claiming “irreparable harm.” (A hat tip to Eric Anderson for that one.)

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Vail Resorts reports that skier visits are down 20% this year, which the company blamed on the dry, warm fall and winter in the western United States.
  • Verizon‘s cell and data services went down for a day this week, leaving millions of customers without service.
  • A group of Kaiser Permanente affiliates that includes the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado and Colorado Permanente Medical Group P.C. have agreed to pay $556 million to settle allegations they committed Medicare fraud and pressured doctors to list incorrect diagnoses on medical records to receive higher reimbursements.
  • It was a tough week for celebrities:
    • Former “West Wing” and “Thirtysomething” actor Timothy Busfield is facing allegations of child sex abuse in New Mexico and California.
    • Former “24” actor Kiefer Sutherland was arrested for allegedly assaulting a ride-share driver.
    • Former “Home Alone” actor Daniel Stern has been charged with soliciting a prostitute.
  • Twenty current and former college basketball players have been charged with rigging the outcome of NCAA basketball games. The players represented universities including Tulane, DePaul and Fordham. That news is brought to you by ESPN and its official sports book provider DraftKings.
  • Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip “Dilbert,” passed away from metastatic prostate cancer at the age of 68. At its height, “Dilbert” appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers globally and was made into a short-lived TV series. But “Dilbert” effectively ended in 2023 when Adams shared his view that African-Americans were “a hate group” and that “the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people.”
  • The San Francisco 49ers continue to have far more than their fair share of injuries, and some amateur sleuths have identified what they say is the culprit: an electrical sub station located adjacent to the team’s stadium and practice facilities. Experts have dismissed the theory, but a social media post alleging that “low-frequency electromagnetic fields can degrade collagen, weaken tendons, and cause soft-tissue damage” has gone viral among players.
  • The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) suspended two Norwegian ski jumping coaches and the team’s suit technician for 18 months for altering suits during the world championships last year.
  • Sebastian Ofner, an Austrian playing in an Australian Open qualifier match, celebrated “winning” the fifth set tie breaker 7-1, only to learn that you must reach 10 points to win in Grand Slams. Naturally, Ofner then lost 12 of the next 16 points to lose the match.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Before I get into this week’s edition of “Who Had the Worst Week,” I wanted to shared that a Celebration of Life for Stacey Sepp is scheduled for Monday, Jan. 26, at 10 a.m. at the Southeast Christian Church in Parker. Members of the community are invited.

Now, onto the list.

  • Flu hospitalizations in Colorado have surged to their highest levels in 20 years, and medical experts expect it to only get worse in the coming weeks.
  • President Donald Trump‘s revenge tour against Colorado appeared to be in full force over the holidays. First, he vetoed a bill that would have funded a pipeline to bring clean water to 50,000 residents in heavily Republican southeast Colorado, infuriating conservative U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd. Then, he offered holiday wishes to Gov. Jared Polis and Mesa County D.A. Dan Rubinstein (“I wish them only the worst. May they rot in Hell. FREE TINA PETTERS!”). And, finally, his EPA ordered that Tri-State‘s coal-burning plant in Craig remain open rather than shut down as planned this week.
  • In a bit of stunt-casting, Cards Against Humanity has hired Jeffrey Epstein – no relation to the disgraced financier – as a spokesman to appear in the card game’s new commercial. The company explained, “We were looking to cast a big name—someone who could really grab people’s attention—and we found the perfect guy. He wasn’t even that expensive.”
  • Aspen Daily News Publisher David Cook announced he is selling the newspaper to Florida-based Hoffmann Media Group. HMG has been on a buying spree over the past few years, and The New York Times profiled its billionaire CEO David Hoffmann last year.
  • The long-awaited Denverite article on turmoil at the Denver Metro Chamber finally appeared, and it put CEO JJ Ament squarely in the crosshairs. Rumors of the article had circulated for more than nine months.
  • Back in October, Sam Tabachnik at The Denver Post published an incredibly unflattering article about Chuck Horning, the combustible owner of the Telluride ski resort. It included details such as he was booed out of an upscale restaurant, he engaged in fist fights with his son and the resort’s CEO, and he sexually harassed and/or assaulted multiple women. Now, Horning is in the news again, this time for shutting down the entire resort during the prime holiday season because members of the ski patrol went on strike.
  • A woman was found dead on a hiking trail in Larimer County in what authorities believe to be the first fatal mountain lion attack in more than 25 years.
  • The University of Colorado now owns the longest bowl win drought among Power 4 conference members. It last won a bowl game in 2004.
  • President Donald Trump is quick to claim his late-night TV show host adversaries have low ratings, so he can’t be happy that last week’s Kennedy Center Honors special that he hosted saw record-low ratings.
  • Tesla is no longer the best selling electric vehicle manufacturer in the world. That title now belongs to China‘s BYD, in part because Tesla sales declined 9% last year.
  • Champagne sparklers held too close to the ceiling likely sparked a fire at bar at a Swiss ski resort on New Year’s Eve. The fire killed at least 40 and injured another 120.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week – 2025 Year in Review

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Recessions and economic booms may come and go, but we were reminded again in 2025 that crisis communications is – and always will be – a growth industry. Below is a stroll down memory lane as we remember some of the disasters that defined 2025.

JANUARY 2025

  • The L.A.-area wildfires in Palisades and Eaton caused an estimated $164 billion in damage.
  • An understaffed air control tower at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. contributed to an American Airlines flight colliding with a military helicopter, killing 67 people.
  • A spectator was killed at a high school track and field meet on the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus when a competitor lost control of a hammer in the hammer throw event and hurled it into the stands.
  • Two Oregon men who set out in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to find conclusive proof that Sasquatch exists died of exposure. 
  • A Southwest Airlines pilot was removed from a plane and arrested for being inebriated as he was seated in the cockpit performing preflight checks.
  • A former CBI DNA scientist who worked on thousands of cases, was charged with 102 felonies alleging that she manipulated evidence. Prosecutors identified more than 1,000 convictions that could have relied on her evidence, and an unknown number of cases may not have been prosecuted due to her faulty findings.

FEBRUARY 2025

  • The Girl Scouts of Colorado warned that a King Soopers employee strike put millions of dollars of cookie sales at risk.
  • Waffle House started charging a $0.50 surcharge per egg due to a shortage caused by an aggressive strain of the avian flu.
  • The Trump administration banned AP reporters from the White House for reusing to use the term “Gulf of America.”
  • President Donald Trump ordered the iconic Resolute Desk removed from the Oval Office for a deep cleaning after Elon Musk‘s son wiped a booger on it during a reporter Q&A event.
  • Hyde Park Jewelers in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center was the victim of a slow-motion robbery that saw thieves steal $12.3 million in jewelry and watches over eight hours.
  • Skype, the pre-pandemic king of video chat services, shut down amid competition from Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, Webex and Google Meet.

