According to media, election coverage swell

I got the press release from Bill Ritter spokesperson Evan Dreyer at 11:40 this morning:

Gov.-elect Bill Ritter today announced a full line-up of inaugural festivities that will kick off with a Jan. 9 swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol and conclude with a statewide plane tour. A dinner, concert and whistle-stop train tour also will round out the celebration.

The release landed in my inbox as I was putting on my jacket to head to a Colorado Media Matters panel discussion that featured Dreyer and his opposite number from the Bob Beauprez campaign, John Marshall. For a moment, I imagined the release I would've gotten had Both Ways Bob won the election:

Gov.-elect Bob Beauprez today announced a full line-up of inaugural festivities that will kick off with a Jan. 9 swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol. Or maybe it'll be at the Olive Garden. Or the governor's mansion. No wait, the Capitol. On the 9th. Or maybe the 10th.

I shuddered, switched off my computer, and headed out the door.

So, like, you people are real journalists, huh?

In addition to Dreyer and Marshall, the panel included newsmen Adam Schrager, Greg Moore, John Temple and Jeff Thomas, and Colorado University's Elizabeth Skewes.

I felt a bit out of place. Most of the people in the audience were journalists (like Colorado Confidential blogger Wendy Norris) or politicians (like State Senator Ken Gordon). Coloradolib provides coverage of debates, rallies and protests, along with unlimited amounts of snark. But it's not really the place you go for investigative reporting.

Nonetheless, I had a question I was dying to ask the media figures in attendance. "Why did you keep breathing life into Bob Beauprez's ethically bankrupt and politically floundering campaign?" Or, as I phrased the question in my notebook:

In your coverage of the Medina ad scandal, you consistently balanced stories about Beauprez's alleged crime with stories about Ritter's questionable judgement when it came to offering plea bargains. How could you possibly equate those two things?

I never got a chance to ask my question.

But the whole thing was darn interesting anyway.

It was clear from the outset that Marshall was bitter about Beauprez's defeat, but he went out of his way to say the media wasn't to blame. Dreyer felt the media was too hard on Ritter at times, but as the winner he could afford to be magnanimous.

The most interesting exchange came when Skewes took traditional media to task for using the web as a dumping ground for information it didn't have the space to run. Temple denied the charges and said traditional media is using the web because readers are demanding it.

And despite what my too-clever headline would lead you to believe, the journalists were open about some of their own failings. For instance, Schrager revealed that his Truth Tests were so popular, 9 News occasionally made room for them by shelving other political reporting, in essence dubbing the advertising the biggest story of the election.

And while much of the conversation revolved around the role of the Internet, the panel didn't feature a single Internet-based reporter.

So is the media biased or not?

Towards the end, someone asked the panel whether the media had traded objectivity for bipartisanship. All of the journalists denied it. But as Schrager said, "Everybody looks through their own prism and sees what they want to see."

The mainstream media's bias is for balance, whether that balance paints a truthful picture or not. And that's why, when Marshall admitted the left did a better job of blogging the election, I had to shrug my shoulders. It was easier for us, because the mainstream media wasn't telling the whole truth about Beauprez. That gave us something to write about.

That's one of the many reasons why on January 9, we'll welcome Governor Bill Ritter, instead of Governor Both Ways Bob.

Photo of Dreyer and Marshall courtesy of my handy-dandy camera phone. Video of the panel will be available here at some point. Thank you to Colorado Media Matters for putting together the panel. And a special thanks to Marshall for participating in a Media Matters-sponsored event.