This week, Colorado Springs' daily paper The Gazette published a four-day series about the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. But the paper mislead its readers by not clearly disclosing that editorial board members, along with a vocal legalization opponent, wrote the coverage, said the Columbia Journalism Review.
The Cannabist's Ricardo Baca echoed the thought, telling CJR that the general public "will have no idea" that Christine Tatum, the vocal legalization opponent who wrote some of the coverage, is married to a doctor "that has been one of the most vocal voices in this whole process warning of the potential unintended consequences of all this.”
CJR didn't find the writing particularly compelling either:
When it comes to the content of The Gazette’s series, made up of some 20 individual stories, it reads like a fact-dumping, throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to proving the argument that pot legalization in Colorado was a bad idea.
At the Colorado Springs Independent, Bryce Crawford asked "Is the Gazette's new marijuana series a joke?"
The four-day series was written by three people: Wayne Laugesen, Pula Davis and Christie Tatum.
None of these people work for the news division of a newspaper. Laugesen and Davis are members of the Gazette's editorial board, which has written so many diatribes against cannabis, all compositions led by Laugesen, ownership is practically screaming in the woods.