MARCH 2025

APRIL 2025

MAY 2025

  • The NFL fined the Atlanta Falcons $250,000 and Jeff Ulbrich, the team’s defensive coordinator, an additional $100,000 after Ulbrich’s son made a cruel prank phone call to University of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders during the NFL’s draft. Ulbrich’s son took Sanders’ confidential phone number from a team-issued iPad that his father left unlocked.
  • A climber had to be rescued a second time while attempting to summit Mt. Fuji after he went back up to retrieve the cell phone he dropped during the first rescue.
  • Two years after taking lighter fluid and a match to billions of dollars in brand equity by dropping the name HBO from its Max streaming service, executives at Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it would rebrand back to HBO Max.
  • A Colorado Rockies fan sued the team after he was hit in the eye with a foul ball. In his suit, he alleged that the team is so bad that it encourages fans not to pay attention to what is happening on the field.

JUNE 2025

  • Gov. Jared Polis unveiled his “Bridge to Nowhere” concept that did the seemingly impossible: it united the political left, center and right in opposition.
  • Boulder found itself again in the wrong kind of national spotlight after a hate crime targeting the city’s Jewish community killed one person and injured seven others.
  • The former Dominion Voting Systems executive who sued MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for defamation won a $2.3 million judgement, but it was Lindell who claimed victory after the jury only awarded the plaintiff just 3.5% of what was asked.
  • A postal carrier who stole, filled out and submitted 19 mail ballots as part of a rogue plan to test the security of Colorado‘s signature verification process was sentenced to five years in jail. 

JULY 2025

  • CBS parent company Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to President Donald Trump to settle his lawsuit against “60 Minutes.” Experts were certain Paramount would prevail in the suit, but noted that Paramount needed governmental approval for its plan to sell itself to Hollywood studio Skydance, which it eventually did.
  • Sean “Diddy” Combs was convicted of transporting prostitutes. Combs was found not guilty on more serious charges, but he also faces more than 50 civil lawsuits.
  • Chris Martin of Coldplay inadvertently outed a couple who apparently were having an affair.
  • Jared Leonard, the Denver restaurateur known for the Michelin-recommended AJ’s Pit Bar-B-Q, was indicted on fraud charges for allegedly receiving more than $1 million in pandemic relief loans under false pretenses.
  • Malcolm-Jamal Warner, best known for playing the lovable and charismatic son Theo on “The Cosby Show,” drowned while on vacation in Costa Rica at the age of 54.

AUGUST 2025

SEPTEMBER 2025

OCTOBER 2025

NOVEMBER 2025

  • Fourteen people died after a UPS cargo plane crashed on takeoff at the Louisville, Kentucky, airport. 
  • The FAA cut 10% of flights at the 40 busiest airports in an attempt to “alleviate the pressure” on over-worked air-traffic controllers during the government shutdown.
  • The clear winners of election night in Colorado were progressives, tax increases and teachers union-endorsed candidates. The biggest loser? That would likely be Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, who spent the past year parroting President Donald Trump‘s exaggerated claims of “gang-takeovers” of her city.
  • Investigators determined that the password for the Louvre’s video surveillance system was “Louvre” when thieves stole jewels worth $100 million from the museum.
  • Some guests were given only 10-15 minutes to vacate hotel rooms when the Marriott-backed chain Sonder unexpectedly declared bankruptcy. 
  • The Wall Street Journal reported that the Colorado Rockies‘ GM position is actually the most coveted in Major League Baseball because it “is viewed as the sport’s ultimate sadistic challenge.”
  • A Russian K9 police dog selected to perform the ceremonial pre-game puck drop at a KHL league hockey game successfully dropped the puck from its mouth and then promptly bit two players.
  • Martin Bally, a senior executive at Campbell’s Soup, is no longer with the company after a lawsuit accused him of calling the company’s soups “highly processed food” for “poor people,” complaining that “f–king Indian” colleagues are “idiots,” and that the company’s soups use “bioengineered meat.”

