9News would have problems in the wake of Lee Keltner’s killing regardless, but the station’s problems are worse because its most prominent anchor frequently targets for ridicule the same kind of person Matthew Dolloff targeted with his gun.
Two weeks ago, Kyle Clark’s tweets were cute enough, if you didn’t mind seeing your neighbors bullied by the local newscaster. Now, a growing number of Coloradans are reading Clark’s commentary differently: as inexcusably hostile toward the Lee Keltners of our state, who deserve better than the treatment they receive from 9News’ anchors and security guards alike.
Certain other journalists have long recognized that Clark damages the brand — both his station’s and their profession’s. The Colorado Springs Gazette in an editorial identified Clark as “a liberal political activist.” Veteran Colorado reporter Joey Bunch said, “Kyle is kind of a quasi-newsman.”
But while others have critiqued, Clark’s superiors have been content to watch him transform the 6:00 news into half-an-hour of preening sanctimony, and his social media channels into bloody political bludgeons. As Clark abuses his position under their watch, they richly deserve the problems he has created for them now.
One consequence of Clark’s unprofessional activism: it has made 9News a ridiculous hypocrite. In a September tweet that re-circulated widely after Keltner’s death, Clark wrote, “Shame to think there are people cowering in the suburbs, cleaning their guns, wondering if every person of color outside is Antifa. If you’re afraid to come into Denver because of talk radio fear-mongering, you’re missing out on a lot.”
That’s quite a sneer and smear, especially considering that, when he wrote it, Clark must have known his employer was worried about violence downtown and had hired guards to protect his “cowering” colleagues.
An eviler consequence of Clark’s activism: it makes his audience fear people like Lee Keltner. Clark frequently portrays right-wingers as dangerous loons. On Oct. 8, two days before Keltner’s killing, he likened the Michiganders who plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to perfectly innocent Coloradans who oppose Gov. Jared Polis. On Aug. 30, he tweeted a video of an unmasked man having a meltdown in a store and said, “Anti-masker America is terrifying. Add guns and this is how lives are lost.”
When people are frightened, they’re dangerous; and Clark tells people to feel frightened around the Lee Keltners of Colorado. It will be interesting to see whether the inevitable wrongful death lawsuits against 9News draws a straight line between the attitudes of its news coverage and the attitudes of its security guards.
Another evil consequence of Clark’s activism: by excusing violence from groups aligned with him politically, Clark encourages more of it. When my friend Michelle Malkin headlined a “Back the Blue” rally in Denver on July 19, a leftwing group attacked her and her fellow rally-goers. She posted enough evidence online that the Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security condemned the attack as “outrageous violence,” but Clark minimized it as “opposing speech” and posted a photo of Malkin looking upset for his followers to scoff at.
The left-wingers who assembled to antagonize Lee Keltner and his friends at the Patriot Muster might well have expected similar support from 9News. Jeremiah Elliot, the leftwing instigator captured on video screaming racial epithets at Lee Keltner immediately before Dolloff shot him, might well have expected similar support — and he received it, when a 9News interview on Thursday, Oct. 15, insanely cast him as quivering victim instead of blatant aggressor and promoted his GoFundMe.
9News has given Kyle Clark a uniquely privileged perch in Colorado media. He inherited from others, who toiled long before he arrived on the scene, the most-watched slot on the most-watched network in Denver; and after an initial ratings slip, apparently he’s somewhat regained his footing.
With his privilege comes duty — if not of fairness and impartiality, at least of the negative kind: duty not to mock people for worrying publicly about the violence that worries his station privately; not to set neighbor against innocent neighbor; not to wink at assaults against groups and individuals he dislikes.
Clark has failed in that duty. 9News has failed to correct him.
Together, they’ve failed the people of Colorado.
Daniel Cole is the former communications director of the Colorado Republican Party.
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