Given the amount of drama from politicians and Colorado’s left-leaning news media, you’d think the Nexstar/Tegna merger was life or death, a world-ending decision. But take a close look and you’ll see what amounts to a progressive press double-standard at work.
For the uninitiated, Tegna, the parent company of the local NBC affiliate 9News, is being acquired by Nexstar Media Group, parent company of Denver’s Fox 31, and the deal has Colorado’s progressive press and politicians in a tizzy. Jared Polis, Michael Bennett, Mike Johnston, and Phil Weiser, for example, have been clutching their pearls over the deal since as far back as August 2025. AG Weiser has, unsurprisingly, added it to his taxpayer-funded lawsuit collection.
But what’s particularly odd is the non-profit progressive press concern over news consolidation and duplication. It’s almost comical to watch them crying wolf over the merger when they themselves have made sharing resources and content a team sport in Colorado, and a couple big-name outlets appear to be on the verge of consolidation themselves.
Duplicating the news
A recent Colorado Sun article laid out the concern pretty handily, using one of the news media’s favorite techniques for editorializing. You know the one. It’s when the journalist finds an academic paper making their point, and then presents it as the expert consensus.
In this case the reporter leaned on research showing that academics (both of them–I actually looked up the paper the reporter cited) describe Nexstar as a “news duplicator.” A quote from the Sun piece fleshes this out:
“Laura Antonini, deputy attorney general from California, countered that more hours doesn’t automatically translate into more variety in news products. She cited a University of Delaware study that found consolidation leads to duplication of the news with stations often repeating the same news over and over again sometimes on multiple stations. ‘Nexstar is a news duplicator, meaning they repeat the news over and over again, so to say they are going to increase the number of hours of news is wrong because they will just repeat what they run,’ Antonini said.”
I had to chuckle at this, as the very news outlet it appeared in could also fit into the definition of a “news duplicator.” I’d need a few more hands to count the number of times that the Sun, among other left-of-center Colorado news sites, merely repeated the same news that’s been in multiple other outlets. And I’m not talking about coincidental reporting where two outlets cover the same story, either. I mean the exact same story.
It’s easy enough to see. Just google the name of a news source like Chalkbeat or the Kaiser Family Foundation along with the words “Colorado Sun archive” and you’ll see what I mean. The first result will call up a Sun webpage filled with instances of them running others outlets’ stories. It works the other way too. If you read the Durango Herald, for instance, you often see the Sun’s work show up there.
Nor is the Sun unique. I’ve written multiple times about the Colorado Capitol Alliance, a (formerly) taxpayer funded collaboration between Colorado Public Radio, the Colorado Sun, Rocky Mountain PBS, and Northern Colorado public radio station KUNC. Their work is the very definition of news duplication: a reporter, or reporters, from one or more of the members write an article and it will appear in all the outlets. It’s the same exact news article appearing over and over again in multiple outlets. There are also news outlets all over Colorado, nonprofit and otherwise, duplicating content from Colorado Newsline, a progressive, nonprofit outlet that gets funding from a national group which doesn’t disclose all its donors.
All of this, of course, was happening long before the NexStar/Tegna merger was a thing.
The consolidation bogeyman
The other broad narrative about 9News and Fox 31 sharing a parent company that has tongues clucking is ownership consolidation. The concern is that news organizations combining will decrease the supposed news diversity we’ve all come to know and love from our content sharing media outlets.
Again, however, you see local nonprofit news media treading the same path. In a recent newsletter, journalism professor Corey Hutchins detailed how public media outlets Rocky Mountain PBS and KUNC are mulling a merger.
Quoting: “KUNC public radio in northern Colorado is exploring a merger with a large statewide public broadcaster — and it’s not Colorado Public Radio. The community radio station is looking at linking up with Rocky Mountain Public Media, the large statewide public TV broadcaster.”
Since Hutchins’ newsletter is the only mention I’ve seen of this, I think we could safely conclude that this particular consolidation has drawn little notice or concern from either politicians or the media. I am nearly certain that AG Weiser would be crowing about yet another lawsuit if he thought filing one on this was politically helpful to him.
Hypocrisy and double-standards are things we’ve sadly come to expect from politicians, but it’s more striking when it’s the news media, and when it’s this blatant.
It’s tempting to wonder if the concern about the merger is as much about the fact that this is commercial media as opposed to public or nonprofit–yet another example of nonprofits wanting to set themselves apart as uniquely honorable, and off limits to scrutiny. This impression is bolstered by a quote from Hutchins’ newsletter:
“‘Recent federal funding cuts have created a unique challenge and uncertainty for public media, and this partnership presents an opportunity to strengthen the ecosystem while remaining deeply rooted in the communities they serve,’ KUNC wrote in a statement this week.”
You see, it’s apparently just a whole different set of rules when you’re “serving the community.” When it’s them, duplicative news and consolidation are no longer a problem, but rather “strengthening the ecosystem.”
Whatever the reason for the double standard, the message comes through loud and clear. Sky-is-falling concern over someone else’s actions–which substantively match your own–only makes you look silly, and not particularly trustworthy.
Small wonder many in the media enjoy the same level of confidence as politicians.
