Jason is a journalist and media critic. From 2004-2009, he was a media critic for the Rocky Mountain News. Jason's columns twice received Denver Press Club/Denver Newspaper Guild awards. Jason is the author of three books: Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits; (with Ben Cohen, of Ben and Jerry's) 50 Ways You Can Show George the Door in 2004; and (with Michael Huttner) 50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America. Jason's chapter, "Journalism and the Scientific Consensus on Global Warming," was published in How the West Was Warmed (Fulcrum, 2009). I’m a co-author of, “Local TV News: Getting Away with Murder,” which appeared in the Harvard Journal on Press/Politics (1997). Jason's articles have appeared in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Christian Science Monitor, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Nonprofit World, Shaman's Drum, Sierra, Utne Reader and elsewhere. Jason is co-founder of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, a nonprofit organization that aims to hold the news media to their own professional standards, like those promulgated by the Society of Professional Journalists. That is also the goal of the Big Media Blog. Jason is also co-founder of Effect Communications, which consults with activists and nonprofit groups on communications issues. Jason is married and has a 12-year-old son, Dylan, who seldom stops, and a nine-year-old daughter, Nell, who never sleeps.
The new measure’s language is more obtuse than the personhood initiatives of 2008 and 2010, enabling law enforcement officials to prosecute people who commit crimes against “unborn human beings.”
Recognizing the public’s hostility toward candidates who want to ban abortion, a Colorado group offers to help candidates who want to conceal their anti-choice views from voters.
Local TV news stations in Colorado, a swing state, are fact checking many of the political ads inundating the airwaves. Two local stations in Denver were mostly right in their recent analyses of ads attacking Mitt Romney’s position on a women’s right to choose.
Romney running mate Paul Ryan, who’s endorsed personhood at the federal level, will have to decide whether to un-endorse the measure or stand behind it.
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) has supported Colorado personhood amendments, which would ban all abortions and some common forms of birth control. Now, he’s announced he will not endorse a personhood measure this year. Why not?
A GOP leader in Colorado tells pro-choice college students, protesting at a Republican fundraiser featuring Foster “aspirin-between-their-legs” Friess, to lighten up and appreciate that abstinence is a form of birth control. But what about the common forms of birth control that some GOP leaders want to ban?
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A Colorado Springs talk-radio host and former GOP House candidate can’t believe how much Sandra Fluke’s birth control costs. He makes “fun” of Fluke by wondering if her “birth control” covers “booze,” “hotel room,” and “cigarettes afterwards.”
Reporters are having a real hard time sorting out Mitt Romney’s position on personhood. Here’s a quick and easy way for journos to think about the issue, and Romney’s evolving stance on it.
In Colorado, some of the highest-ranking GOP politicians in the state are personhood backers, even though the measure was shot down badly both here in 2008 and again in 2010. Will the same politicians who backed the personhood amendment last year jump on board again, now that personhood backers have announced plans to place the measure on the 2012 election ballot in Colorado?
As Mississippi debated then defeated a “personhood” amendment that would have granted legal rights to fertilized human eggs, multiple media outlets reported that GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney refused to clarify whether he supported the measure, which would ban not only abortions but also common forms of birth control and undermine other forms of health care for women.
