Two days after the Colorado Times Recorder revealed that the Anschutz-owned Denver Gazette was paying for Facebook advertisements spreading falsehoods about Venezuelan gangs in Aurora, the online newspaper stopped running most of those ads.
One Denver Gazette ad, which falsely stated that “Venezuelan gang used violence to seize an Aurora apartment complex,” is no longer on the newspaper’s Facebook advertisement library, while three other Facebook ads spotlighted by the Colorado Times Recorder on Friday were labeled “inactive” in the ad library on Sunday.
One of the Gazette ads, “inactive” as of Sunday, stated: “New video seems to show Venezuelan gangs taking over two Aurora apartment complexes.” Two of the three now “inactive” ads were promoting exaggerated and misleading comments about gang activity from Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman ad Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky. Over a week ago, the pair had walked back their hype and were subsequently being blamed for making Aurora a fictional posterchild for migrant violence.
The Gazette is still paying for two Facebook ads relating to Aurora gangs. One states, “Officials have admitted to arresting suspected Venezuelan gang members in Aurora before recent media attention.” Another ad, launched Friday, states, “Aurora PD is investigating three men linked to a shooting with ties to a Venezuelan gang. Read the full story here.”
The Gazette’s Editor at Large Vince Bzdek did not return an email with the following questions about the Gazette’s ads:
Why did you stop running most of the ads? What was your goal in buying them initially?
Why didn’t you stop running the ads over a week ago, when it became clear that the Venezuelan gang story was being seriously exaggerated?
Will you pay for an ad correcting the false information in the ads that were stopped? (For example, judging from your Sunday column, even you do not believe there’s evidence that two apartment complexes were taken over. Yet your ad, which you stopped running just yesterday, stated, “New video seems to show Venezuelan gangs taking over two Aurora apartment complexes.” Other information in the ads is widely considered false as well.) So, will you launch an ad with a correction?
You have lots of award-winning stories in the Gazette newspapers. Why did you choose to launch Facebook ads promoting your dark stories about migrants during the final months of the election campaign? Did you do so to back Trump and other Republicans who are trying to score political points on the immigration issue?
Over the weekend, Bzdek did address his newspaper’s immigration coverage without mentioning the ads. In an opinion published Sunday, Bzdek defended some — but not all — of the information in the ads, without referencing the ads specifically, writing that national media outlets got the facts wrong about Aurora gangs while the boots-on-the-ground Gazette got it right.
“Contrary to what many national outlets have reported, the gang did take over the Whispering Pines apartment complex in Aurora for some time and sought to collect up to half of the rent from leaseholders, drying up collections for the landlord, according to a law firm’s investigation and letters we obtained,” wrote Bzdek. … “Local media outlets generally still believe that getting the facts out to the people they serve is Job One, respecting the people in their communities enough to let them decide what to pay attention to. Our news isn’t about campaign messages or Nielsen ratings, or ideological slant.”
In fact, multiple local outlets (here, here, here, and more) reported the same facts about the gangs as the national outlets, stating the apartment complexes were not overtaken and correcting misinformation that remained in the Gazette’s ads. Much of the Gazette’s coverage — and most of the information promoted in its ads — stand as an outlier. Bzdek’s column inaccurately states that many national outlets got it wrong but the Gazette, the white-hat local outlet, got the evolving facts straight.
For example, Bzdek wrote that the “gang did take over the Whispering Pines apartment complex in Aurora for some time and sought to collect up to half of the rent from leaseholders, drying up collections for the landlord, according to a law firm’s investigation and letters we obtained.”
In his column, Bzdek uses the law firm’s allegations to support his argument but fails to explain if or how his newspaper confirmed the firm’s investigation — which was paid for by the owners of the apartment complexes and was contradicted by Aurora police investigations, city officials, migrants themselves, and others.
The Denver Gazette was launched in 2020 and is a property of Anschutz’s Clarity Media Group, which also owns the Colorado Springs Gazette and Colorado Politics, a political print and online newspaper. Conservative news content from Clarity Media’s Washington Examiner is published in Colorado on these platforms. Anschutz is a major donor to Republican and conservative causes in Colorado and beyond.
