Conservatives from across Colorado participated in a “fun-fundraiser” for The Peak News Educational Foundation’s “Journalistic Ethics and Media Vocational Training Program” at the Pinery in Colorado Springs on Thursday night. The crowd was a diverse mix of current and former elected officials — congressmen, El Paso County Commissioners, Colorado Springs City Councilors, and local school board members, the leaders of the El Paso County chapter of Moms for Liberty, recently pardoned Jan. 6 rioters, local pastors, libertarians, and the Gazette’s Debbie Kelley, who has penned credulous profiles of the ‘J6 Praying Grandma’ Rebecca Lavrenz and conservative faith healer Mario Murillo.
“Here we are tonight representing our whole city and every sector of our whole region,” said Chaim Goldman, the founder and host of Peak News and the organizer behind Church Voter Guides. “I think with that we can really solve some issues. We can talk about some things. We can be creative. But very specifically, because my sphere, my mountain, is media, as well as business, and ministry, and education, and everything else, but it’s primarily media. As I say, we need to take the media back. If we’re going to take our country back, if we’re going to take government back, we have to take media back, because here’s the thing — the media is supposed to be the truth-tellers in society — that and from the pulpit, that’s supposed to be the truth-tellers — but the fact is we’ve lost trust in our media.”
Salem Media, Goldman’s employer and one of the presenter’s of the evening’s event, focused on “journalistic ethics,” is currently involved in a defamation lawsuit from former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer after former KNUS host Randy Corporon platformed Douglas County podcaster Joe Oltmann, whose claims about an alleged “antifa conference call” have been ruled “probably false” by a Denver District Court judge. Last year, Salem Media, the company behind the conspiracy film “2,000 Mules”, issued an apology and said it would halt distribution of the film and remove both the film and book from its platforms.
“I’m honored to support the good work of the Peak News Educational Foundation and specifically their ‘Journalistic Ethics and Media Vocational Training Program,’” said U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank (R-CO) in a prerecorded message for the event. “I recorded my podcast American Potential at Salem Communications every week for the last two years and just recently stopped once I got elected. I was always able to keep an eye on Chaim [Goldman], as well as learn about the important things they’re doing to ensure that elected officials remain accountable to their constituents, as well as making sure that journalists are also held accountable. Now I’d like to focus on a vision for government. We’ve all seen the disastrous consequences to our nation and our community when so-called journalists who are really advocates masquerading as journalists seize control of the media. More and more there’s a blurring of the line between journalism and activism and that isn’t healthy for our first amendment nor is it helpful to our democracy.”
Before introducing former gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl, Goldman took a moment to honor Lavrenz and Tom Hamner. “There were many people that showed up from different parts of the state and staged themselves at prisons across from Englewood to Florence, and camped out for as many as 12 hours to wait for some of these people to get released,” said Hamner, who fought with police officers on Jan. 6 and helped push a metal Trump sign into a defensive line of officers. “It was incredible across the whole United States that this was happening. And thank you, thank you, thank you, one of the things that I think that we’ve got to get involved with is helping these people get back into life.”
Last week U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-CO) expressed concerns about pardons “for those who assaulted law enforcement officers and for those who fought to stop the constitutional certification of the 2020 election … I’m a rule of law Republican, Jan. 6 was a dark day in American history, and it was an assault on our republic and the peaceful transfer of power.”
Ganahl blamed her 2022 gubernatorial loss on Colorado’s media. “The media was a big problem,” said Ganahl, who made apocryphal claims about furries and transgender people during her campaign. “I felt like I was running against the media every day. I would wake up and I’d see the headlines and I’m like, where are they getting this stuff?”
Ganahl also discussed her conservative news site, Rocky Mountain Voice, which Ganahl developed specifically to help Republicans regain political control in Colorado. Ganahl partnered with a firm owned by former Texas Rep. Jonathan Stickland, which rebranded last year as West Fort Worth Management following a scandal in which Stickland met with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of homicide after killing two Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, as part of the genesis of Rocky Mountain Voice. Goldman said Peak News is “honored to be a part of that network.”
Goldman also announced Peak News’ upcoming partnership with Colorado Springs School District 11. “We are going to be teaching this journalistic ethics program as part of the career training and dual enrollment in D11 starting in the fall,” he said. “Students will be able to learn this and get college and high school credit, and learning journalistic ethics and media vocational training, and then plugged into an internship with us.”
D11 board member Jason Jorgenson discussed how the Peak News program will align with the district’s other school choice and career and technical education programs. “D11 is on the move,” he said. “We have so many awesome things happening in our district and in local districts around the region. You know, there’s a lot of things you probably don’t even know about. One of those is a lot of our choice. We’re putting public education back in the hands of the public and the parent. And we’re offering multiple pathways for their students to choose success that is right for them.”