DECEMBER 2025

  • The University of Michigan head football coach was abruptly fired and then taken into police custody several hours later as part of an assault investigation.
  • The Trump administration is abandoning the “woke” font Calibri in favor of Times New Roman. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a directive that blamed “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided switch to Calibri during the Biden administration.
  • Disgraced journalist Olivia Nuzzi’s new book “American Canto” sold only 1,165 hardcover copies in its first week on the shelves.
  • Rocky the Raccoon broke into a Virginia liquor store, broke several bottles of whiskey, apparently drank some that spilled on the floor, and then passed out in the store’s bathroom. 
  • A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office SWAT sergeant resigned before he could be fired after being found to have responded to the Evergreen High School shooting incident while intoxicated.
  • Pantone released its “Color of the Year” for 2026, and it was basically white. But because it’s Pantone, it had to give it a clever name, so technically “Cloud Dancer” is the color of the year.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • How do you celebrate an acquisition that makes you the largest marketing holding company in the world? If you are Omnicom, you lay off 4,000 employees. And champagne, probably. There’s usually champagne. Those layoffs are in addition to about 19,000 others that Omnicom and the holding company it acquired, Interpublic, made earlier in 2025.
  • If you subscribe to Netflix, expect your monthly fee to increase soon. Netflix outbid Paramount and Comcast to acquire Warner Bros. and its extensive library of content. Netflix agreed to pay $82.7 billion, including debt, which amounts to about $276 for each of its subscribers. Interestingly, the acquisition would also include Warner Bros.’ HBO Max streaming service.
  • The Denver Post has now missed five straight monthly rent payments to the City and County of Denver for space in its eponymous downtown building that it sold to the city in 2024.
  • Rocky the Raccoon broke into a Virginia liquor store, broke several bottles of whiskey, apparently drank some that spilled on the floor, and then passed out in the store’s bathroom. Local animal protection authorities took custody of Rocky, dried him out and released him back into the wild.
  • Penn State is the gift that keeps on giving to college coaches. The school was one of the first to fire its head football coach this season when it let James Franklin go in September, and its efforts to sign a new coach have done nothing but secure lucrative contract extensions for the candidates it was considering. The school was rumored to be interested in Indiana‘s Curt Cignetti, who received a new eight-year, $93 million contract four days after Franklin was fired. Then Penn State turned its attention to Nebraska‘s Matt Rhule, who shortly thereafter received a two-year, $25 million extension. Penn State next turned to BYU‘s Kalani Sitake, who just received a new contract whose terms have yet to be disclosed but reportedly make him the highest-paid coach in the Big 12 Conference. Meanwhile, Penn State still has no new head coach.
  • Zillow has removed scores rating homes’ vulnerability to extreme weather following complaints from real estate agents who apparently fear it will lower sales prices and their resulting commissions.
  • Private employers in the U.S. shed 32,000 jobs in November rather than add the 40,000 new jobs analysts expected, according to data from payroll processor ADP. That data is especially significant given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics still hasn’t issued a new jobs report since the government shutdown.
  • A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office SWAT sergeant resigned before he could be fired after being found to have responded to the recent Evergreen High School shooting incident while intoxicated.
  • If you have been waiting for the Colorado Rockies to finally win something, good news! Their seven-year, $182 million contract with oft-injured outfielder Kris Bryant was rated the No. 1 worst contract in Major League Baseball.
  • Pantone released its “Color of the Year” for 2026, and it was basically white. But because it’s Pantone, it had to give it a clever name, so technically “Cloud Dancer” is the color of the year.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • More than 125 people are dead and 200 are unaccounted for in Hong Kong after a group of high-rise apartment buildings caught fire. The buildings were undergoing renovations, and bamboo scaffolding that is common in China and mesh netting that protected passersby appear to have quickly spread the fire.
  • Martin Bally, a senior executive at Campbell’s Soup, is no longer with the company after a lawsuit accused him of calling the company’s soups “highly processed food” for “poor people,” complaining that “f–king Indian” colleagues are “idiots,” and that the company’s soups use “bioengineered meat.”
  • Colorado State Sen. Faith Winter was killed in a multi-car accident on I-25 the day before Thanksgiving. Winter made headlines over the past several years for sharing allegations of sexual harassment against a fellow legislator that resulted in his expulsion, suffering a head injury in a bicycle accident and taking a leave of absence last year to seek medical treatment for alcoholism. Police are still investigating the cause of the accident.
  • Twitter/X introduced a new feature that identifies the country of origin for its accounts, and it quickly made clear that “many of the most influential personalities in the ‘Make America Great Again‘ (MAGA) movement on X are based outside of the U.S., including Russia, Nigeria and India.”
  • Some of the gray wolves released in western Colorado as part of the voter-approved reintroduction plan have now made their way to the metro Denver area, according to data released by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. If you hear a cackling sound, that is just western-slope ranchers, and it is hard to blame them.
  • Xcel Energy has asked the Colorado PUC for permission to raise rates by $356 million – a 9% increase that would translate to a $10/month increase for the average consumer customer.
  • The fight to free former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters intensified this week, with the Trump administration demanding Colorado turn her over into federal custody and a bipartisan group of Colorado county election clerks demanding she remain in a state prison. Curiously, Gov. Jared Polis‘ decision to remain quiet on the subject created a vacuum that caused both sides to ratchet up the intensity.
  • A website glitch caused the European electronics retailer MediaWorld to accidentally sell $1,000 iPads for about $17. Customers who ordered them received them a week later, and then, about two weeks after that, the company contacted them saying the advertised price had been incorrect and that they could either return the iPads or pay the difference minus a $150 discount.
  • Secretary of Defense War Pete Hegseth has turned his sights on an unlikely target: the Boy Scouts. Part of Hegseth’s problem: the woke Boy Scouts changed their name to Scouting America and now allow girls to participate.
  • Colorado State University suspended two players – QB Darius Curry and offensive lineman Liam Wortmann – for the team’s final game this season after they were captured on video spitting on opposing players during last week’s game against Boise State.
  • President Donald Trump has used the power of his office to extract a personal favor from global media conglomerate Paramount: a “Rush Hour 4” movie. Paramount is fighting Netflix and Comcast for the right to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which would require FCC approval.
  • How is 90-year-old ESPN “College Gameday” legend Lee Corso enjoying his retirement? “It sucks,” he says.

Who won the week?

