With former President Donald Trump set to campaign in Aurora on Friday, the Denver Gazette, owned by Republican billionaire Phil Anschutz, is continuing its Facebook advertising campaign that promotes hysteria and falsehoods about Venezuelan gangs.
In total, the Gazette is paying for 9 different ads — with varying text and imagery — about Venezuelan criminals or gang members in Aurora. Of those, three different ads feature the dark image from the viral video, released over a month ago, of criminals standing at the door of an apartment.
Nine of the Gazette’s 21 active Facebook ads are about immigration topics, reflecting GOP themes in the current election. Seven immigration-related ads were launched Oct. 1.
One Gazette ad, for example, which was re-launched just last week, states, “A Venezuelan gang used violence to seize an Aurora apartment complex and demanded up to half of tenants’ rent.”
The advertisement promotes a Gazette story, written back on Sept. 10 about an Aug. 9 investigation by the Perkins Coie law firm, that’s since been disputed by police and Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, who once embraced the firm’s findings. Coffman and Aurora Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky now say the Apartment complexes were “significantly affected” by “criminal activity, including [Tren de Agua, the gang] issues,” not that gangs took over an apartment complex.
Neither Gazette Editor at Large Vince Bzdek nor Publisher Chris Reen returned multiple emails seeking answers to questions about why the ads are running.
Among the unanswered questions is why the newspaper is running ads promoting false and inflammatory information and imagery — some of it outdated — about migrants during the final weeks of the election campaign, while Trump and other Republicans are trying to score political points on the issue.
The Gazette is running one advertisement that states, “The threat to Aurora posed by Venezuelan gangs is serious, and Rep. Crow needs to treat it as such.” Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat, represents Aurora in Congress. The ad links to a Gazette editorial headlined, “EDITORIAL: Rise above politics to quash marauding gangs.” The editorial was written about a month ago, yet the ad is still running.
Another question is whether the Gazette will pay for ads correcting some of their ads.
For example, one Gazette ad that’s no longer running states, “New video seems to show Venezuelan gangs taking over two Aurora apartment complexes.” The video never seemed to show that multiple apartment complexes were taken over. Will they launch an ad with a correction?
The Gazette stopped running two ads about Venezuelan gangs after the Colorado Times Recorder first reported on them last month.
The Denver Gazette was launched in 2020 and is a property of Anschutz’s Clarity Media Group, which also owns two other conservative newspapers: 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.
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