In a headline that referenced the online political daily news site Colorado Confidential, the “news” website Face the State on October 17 falsely claimed, “Tim Gill-Backed Website Yanks Critical Article Against A-I.” The headline linked to the Wren's eJournal blog, which on October 17 stated that an October 10 Colorado Confidential diary entry by columnist Jim Spencer about Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's Better Denver tax and bond package was “no where to be seen on that website.” In fact, consistent with Colorado Confidential's practice of featuring its most recent entries on its home page, Spencer's week-old diary was merely moved off of the home page but remains live elsewhere on the website.

Face the State describes itself as “a one-stop-shop for political news affecting Coloradans.” On the July 1 broadcast of KTVD Channel 20's Your Show, founder Brad Jones stated that “if ... your [website] content is regularly incorrect you will lose credibility.” As Colorado Media Matters has documented repeatedly (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), Face the State frequently publishes misleading headlines on its aggregated news articles, employs the well-established conservative tactic of using the noun “Democrat” as an adjective instead of the grammatically correct “Democratic,” and perpetrates other distortions to advance conservative viewpoints and denigrate liberal positions and political figures.

Above the hyperlinked headline containing the false assertion that Colorado Confidential -- which describes itself as “a coalition of long-time progressive bloggers, freelance writers, and professional journalists” -- had “yank[ed]” Spencer's October 10 diary, Face the State featured a larger-type headline that echoed the Wren's eJournal entry to which it referred:

Where'd Jim Spencer's Column Go?

Tim Gill-Backed Website Yanks Critical Article Against A-I

As the excerpt that Wren's eJournal published indicated, Spencer's October 10 Colorado Confidential diary -- headlined “Hickenlooper's Bond 'Magic' Appears to be Working” -- criticized what Spencer considers the paucity of information about the cost of the Better Denver ballot package:

Where did Jim Spencer's column on this same topic go? Here is what Spencer wrote October 10 on Colorado Confidential, today it's no where to be seen on that website:

Jim Spencer :: Hickenlooper's Bond “Magic” Appears to be Working Judging from the TV ads, it's going to be don't ask, don't tell in the run up to the November ballot on eight bond issues and a tax increase in Denver.

All we, the voters, will get is grinning Mayor John Hickenlooper standing in front of a bunch of oversized dancing red foam letters A to I.

Numbers? We don't need no stinking numbers.

If Hizzoner says vote for A to I without telling Denver how much it will cost, we voters should do it - just like lemmings.

A few weeks ago, on the PBS television show Colorado Inside Out, I predicted that we wouldn't.

Today, I'd say the odds are, the majority of us will.

No organized opposition has arisen to oppose the lock-step, numberless approach to marketing $550 million in bond debt and a $27 million property tax increase that will add $63 a year to the bill for a $255,000 home.

The only sticking point right now is that voters will have to mark their ballots nine times, not once. This might cause some confusion, but apparently no sense of outrage or manipulation ... [bold in original]