  • Denver Post sports editor Matt Schubert left the paper for an as-yet undisclosed new opportunity.
  • Denver Broncos linebacker Alex Singleton will return to the field this weekend, just weeks after surgery to remove a cancerous testicular tumor.
  • Colorado State University hired Jim Mora, Jr. as its new head football coach. Mora joins CSU from the University of Connecticut, and he previously served as head coach of UCLA and the NFL‘s Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks.
  • Ole Miss head football coach Lane Kiffin – described by The Wall Street Journal as “college football’s most hated man” – has become the prize in a bidding war by three blue-blood programs: Ole Miss, the University of Florida and LSU. Sometime this weekend, he almost certainly will become the highest-paid head coach in college football history. The only question is by which university.
  • Robert Irwin, son of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, won this season’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Denver may be left of the political center, but its TV news stations soon may not reflect that. Sinclair‘s interest in acquiring Scripps – owner of Denver7 – means that three of our city’s four main TV news stations could be owned by the right-wing media companies Nexstar (Fox31, 9News) and Sinclair (Denver7).
  • CBS4 reporter Kelly Werthmann and photojournalist Kevin Hartfield were forced to take refuge in their news vehicle when “a clearly unstable man” interrupted their live shot at the state capitol. No one was injured.
  • A warm, dry fall has forced the ski resorts Purgatory and Powderhorn to delay their openings.
  • The U.S. Coast Guard has downgraded swastikas and nooses from prohibited “hate symbols” to items that are merely “potentially divisive.”
  • The former British Prince Andrew, now just Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after his brother stripped him of his royal title, just can’t catch a break. The Daily Mail reported this week that Osborne Partners, the PR firm that convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein hired in 2008 to help him rehabilitate his image, recommended to Epstein that he avoid associating with Andrew because Andrew’s reputation was too toxic.
  • The U.S. may be headed for a brutal flu season. Scientists have found that this year’s virus causes more severe symptoms than last year’s and seems to be spreading more rapidly and earlier than usual. Enjoy those Thanksgiving visitors!
  • Republicans in Texas have ousted Kate Rogers, a fellow Republican who was tasked with overseeing the renovation of the Alamo, because her 2023 Ph.D. dissertation included a “woke” statement – “Personally, I would love to see the Alamo become a beacon for historical reconciliation and a place that brings people together versus tearing them apart, but politically that may not be possible at this time.”
  • Colorado fined BetMGM $50,000 for illegally accepting “prop” bets on individual college athletes’ performances during games.
  • If you are addicted to buying lottery tickets but are broke, good news! The Colorado Lottery Commission will now allow you to use credit cards to buy tickets. What could go wrong?
  • A Missouri judge whose Elvis fixation caused him to wear an Elvis wig during proceedings and play his songs and recite his lyrics in court has agreed to resign.
  • A Russian K9 police dog selected to perform the ceremonial pre-game puck drop at a KHL league hockey game successfully dropped the puck from its mouth and then promptly bit two players.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • The U.S. Mint pressed its last pennies this week as the Trump administration has ordered the end to the little-used and little-loved coin. That’s especially bad news for Denver and Philadelphia, the only two cities where pennies were minted.
  • A generation of kids who have never seen anything other than “A”s on their report cards are freaking out because Harvard has determined it is awarding too many of the superlative grades and is evaluating steps to raise the bar to earn one. One student told the student newspaper she cried “the whole entire day” when she learned the school may adjust its grading strategy.
  • Fox31 meteorologist Kylie Bearse‘s recent PR campaign to bring attention to an alleged stalker that the Denver District Attorney’s office was treating with kid gloves has worked. Just weeks after a high-profile Denver Post article, the D.A.’s office announced it would upgrade the charge against the 70-year-old man from a misdemeanor to a felony.
  • If you know a Comcast executive, give them a hug. Fifteen years ago, 90% of U.S. homes subscribed to cable TV. Today, it is 50%.
  • Denver Mayor Mike Johnston isn’t the most collaborative person, and members of the Denver City Council have recently taken some symbolic actions to express their frustration with his go-it-alone approach. This week, however, they started taking steps that are more than just symbolic, and one of the mayor’s signature projects that is being held hostage is the proposed professional women’s soccer stadium.
  • Some guests were given only 10-15 minutes to vacate hotel rooms when the Marriott-backed chain Sonder unexpectedly declared bankruptcy. Blame from guests fell largely on Marriott rather than Sonder, and Marriott has been scrambling to find alternative arrangements for the guests.
  • The Wall Street Journal reported that the Colorado Rockies‘ GM position is actually the most coveted in Major League Baseball because it “is viewed as the sport’s ultimate sadistic challenge.” Said the WSJ: “Their major-league roster is a disaster. The farm system is in shambles. They are notoriously slow to evolve and sit years behind their rivals. Oh, and they also happen to play their home games in an environment that is fundamentally incompatible with playing the sport of baseball.” Rockies fever – catch it!
  • Ball Corp. is paying the CEO it just fired $6.5 million to go away. That may seem like a lot, but the head football coaches at LSU and Penn State are walking away with a collective $103 million after being fired.
  • The Trump administration has finally recognized the causal relationship between tariffs and increased costs of living, and it is frantically trying to implement new trade agreements with countries to lower the costs of staples such as coffee, bananas and beef.
  • Colorado Supreme Court Justice Melissa Hart is into her second month on a personal leave with no explanation why and no planned return date.
  • CBS4 reporter Shaun Boyd conducted a lengthy interview with the individual behind the controversial social media account DO BETTER DNVR this week, and Boyd allowed that individual to make a number of politically charged allegations while remaining anonymous for no journalistic reason. In Boyd’s 43-paragraph article, the phrase “she said” or “she says” is used in 25 of them. My anonymous sources say that Boyd has long been criticized by some for her approach to reporting that lacks what they consider journalistic integrity.
  • Japan is a country trying to overcome its reputation for karoshi – “death from overwork” – so many were stunned when new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi scheduled a 3 a.m. meeting with aides to prepare for an appearance before Parliament that morning.
  • The Denver Public School board censured member John Younguist after an investigation found he more likely than not mistreated some staff of color, although “not deliberately.” He said he plans to take legal action.
  • Here’s a marketing campaign custom built for passive-aggressive people with frenemies: Oral‘s TheraBreath brand has a contest that allows you to nominate someone who has bad breath and the five winners will receive “a personalized video featuring a pep talk” delivered by TikTok star Jake Shane and a promo code to claim a sample of TheraBreath Toothpaste.

Who won the week?

