Salzman: Little touches add a lot in reporting

Detail in Rocky's account of celebration over Dem convention offered real insight

Published January 20, 2007 at midnight

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Like any good writing, the best news stories illuminate details that everyday people can understand.

Small stuff, like the price of a bottle of champagne being drunk over lunch, can say more about people in the news and their priorities than detailed information about how much money they earn or raise for a political cause.

Here's a case in point:

The Denver Post reported Jan. 12 that Democrats had "champagne in hand" at the Capital Grille celebrating the selection of Denver for the Democratic National Convention.

But the story in the Rocky Mountain News about the same lunch added another detail. The Democrats were celebrating "over a $105 bottle of champagne."

It's one thing to spend $30 on champagne or even $50. It's another thing to spend $105, even if the lunch guests were discussing how to raise tens of millions of dollars for the convention. Admirable journalism, I thought.

But then I wondered if the Democrats really ordered the expensive champagne. Maybe they thought it cost $10.50 or something.

So I called co-chair of the Democratic Host Committee Steve Farber, who paid for the $289 lunch, according to the Rocky, and asked.

Farber said, "If I recall on that given day, I said to somebody, 'Bring in a bottle of champagne so we can propose a toast.' "

I asked him if he picked out the $105 bottle. Instead of answering, he asked me why I was asking the question.

I said that if he or the Democrats did not select the expensive champagne, then the Rocky should have explained how they happened to be drinking it. It's a glaring detail to include in a news story.

After hearing this, Farber said he didn't want to talk about the champagne anymore. So I don't know for sure if he selected the $105 bottle himself, but you have to assume he did.

Rocky reporter Daniel Chacon told me he thinks he remembers Farber ordering it, but he's not 100 percent sure.

Chacon said that when he entered the private lunch room, he wondered how much was being spent. So he noted the type of champagne. Later he called the restaurant and asked its price.

Good for Chacon for using the small stuff to help us understand the people making big news.

Break for Caplis? KHOW talk-show host Dan Caplis has a nose for PR. You might recall that Caplis is the guy who in 1993 asked then-Channel 4 news anchor Aimee Sporer to marry him live during the 5 p.m. newscast of a Denver local TV news show.

That was an instant media hit if there ever was one.

Now Caplis is considering a run for U.S. Senate. I accept Caplis at his word that he's serious, and he's not feigning a Senate run to promote his talk show.

The News reports (Jan. 16) that Caplis "will spend the next few months traveling the state and talking with people about whether he should run."

During this time, Caplis should step down from his talk-show job.

Even though Caplis is more of an entertainer than journalist, many people perceive him as a journalist. And it's bad for journalism if the public perceives journalists and politicians as one and the same.

On Wednesday, Caplis' co-host, Craig Silverman, joked about Caplis being on the front page of the Post, as the two discussed his potential candidacy on the air. It was nauseating to hear.

Diapered prostitute. In case you missed it, Mike Jones, the former prostitute who says he had sex with the Rev. Ted Haggard, appeared on the cover of Westword's end-of-the-year edition.

Jones was dressed in a diaper and top hat.

I asked Westword editor Patricia Calhoun how this came to pass.

"I was trying to think of an image that put the past year in an appropriately humorous, cockeyed light," Calhoun wrote, "and happened to open an e-mail from Mike Jones, which included a photo taken of him bare-ass for a project in Miami. Eureka, I said."

Calhoun continued: "When I asked if he'd be willing to pose as Baby New Year, he said, 'I love to get naked.' "

Check out this near-perfect cover for an alternative weekly at Westword.com (Dec. 28), along with Alan Prendergast's funny 2006 roundup stories.

Front-page gossip. The Post threw journalistic standards out the window Jan. 10 when it ran a front-page "scene and heard" story claiming that "it's not exactly a secret that Bill Ritter's people and John Hickenlooper's people aren't always filled with love toward one another."

It was attributed to no one, and didn't deserve Page 1 placement.

Jason Salzman, president of Cause Communications and board chairman of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at salzmanj@RockyMountainNews.com.

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