![]() ![]() On Saturday, the paper’s publisher, Jay Seaton, wrote a pointed column taking the state senator, Ray Scott, to task over the allegation. “I don’t think I can sit back and take this kind of attack from an elected official,” the publisher wrote. Scott has defamed this company and me as its leader.” And then the kicker: “To borrow a phrase from another famous Twitter user, I’ll see you in court.” Words have real meaning in this business. “That’s my intention,” he said about a potential lawsuit, “but we’re going to have some cooling-off period before I file anything.” It was no joke, either, Seaton told CJR over the phone Monday. Here’s the background: The state senator called his local newspaper “fake news” on Twitter and Facebook after a February 8 editorial in the Sentinel urged him to move along a bill that would update the Colorado Open Records Act, or CORA. The bill would require government agencies to release digital copies of documents in a machine-readable format (if they have them), something they currently aren’t required to do. Scott chairs a committee in the state Senate that was scheduled to hear the bill last week, but he cancelled the hearing. The Sentinel urged its local lawmaker, who the paper endorsed in 2014, to set a new hearing and push the bill forward. The very liberal GJ Sentinel is attempting to apply (more: ) We have our own fake news in Grand Junction. “The very liberal GJ Sentinel is attempting to apply pressure for me to move a bill. They have no facts, as usual, and tried to call me out on SB 40 as the CORA bill. You may have a barrel of ink but it just splashed in your face.” They haven’t contacted me to get any information on why the bill has been delayed but choose to run a fake news story demanding I run the bill. In his Saturday column, Seaton defended his newspaper and indicated there might be a court fight on the horizon. This particular publisher, it should be noted, is no stranger to a courtroom. Before taking the helm of the Sentinel in 2009, Seaton was a commercial litigator. So I don’t view this really as any different.” “I practiced law in Kansas City for 13 years, so I’m accustomed to resolving business damage in the judicial system. The publisher says he has already seen people on Facebook pledge to cancel newspaper subscriptions after the lawmaker’s comments. “What I consider actionable is the attack on the Sentinel as fake news,” Seaton says. What I can’t abide is an attack on the essence of what we do.” “I can take the criticism that we’re too far right, or we’re too far left, or our reporter was sloppy, or our editorial misunderstands the issue, that I can handle. Scott, who served as a regional field director for Donald Trump’s Colorado campaign, declined to comment for this story on the advice of his counsel. But he did post messages on Twitter and Facebook. “Bring it on Jay, if you lie it blows back. NO ONE ever attempted to contact me,” he wrote. Seaton says he called the senator twice on Friday, but no one called him in advance of the editorial to clear the paper’s position with him. (The paper does not discuss editorial opinions with subjects prior to publication.) Scott, a possible gubernatorial candidate, isn’t talking, so it’s hard to clear up this particular dispute. Last month, I wrote for CJR about another recent instance in Colorado in which charges of “fake news” were leveled against a credible news source. That time, the charges came from an anonymous blog. “What’s really disturbing in this context is the fact that he is an elected official, he’s in a position of power,” Seaton said on Monday. So when he attempts to diminish us by calling us ‘fake news’ for the purpose of avoiding that accountability, I’ve got a big problem with that.” “And the purpose of newspapers is to hold those people in positions of power responsible.
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