  • Denver was treated to a spectacular “Northern Lights” show this week. The aurora borealis made a surprise appearance when a a severe geomagnetic storm pushed the lights farther in our direction than expected on a clear evening.
  • I flew to San Francisco and back over the weekend during the government shutdown and FAA-mandated flight reductions, and both of my flights arrived early. A shout out to Stacey Stegman and all her colleagues at DIA for managing the behind-the-scenes chaos well.
  • If you think three chords is exactly the right number any song should have – good news! AC/DC announced it will play Mile High Stadium next summer.
  • University of Colorado Athletic Director Rick George announced he will retire next year, which begs the question: will head football coach Deion Sanders join him?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • More changes are coming to KOA NewsRadio. A few weeks ago, the station let “Colorado Morning News” co-anchor Marty Lenz go as part of a broader round of iHeartRadio layoffs, and now it is moving conservative talk-show host Ross Kaminsky to fill the 6-9 am weekday slot. “Colorado Morning News,” which previously aired from 5-9 am, will now air only from 5-6 am.
  • Fewer PR firms expect to see profits in 2025, an industry report published by Davis+Gilbert found. Only 44% of PR firms expect profit gains, and just half project revenue rising — both lows not seen since 2021.
  • At least 13 people died and more are still missing after a UPS cargo plane crashed on takeoff at the Louisville, Kentucky, airport. The crash forced UPS to close its Worldport hub facility that processes millions of packages for roughly 360 incoming and outbound aircraft each day.
  • The Trump administration is cutting 10% of flights at the 40 busiest airports starting today. The administration said the reductions were an attempt to “alleviate the pressure” on over-worked air-traffic controllers, but critics said the move would cause more problems than it would solve. As of this morning, surgical cuts by airlines have resulted in few disruptions.
  • History Colorado is being accused of censorship by a coalition of First Amendment-rights organizations for rejecting a painting that is critical of Gov. Jared Polis and Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper are currently candidates for governor and senate, respectively, and the museum’s chief creative officer says exhibiting the painting “could constitute a violation of the Fair Campaign Practices Act, which prohibits government institutions like History Colorado Center from making contributions to a candidate running for office.” The ACLU and others say it wouldn’t. Regardless, Gov. Polis and Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper can’t be happy with the resulting Streisand Effect.
  • The Houston Independent School District has sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxson after his office ruled the school district must turn over emails to and from the district’s public relations firm to media outlets who have requested them because they do not qualify for attorney-client confidentiality.
  • The Pentagon‘s draconian press policy may have caused mainstream media outlets like Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CBS to walk away, but it has replaced them with new media outlets such as Mike Lindell‘s LindellTV and the influential pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer.
  • Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland died of an apparent suicide. He was 24.
  • The clear winners of election night in Colorado were progressives, tax increases and teachers union-endorsed candidates. The biggest loser? That would likely be Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, who spent the past year parroting President Donald Trump‘s exaggerated claims of “gang-takeovers” of her city. As Westword noted, “We named the controversial Aurora City Council rep a Person to Watch in 2025, and now you can watch her leave her seat.”
  • A Thai businessman who co-owns the Miss Universe Organization has apologized for publicly berating Miss Mexico, causing her to walk out and several other contestants to join her in solidarity.
  • Following a months-long search, former NFL star Antonio Brown was apprehended in Dubai by U.S. Marshals on an attempted murder charge. He will be extradited to Miami.
  • Yale researchers have done the math and calculated that Elon Musk’s “politically partisan and culturally warlike personae” have cost Tesla the sale of 1 million to 1.26 million cars from October 2022 to April 2025. Meanwhile, Tesla shareholders just approved an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package for Musk, so …
  • The owners of MSNBC will spend $20 million on marketing to promote its rebrand to MS NOW.
  • Hail, uninsured motorists and car thefts have driven Colorado car insurance costs to be the fifth-highest in the nation.
  • U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert “attended a Halloween event in a costume meant to depict a Mexican woman, wearing a sombrero and carrying a sign that read ‘Mexican Word of the Day: JUICY.’ The sign went on to mock Spanish accents with the line, ‘Tell Me If Juicy ICE coming.’ Her companion was dressed as an ICE agent.”
  • Ryan Seacrest and Anderson Cooper can breathe a sigh of relief. NBC has cancelled its upcoming “Snoop Dogg’s New Year’s Eve” special.
  • If you are looking for a winter home, a Palm Beach, Fla. house considered a tear-down is available for a mere $185 million.
  • Investigators determined that the password for the Louvre’s video surveillance system was “Louvre” when thieves stole jewels worth $100 million from the museum last month.

Who won the week?

  • Pax8 communications VP Barry Hawkins has retired. Fun fact: Barry’s daughter, Amanda Hawkins, regularly sings the National Anthem at Colorado Avalanche home games.
  • Denver-based creative agency Karsh Hagan has partnered with Arizona-based Madden Media to deliver expanded integrated services in the tourism, hospitality, outdoor recreation, healthcare, higher education and retail industries.
  • I’m not sure which list to put this on, but the Denver Broncos are the least confidence-inspiring 8-2 NFL team in decades.
  • The Colorado Rockies are poised to make what could be their first good decision in years as the team finalizes a contract for Paul DePodesta to run baseball operations. DePodesta was a key figure in the “Moneyball“-era Oakland A’s and later ran the Los Angeles Dodgers.
  • The man charged with throwing a sub sandwich at a federal agent in protest of Trump administration policies was acquitted of misdemeanor assault by a Washington, D.C., jury. The jury found that throwing the 12-inch deli sandwich from what prosecutors described as “point-blank range” was not an attempt to cause injury.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Tulane University has banned Colorado Academy students from being considered for early admission this upcoming year because a single CA student reneged on an acceptance offer last year.
  • WPP, parent company of PR firms such as Burson and Ogilvy, saw revenue fall nearly 6% in Q3, an ominous sign that sent its stock reeling 18% to set a new 27-year low.
  • Denver Mayor Michael Johnston‘s penchant for “secrecy and spin” is causing him to lose trust with some voters. In just the last week, he has faced mounting criticism for unilaterally renewing the city’s contract for the Flock surveillance system, a secret deal with developers that increased the amount of DIA-adjacent land they received in exchange for the former Park Hill Golf Course, and an ugly fight with the parent company of The Denver Post over $2 million in unpaid rent. And this is happening at the same time he is asking voters to green light $950 million in bonds.
  • After seemingly free-falling for years, Prince Andrew finally hit rock-bottom this week when King Charles punished him in the only way that remained – stripping him of his royal titles and booting him from his royal residence. He is now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Andrew has been a key player in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
  • Denver was the biggest loser on this season’s “Love is Blind” reality dating show. John Frank at Axios noted, “It’s widely acknowledged that the city has a horrible dating scene, and the show somehow made us look even worse.”
  • The governor of Louisiana announced that LSU athletic director Scott Woodward would have no say in who the team’s next head football coach is. Why? The last two coaches Woodward hired – Brian Kelly at LSU and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M – were owed a combined $130 million in buyouts after they were fired before their contracts expired. Not surprisingly, Woodward was fired a day after the governor’s comments.
  • In some parts of the country, seeing the first robin is considered the unofficial start of spring. In Colorado, we know winter is upon us when we have our first skier-triggered avalanche of the season.
  • Speaking of skiers, The Denver Post had an incredibly unflattering profile of Telluride ski resort owner Chuck Horning. Among the allegations: he was booed out of an upscale restaurant, he engaged in fist fights with his son and the resort’s CEO, and he sexually harassed and/or assaulted multiple women.
  • Ten million YouTube TV subscribers have lost access to Disney-owned channels such as ABC, ESPN and FX due to a financial dispute..
  • Perth, Australia, beat out Denver as host for the 2030 Gay Games, an event that would have brought 12,000 athletes and $110 million in economic activity to our city. Denverite‘s Kyle Harris reported that the U.S.‘s “recent turn toward anti-transgender federal policy” and “the Trump administration’s mass deportation of immigrants” left many global leaders concerned whether Denver would be a safe destination for the event.
  • Karine Jean-Pierre, the former press secretary to President Joe Biden, is having the kind of book tour that authors have nightmares about.
  • An independent investigation into Denver Public Schools board member John Youngquist found he more likely than not engaged in “belittling, dismissive and condescending behavior” toward some district staff members and exhibited bias in interactions with some district leaders of color.
  • Layoffs abound: UPS is cutting 48,000 jobs, Amazon is laying off 14,000, GM 3,300 employees, Paramount 2,000 employees and Capital One is cutting another 400.
  • Don’t screw with a Long Island wine importer. That’s a lesson the Times of London learned the hard way. The paper wanted to get former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s take on Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate seeking to be the city’s newest mayor, so a reporter apparently Googled de Blasio’s name and sent an email to the first email address it returned. Unfortunately, that address actually belonged to wine importer Bill DeBlasio who offered his expansive thoughts on the candidate. The paper printed the responses, and politician Bill de Blasio immediately disputed the quotes. The paper then claimed the wine importer “falsely claimed” to be the former mayor, but DeBlasio released the emails showing that, “I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor. So I just gave him my opinion.”
  • Somehow, former Colorado State University head football coach Jim McElwain received some of the stiffest penalties in the University of Michigan‘s “sign stealing” scandal. McElwain was the head coach at Central Michigan University when one of his assistant coaches allowed a UM spy on the team’s sideline in a game against Michigan State to decipher the Spartans’ signals. The now-retired McElwain apparently was not aware of the plot, and yet he received a two-year “show-cause” penalty that is essentially a two-year ban. Sherrone Moore, the UM offensive coordinator at the time who has since been promoted to UM head coach, received a three-game suspension.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Colorado basketball legend Chauncey Billups – he is an NBA champion, NBA Finals MVP and Hall of Famer who played at the University of Colorado and for the Denver Nuggets – was arrested as part of an FBI investigation into gambling and “sports rigging” operations linked to multiple mafia crime families.
  • A woman in South Korea killed one person and injured eight others when she set her apartment building on fire trying to kill a cockroach. She used a homemade “blowtorch” that combined a pain relief spray can and a lighter.
  • The security team members responsible for protecting the priceless artifacts at the Louvre in Paris are #OpentoWork.
  • Casa Bonita has a surprise critic: actress Brooke Shields. She is the president of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union that represents the costumed characters that roam the restaurant, and her complaint is about a lack of a contract between the restaurant and the union.
  • Tesla’s net income dropped 37% in Q3 despite increasing vehicle sales, undermining an otherwise record-setting quarter ahead of an upcoming vote on a new pay package for CEO Elon Musk that could be worth as much as $1 trillion.
  • The Denver Post has stopped paying rent it legally owes to the City and County of Denver for space in, ironically, The Denver Post building that the city acquired in 2024. The Post hasn’t occupied its space in the building in more than seven years, and it appears that the Post parent company is trying to force the city into a buy-out of its lease.
  • A jury awarded nearly $20 million to six bystanders who were injured when a Denver Police officer fired into a crowd while trying to shoot an armed man in LoDo.
  • Target is eliminating about 1,800 corporate positions, Meta is laying off 660 people, and Rivian is laying off another 600.
  • Denver Broncos linebacker Dre Greenlaw spent the first six weeks of the season trying to get healthy enough to play, finally played in Week 7, and then summarily got suspended for Week 8 for threatening an official. The suspension will cost Greenlaw about $273,000 in salary.
  • Old people + racquet sports = eye injuries.
  • With unrest in the Middle East, war in Ukraine, and rising tensions with Russia and China, the Pentagon has ordered a Navy aircraft carrier to the … Caribbean?
  • Current Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and former Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson are in the dumbest feud possible.
  • Baseball may be known as the “American Pastime,” but a small town outside Toronto claims the game was invented in Canada.

