The Citizen Kane Era Returns

Last month, the Denver Business Journal showed that international banking scandals can be a major focus of local reporting. In its article “LIBOR scandal may cost Denver schools money,” the low-circulation trade magazine documented how the interest-rate scandal, which originated in the United Kingdom, could end up bilking Colorado taxpayers of millions thanks to a refinancing plan for schools orchestrated in 2008 by then superintendent Michael Bennet. His controversial scheme placed Denver’s public-school-district pension fund in the hands of the finance industry, which later underwrote his U.S. Senate campaign.
In a state facing recurring budget deficits and underfunded schools, such losses are a blockbuster story—just as they are in every municipality whose finances have been destroyed by conniving politicians. But to date, most Coloradans haven’t heard about the local implications of the LIBOR scandal or the problems with the school-refinancing scheme. That’s because their media market’s dominant broadsheet, the Denver Post, has chosen not to invest serious resources in reporting on them.
Why the reticence from the square state’s newspaper of record? I ask this question in the September edition of Harper’s Magazine—and after many months of reporting, I found that the answer was far more insidious than mere newsroom layoffs.

Read more: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2012/08/hbc-90008782