In his Rocky Mountain News column on April 6, Mike Rosen repeated the misleading suggestion he first made on the April 4 broadcast of his Newsradio 850 KOA radio show: that the “liberal” Denver Post “underplayed” stories regarding a controversial email that state Rep. Michael Merrifield (D-Manitou Springs) sent to a colleague. Rosen's column, like his radio show remarks, compared the Post's coverage of the Merrifield email story unfavorably with that of the Rocky Mountain News, claiming that the Post had “nothing in print” on March 30 and had “only a brief story on its Web site on March 31.” However, as Colorado Media Matters noted on April 4, the Post published two articles about Merrifield's resignation on its website the afternoon of March 30.

The column also recycled Rosen's radio remarks faulting the Post for not mentioning the email in the headline of its online article about the resignation. But Rosen failed to note that the email was prominent in the first paragraph of that article and in the headline on an Associated Press article published on the Post's website that same day.

Merrifield resigned as chairman of the House Education Committee on March 30 after public disclosure of an email he sent to state Senate Education Committee chair Sue Windels (D-Arvada), in which he stated that "[t]here must be a special place in hell" for supporters of charter schools.

In his column, Rosen wrote, “A comparison of newspaper coverage in Denver [of the Merrifield controversy] is instructive”:

Commendably, the Rocky Mountain News was on top of the story from the beginning with straight-up reporting by April Washington the morning of March 30 on the disclosure of the e-mail, and another report, March 31, on Merrifield's resignation, with this headline: “Ed chairman quits over e-mail.”

Then, there's the liberal Denver Post. In its news coverage, there was nothing in print on March 30. And only a brief story on its Web site on March 31 (the Post doesn't publish a print edition on Saturdays), spinning the headline: “Merrifield steps down, cites cancer.” Please.

Rosen added, “For the Post, this was an underplayed two-day story, quickly buried and conspicuously short on outrage.”

As Rosen noted in his column, the Post does not publish a print edition on Saturdays, so the Post published an article about the email on April 1 -- its first print opportunity following the Rocky Mountain News' Friday, March 30, article. However, the day the News article appeared, March 30, the Post published on its website an article noting that the email contributed to Merrifield's decision to resign his chairmanship.

From Jennifer Brown's article, “Merrifield steps down, cites cancer,” posted on The Denver Post's website March 30:

Rep. Michael Merrifield, a powerful Democrat battling cancer and the public release of a biting e-mail blasting charter schools, stepped down as leader of the House Education Committee today.

“I don't want my remarks or my health to sidetrack the important work” of the committee, the Colorado Springs lawmaker said in a statement.

In a December e-mail to Senate Education Committee chair Sue Windels that was posted on a political blog this week, Merrifield said “there must be a special place in hell” for people who support school vouchers, privatizing and charter schools.

Contrary to Rosen's suggestion that the Post was downplaying the story through its headline, the newspaper also published on its website March 30 an AP article that cited the email in its headline.

As Colorado Media Matters noted (here and here), the March 30 and March 31 News articles Rosen praised failed to note that the “political Web site” FacetheState.com -- which disclosed Merrifield's email to Windels -- has a conservative agenda and was created by Brad Jones, who has worked for numerous Republican campaigns and for the conservative Independence Institute think tank.