Who won the week?

The Results of the ‘PR Disaster Bracket Battle’

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Yesterday, a panel of journalists and communications experts – 9News’ Kyle Clark, Westword‘s Patty Calhoun, Children’s Hospital Colorado‘s Patrick O’Rourke and Liberty Global‘s Bill Myers – broke down 16 of the past year’s most talked-about crises that were pitted head-to-head in a March Madness-style bracket, and more than 100 members of the audience voted – round by round – to determine a single PR disaster champion. The “winner” – United Healthcare.

Thanks to the panelists and everyone who attended the event.

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?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • A postal carrier who stole, filled out and submitted 19 mail ballots as part of a rogue plan to test the security of Colorado‘s signature verification process was sentenced to five years in jail. The scheme was identified when election officials contacted alleged voters whose signatures did not match and learned they had not submitted ballots.
  • University of Colorado Regent Wanda James and her colleagues are using The Denver Post‘s editorial page to fight over a board investigation that could lead to her censure.
  • The U.S. Navy stripped former San Francisco Mayor Harvey Milk‘s name from one of its vessels. Milk was a U.S. Navy veteran and the first openly gay man to be elected to office in California. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth justified the decision by saying, “People want to be proud of the ship they are sailing in.”
  • Jake Rosencranz, a University of Denver alum who worked in Denver at the Behm Consulting Group, was struck by lightning and killed while on his honeymoon in Florida.
  • Two U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team players – Weston McKennie and Tim Weah – who play professionally with Juventus in Italy have caused an uproar by alleging that the country’s food is boring and lacks variety.
  • What appeared to be an off-the-cuff comment in a press conference from Denver Nuggets Vice Chairman Josh Kroenke about the potential to trade MVP Nicola Jokić serves as a reminder of how careful and prepared executives need to be when speaking to the media. The throwaway comment completely overshadowed the intention of the press conference, which was to introduce the team’s new co-GMs.
  • Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez‘s wedding this weekend had to be relocated to a more secure venue after residents of Venice, Italy, threatened to crash it. If you are still looking for a gift for the couple, $2,000 is the largest gift card Amazon offers.
  • Elon Musk fired Tesla‘s head of North American and European operations following a prolonged sales slump, as if that guy was the problem.
  • Brad Pitt‘s Los Angeles home was ransacked and robbed while he was away promoting a new movie.
  • Microsoft has updated its infamous “blue screen of death” to a new-and-improved black version. Maybe the engineers instead could have focused on eliminating the bugs that cause it in the first place?
  • President Donald Trump‘s new cell phone venture, Trump Mobile, quickly pulled the coverage map from its website when critics noticed that it included the “Gulf of Mexico” rather than the “Gulf of America.”
  • Gov. Jared Polis‘ desire to build a legacy project in the form of a $30 million bridge to connect the state capitol to Lincoln Park has hit a snag in the form of 9News’ Kyle Clark. The most influential media figure in town has been on a crusade to kill the project, even spending a six-minute block of his “Next with Kyle Clark” show on a commentary criticizing every aspect of the plan.

Who won the week?

