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YourHub.com \\ Golden \\ Stories \\ Sound Off \\ Letter to the Editor

Voice of Golden: Shifting identity, one goal

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Contributed by: Catherine Fenner on 10/26/2007

This letter was sent to the Golden Transcript

I have an increasingly difficult time with your referral to "The Voice of Golden" as a community newsletter.

The communications publication printed on newsprint the same size as your newspaper is clearly the product of a political action committee. The Voice of Golden's one-sided news reporting, while pseudo-journalistic, is designed to promote the political and personal agendas of an undisclosed political committee in a manner which fools the uninformed reader into believing they are reading a newspaper or city publication. So clearly is this publication designed to mimic your true journalistic publication that when I open my mailbox I think a copy of the Transcript is inside?

The latest issue of The Voice, which arrived in that mailbox this week, contains diatribes representing the one-sided biases of the publisher. Certainly it is appropriate for a political action committee to espouse its' views and political candidates, but with full disclosure. The Golden Good Government League makes available its mission statement,its board members nameand its entity structure. Not the entity that distributes The Voice.

It is beyond dispute that The Voice is not the product of an accreditednews organization as the most basic principles of journalism are absent.Its publisher, editor and reporter (all one person) could not acquire a press pass for entry beyond doors open to the general public, nor do the articles survive the most casual scrutiny for balanced reporting. On one hand this campaign promoter wants to be perceived as a community newsletter to avoid being correctly branded as a political action committee and then turns to representing herself and her publicity pieceas a press publication so she doesn't have to report campaign contributions.

Itis more journalistically correct for Transcript reporters to refer to this publication as "a political opinion publication which the publisher refers to as community newsletter."It is decidedly important for your reporters to create a clear line of distinction between this political committee's campaign mailer and that of true news organizations.

As your reporters quote the publisher and her attorney referring to The Voice as a "news source" with a subsequent Transcript articleindicating that Olson complainsthat the city does not consider heras "press" youshould draw a clear journalistic and non-conflicting line between your newspaper and Olson's political committees' campaign mailer.

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Showing 1-2 of 2 comments

Submitted By: Jay Long

posted on 10/29/2007 @ 2:12:14 PM

(Not Rated)

Sorry. Had the address wrong.

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Submitted By: Jay Long

posted on 10/29/2007 @ 11:17:32 AM

(Not Rated)

the address listed on the front page of this fish wrapper (302 Iowa Drive, Golden) doesn't even exist.

[Report as objectionable]

Showing 1-2 of 2 comments

CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Catherine Fenner

Golden , CO

Catherine Fenner has posted 1 story and 0 comments since joining on 10/26/2007. Catherine Fenner 's average story rating is 5.

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