CBS 4 Publishes Hit Piece Against Mile High Evening News Publisher

They just couldn’t help themselves, could they?

In what can only be described as an attempted slime job aired on CBS 4 News at 10 with an accompanying article, the Denver news network photoshopped pictures and selectively edited interview footage to turn me into a would-be criminal threatening Jeffco school board member Stephanie Schooley, who falsely accused me of “encroaching on her family’s space and bringing my grievances into her home.”

Schooley is lying, and CBS 4 (predictably) cast me as a villain. Fortunately, I have the entire interview video (see the bottom of this article).

In case you missed what started this, in August I mailed anonymous letters to four out of the five Jeffco school board members urging them to support parents’ right to choose whether their kids should employ face masks as a medical intervention against COVID-19 (a virus that presents school children with absolutely zero risk).

Investigative reporter Brian Maass reached out to me in early November asking for an interview for a piece he was working on about the conflict between school boards and parents. I was under the impression that the piece was a long-form investigation of the larger issue, but apparently the piece was specifically about this specific incident.

The CBS segment began by describing so-called “hostility” directed at school boards and clips of parents arguing and yelling at school board meetings (not me, of course), followed by Schooley describing people (apparently) calling her a Nazi and accusing her of contributing to rape culture (again, not me). She is described favorably, with smiling stock pictures of her, while my “stock” introduction video is randomly pulled from the end of the segment and makes me look like a nut job:

The segment follows with a description of my inclusion of pictures in the letters, and the picture that I took at my house and put in my original article, which is not a picture of Schooley’s home and which CBS 4 photoshopped to imply that it was the picture of Schooley’s house. At least the bad Photoshop job was credited to CBS 4 in the article:

In an apparent display of mind reading, Schooley states, “The intention was to intimidate and to make me feel unsafe.” She reportedly described my letter as a “veiled threat,” and claimed in a September 2nd board meeting that I somehow involved her family, although the meeting video does not specifically cite my letters.

I was described as an “anti-mask advocate” (a description I’m very proud of) before the segment notes that “prosecutors have dropped the case, saying they could not meet their burden of proof.” Yes, the burden of proof of a crime must first start with an actual allegation. There was no “case” to drop. Even the CBS segment quotes the district attorney’s office as reminding, “Our office cannot ethically file charges for crimes that cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.” Clearly, it’s not a crime to do the same thing the paparazzi and Google Maps do all the time.

Footage follows where I answer a question about seeing pictures of homes as “over the line” (a question I was asked many times – likely to get a more “incriminating” quote), immediately followed by Schooley laughing (to make my response seem unbelievable):

When asked how I felt about the appropriateness of challenging unpaid board members, I answered, “They are making decisions that affect every student in Jefferson County” and (if I were them) “I would want to have that conversation.”

The interview ends with a quote from Schooley, saying that if she knew this was the kind of thing an unpaid school board member would face, she might not have run. On this, we agree.

If you choose to run for an elected position that grants broad power over the school children of your county but can’t handle parents voicing their views via legal avenues, you should not have run and you should probably step down.

Below is the entire interview with Brian Maass. For the record, he is a nice guy and a good interviewer, and I don’t know if it was him or someone else who put together the narrative for the TV segment. He had an angle that he was reaching for, and the final product ended up very clearly taking sides and lamenting that I wasn’t charged with a crime. Fortunately, I have the entire video of my segment, which adds needed context to the bits and pieces CBS selected: