If I Do Say So Myself   

Here's what I told AJR's Jill Rosen when she came to Denver to do the zillionth story on "New Editor Greg Moore to save Denver Post from itself":

"You're doing the wrong story."

After reading Rosen's well-written but fawning piece on Moore and the Post ("The Next Level," December/January), I remain even more convinced that the real story in Denver journalism is what is going on at the Post's rival, the Rocky Mountain News, under Editor and Publisher John Temple.

There is a bias here: I've known Temple for 20 years and have been a Rocky reporter for the last decade. But John Temple came to Denver 11 years ago and found a newspaper that trailed the Denver Post. Today, it is the Post that often plays catch up to a gutsy paper that grabs people's attention with its design, imaginative photos, strong local coverage and ability to chase the big story with national interest.

Under Temple, the Rocky has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer and has won two Pulitzers for spot news photography, for the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and Colorado's 2002 wildfires.

John Temple doesn't have those East Coast credentials that the industry seems to love, but he does have something better: the love of a good story and a canny sense of how to play it.

Lynn Bartels
Reporter
Rocky Mountain News
Denver, Colorado