  • PRSA Colorado announced the winner of its 2025 awards:
    • Doug Hock, longtime oil-and-gas communications executive, won the Lifetime Achievement award.
    • Jennifer Quermann, senior director of Communications and Marketing at the Butterfly Pavilion, won the PR Person of the Year award.
    • Walker Shumock-Bailey, marketing coordinator at A Little Help, won the Rookie of the Year award.
    • Jake Kasowski, managing supervisor at FleishmanHillard, won the Chapter Service award.
    • Jason Evans, communications manager at FlatironDragados, won the Mentor of the Year award.
    • Rosalind “Bee” Harris, publisher of the Denver Urban Spectrum, won the Outstanding Business Leader award.
    • Tina Griego, senior editor at the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, won the Media Professional of the Year award.
  • Reporter Nicky Andrews announced she is leaving the Boulder Daily Camera/Longmont Times-Call. No word yet on where she will land.
  • Metro State, a longtime commuter campus, has unveiled plans to build its first on-campus residence hall, a $118 million project that will house 550 students.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • Boulder‘s Comprise PR, formerly MAPR and Metzger before that, has shut down following a bankruptcy filing. Owner Doyle Albee had hoped to reorganize and survive the filing, but he said that former employees who poached clients had made that impossible. Albee and most of the remaining employees are moving to California-based Hawke Media, which touts its “10 years of marketing domination.”
  • The crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London killed at least 269 people. It is India’s worst aviation disaster in decades.  
  • Journalist Terry Moran is out at ABC News after he tweeted that top White House aide Stephen Miller is a “world-class hater” whose “hatreds are his spiritual nourishment.” Because truth is an absolute defense against defamation claims, ABC News doesn’t need to worry about a lawsuit, but they nonetheless wanted to stay on President Donald Trump‘s good side.
  • Conservatives weren’t happy several years ago when major brands declined to advertise on Twitter/X for political reasons, so much so that the FTC is trying to include a prohibition on that as a formal requirement for approving a merger between marketing conglomerates Omnicom and Interpublic Group.
  • Miami-Dade police are searching for oft-troubled former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown on a charge of attempted murder. Brown was allegedly involved in a shooting during a celebrity boxing event in Miami last month.
  • Former Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson continues to harbor delusions of grandeur. Two years ago, he was censured for flirting with a 16-year-old student and he then declined to run for re-election after polls found that he had the support of only 9% of respondents. So, of course, this week, Anderson teased a possible run to rejoin the board, perhaps in 2027.
  • University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders is dealing with an unspecified health issue that has caused him to miss the team’s annual summer football camps. There is no announced timeframe for his return.
  • FIFA introduced dynamic pricing for tickets to this summer’s inaugural Club World Cup that will take place in the U.S., and it is not going well. Tickets for the opening match between Inter Miami (featuring soccer superstar Lionel Messi) and Egyptian team Al-Ahly are going for as little as $4.
  • The Dyson bandits – two brothers who stole nearly $30,000 worth Dyson vacuum cleaners and other items from Denver-area Targets and resold them – have been sentenced to a combined 10 years in prison.
  • The Denver City Council has authorized another $400,000 in settlement payments to protesters injured by police during the George Floyd protests in 2020. The latest payment means that Denver has now paid nearly $20 million in settlements to protesters injured that summer.
  • If you had actress Olivia Munn and children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel in a blood feud, well, you are more prescient than I am. It’s gotten so bad that People magazine had to remove an online article about them because of the violent threats it triggered.
  • City engineers have warned city council members that two bridges in Denver may soon be off limits to ambulances and other heavy vehicles due to deteriorating conditions. What’s worse is the two bridges are located within blocks of Denver Health.
  • If you are from the Pacific Northwest, there’s at least a decent chance you are a serial killer.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

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

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.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

  • PRSA Colorado is accepting nominations for its Chapter Service, Lifetime Achievement, Mentor of the Year, PR Person of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Business Leader, Media Professional and PR Team of the Year awards.
  • University of Colorado WR/CB and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter was both selected second overall in the NFL draft and does not have to play for the Cleveland Browns. The Browns traded the pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars, allowing Hunter to return to his home state of Florida.
  • Colorado Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog returned to the ice after a 1,032-day break to rehabilitate a knee injury.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Actor Rob Lowe was not amused when a Beverly Hills sightseeing tour bus driver pointed him out to passengers as “John Stamos.” Lowe, who was on a sidewalk near Rodeo Drive, confronted the driver of the open-air bus and told him he needed to “Get better at your job.”
  • Tesla is facing legal allegations that it speeds up the odometers on its electric vehicles so they fall out of warranty faster.
  • Actor Kelsey Grammer‘s plans to raze a 200-year-old cottage in Bristol, England has outraged locals. He wants to build a four-bedroom modern home.
  • The drummer for the band New Pornographers was arrested on child pornography charges.
  • Former members of the University of Colorado football team aren’t impressed by coach Deion Sanders‘ plans to retire the number of QB Shedeur Sanders. The alumni agree with Coach Prime‘s decision to retire Heisman trophy winner Travis Hunter‘s number, but are annoyed that he has used that as an opportunity to retire his son’s number as well.
  • If you had Wendy’s vs. Katy Perry in the celebrity feud pool, you are smarter than I am. The burger chain is playing defense after its social media team poked fun at the singer for joining the all-female crew that went to space. The backlash came from celebrities Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Wilde and Olivia Munn, and forced the brand to backtrack slightly by claiming it has a “ton of respect” for Perry.
  • The production of craft beer fell to 23.1 million barrels in 2024, which represents a 4% decline compared to the previous year and is the largest non-pandemic drop in industry history. That is not a good statistic for Colorado, which has the fourth most craft breweries in the country.
  • United Airlines took the unusual step of issuing two different profit outlooks for 2025 – one that assumes a recession and a second that doesn’t.
  • It is starting to feel little like Groundhog Day in Colorado politics. Former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D) announced she will run to try to reclaim CD-8, while former U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez (R) announced he will run for governor for a third time. He didn’t win the primary race in either of his first two attempts.
  • President Donald Trump was no fan of the latest episode of “60 Minutes” that featured stories on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the territory of Greenland. He called on the FCC to revoke CBS’s broadcast license “for their unlawful and illegal behavior” airing stories he did not like.
  • Speaking of President Trump, he is also at war with Harvard University after it refused to acquiesce to his demands on a variety of issues. President Trump froze $2.2 billion in grant funding and then asked the IRS to revoke its tax-exempt status as punishment for defying him.
  • You don’t really think about competitive fishing as a particularly dangerous sport, but three people died when two boats collided during a fishing tournament in Alabama.
  • Actor Haley Joel Osment was arrested and charged with public intoxication and possession of cocaine.
  • All 1.4 million residents of Puerto Rico are again without power as the island suffered its second catastrophic blackout in four months.
  • A judge in Florida said she was powerless to release an American citizen born in Georgia who was detained as a suspected undocumented immigrant. ICE had moved the prisoner to a detention center and the judge said while she had the power to dismiss the charge, she did not have jurisdiction to force his release.

