It’s now well established that Venezuelan gangs did not take over apartment complexes in Aurora, but the Denver Gazette, a conservative online newspaper owned by GOP billionaire Phil Anschutz, is still running Facebook advertisements falsely claiming that a “Venezuelan gang used violence to seize an Aurora apartment complex” and “New video seems to show Venezuelan gangs taking over two Aurora apartment complexes.” See these ads and other dubious ones here.
The ads, which link to Gazette stories that contained information known to be false (“gangs taking over two apartment complexes”) when they were published earlier this month, are still being actively promoted by the Gazette on Facebook. Aurora Police never found evidence of a gang takeover of an apartment complex, much less two of them.
A misleading Gazette Facebook ad, also still active, states that “Mayor Coffman says the armed takeover of several Aurora Apartments was a ‘nightmare situation.'”
Another misleading ad reads, “Aurora councilmember promotes claims of Venezuelan gang takeover of city apartments.”
Both Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and Aurora Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky are now saying that claims of gang activity in Aurora, which they rang alarm bells about, were hyped.
Yet, the Gazette is still running the ads.
Coffman and Jurinsky are waging a PR offensive trying to protect Aurora’s image, but that’s an uphill climb with former President Donald Trump falsely saying Venezuelan gangs have taken over Aurora and announcing he’ll be dropping into Aurora in the coming weeks to prove it. “You may never see me again,” joked Trump at a rally when he told people he’d be going to Aurora.
The Gazette‘s ads, while promoting dark imagery about immigrants that the GOP sees as beneficial in November’s election, are undermining Aurora’s efforts to fight misinformation about the gangs.
In an email to Vince Bzdek, the Gazette‘s executive editor, the Colorado Times Recorder asked the following questions:
Were you aware of these ads, and why are you running them?
Will you stop running these ads given that the information you’re promoting is now widely considered false?
And, especially in light of Trump’s upcoming visit, will you pay for an ad correcting the false information in the current ads?
Bzdek did not respond.
This is not the first time the Gazette has launched misleading ads. Last year, Bzdek defended a Gazette ad campaign urging people to leave The Denver Post “in the past” and to turn to “reliable news you can trust” in the Gazette, implying — without evidence — that you cannot trust The Post. Bzdek, who spent 18 years at the Washington Post as a writer and editor, said he fully supported the campaign, explaining that it’s intended “to distinguish ourselves, and communicate that Denver has an alternative news source.”
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.
Aurora Gazette?
The Gazette’s misinformation may not win the newspaper any fans in Aurora, but Bzdek has said he hopes to expand the Gazette’s chain there.
Asked on a conservative radio show last year if he’d like to start an Aurora Gazette, Bzdek replied, “We feel like we’re adding to coverage there already. But I would love that.”