Who won the week?

  • DIA ranked as the third busiest airport in the U.S. and sixth busiest in the world in 2024.
  • Fourteen Coloradans landed on Forbes‘ list of the world’s richest billionaires. Phil Anschutz was first among Coloradans with $16.9 billion, while Cargill MacMillan III ($1.4 billion) had the most billionaire-ish name.
  • ESPN‘s Lee Corso announced he would retire from “College Gameday,” where he built a cult following by predicting winners by donning the team mascot’s head. Corso is 89 and has been part of the show for 38 years.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • How have budget and staff reductions at major newspapers impacted journalism? The Dallas Morning News‘ managing editor admitted that it did not cover the recent “Hands Off!” anti-Trump Administration protests because “we didn’t realize the protest was going on.” She added, “I regret this is the answer because that’s a big miss for us to be unaware of such a large event.”
  • Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone may have won a championship less than two years ago, but the NBA is quickly joining the NHL as the most “what have you done for me lately” leagues. The Nuggets fired Malone on Tuesday – just a week before the playoffs (for which the Nuggets had already qualified).
  • The death toll from the collapse of a nightclub roof deck in the Dominican Republic has now passed 200, and is thought to include several former MLB baseball players.
  • Fundraising for the 2025 Denver Pride Parade has dropped by about two-thirds compared to last year — part of a national trend in response to DEI fears associated with the Trump Administration. 
  • Despite having spent more than a billion dollars subsidizing stadiums for men’s sports (Ball Arena, Empower Field, Coors Field), Denver City Council members have reservations about taxpayers providing $70 million of the $200 million needed for a stadium for a new women’s professional soccer team.
  • Perceptions of a lack of safety, affordability and vacant retail spaces are being blamed for a 15 percentage point drop in the number of visitors who say they had a “great” experience in Downtown Denver.
  • Dublin officials are taking steps to protect a life-size statue of “Molly Malone” – the central figure of the eponymous song most associated with St. Patrick’s Day. It seems that visitors have been rubbing the statue’s ample cleavage for good luck, causing it to discolor awkwardly.
  • A judge has ruled that Newsmax made defamatory statements about Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems when it falsely claimed that the company rigged votes in the 2020 presidential election. The ruling clears the way for a jury trial to determine whether the statements were intentionally false and, if so, to calculate damages. You may recall that Fox News reached a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion over similar allegations.
  • A European rugby match was delayed 40 minutes after a parachutist delivering the match ball was caught and left dangling from the roof of the stadium.
  • An rare play forced SEC Conference officials to stop a college softball game between the Florida Gators and the Arkansas Razorbacks for 25 minutes as they thumbed through a copy of the official rule book to figure out what to do.
  • Barstool Sports and ESPN‘s Pat McAfee – arguably the two leaders in “bro sports” culture – are facing a reckoning over their actions propagating a salacious sex rumor about a 19-year University of Mississippi student. The student, who is neither a public figure nor an athlete, has fought back and said she intends to file a lawsuit. Barstool CEO Dave Portnoy responded by saying he is “sad, and I wish we didn’t play any part in it,” while also acknowledging his company will be entering mediation with the student’s attorneys. McAfee and ESPN continue pretend nothing is happening.
  • The U.K. reality TV show “Celebrity Big Brother” is shocked – SHOCKED – that actor Mickey Rourke, a known sleazebag, is behaving like a sleazebag.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • A United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai was forced to return to the U.S. two hours into the flight when one of the pilots realized he had forgotten to bring his passport. A new crew was brought in and the flight took off again six hours after its initial departure.
  • What do you get when you put librarians in charge of doing math? A $25.4 million estimate for an open-records request. The Pikes Peak Library District in El Paso County gave a journalist the $25.4 million estimate that calculated it would take 613,440 hours to complete, the equivalent of a team of five people working full-time for 59 years.
  • The genetic testing company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy, meaning that its DNA registry containing sensitive information on millions of people could be bought for pennies on the dollar by bad actors. California‘s attorney general issued a rare consumer privacy alert reminding residents that they have the option to direct the company to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material it holds prior to any sale.
  • Don’t delay that vacation: Hawaii is sinking 40 times faster than scientists initially thought.
  • It was quite a week for the White House:
  • The live-action remake of “Snow White” is on pace to be one of the biggest flops of the decade, even bigger than “Joker: Folie à Deux.” At the heart of the debacle: a series of self-inflicted wounds.
  • A jury ordered the makers of the Roundup weed killer to pay $2.1 billion in damages to a plaintiff who argued the product caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. Appeals courts have reduced previous large jury awards against Roundup by about 95%, which could also happen here.
  • The Colorado Rockies will play the first game of the 2025 season today, and they are already 1.5 games back from the division-leading L.A. Dodgers.
  • It is not easy being a mid-major program like the Colorado State University Rams. You want the program to do well, but when they do, you start to worry about losing players or coaches to schools in bigger conferences. That is what happened this week. Men’s basketball coach Niko Medved methodically built CSU into a team that made the NCAA “March Madness” tournament regularly, and his team gave one of the all-time great performances in a last-second loss to the University of Maryland. And then, less than 24 hours later, the University of Minnesota hired Medved away.
  • It has been a tough couple of weeks for the Denver arts and business communities. First, we lost former Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation CEO Tom Clark, who was a behind-the-scenes driving force for many of Denver’s biggest accomplishments over the past few decades. And, this week, the family and friends of Denver Botanic Gardens CEO Brian Vogt are mourning his passing. He was 66.

Who won the week?

  • GFM|CenterTable added Shelbey Royal as a senior director of search.
  • Connect For Health Colorado named Nina Schwartz as its new chief policy and external affairs officer.
    • Turner PR has been named agency of record for Xanterra Travel Collection. Turner will handle earned media and social media strategy for the company’s National Parks collection, including accommodations, experiences and outposts in the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Death Valley, Glacier, Rocky Mountain and Mount Rushmore.
  • The Sundance Film Festival is relocating from Park City, Utah, to Boulder. Fun fact: The New York Times article covering the news first described Boulder as a “ski town,” which it is not, and then issued a correction calling it a “mountain town,” which it also is not. We’ll see if a second correction appears.