"We don't need the Denver Post," says Colorado Pols' Jason Bane

• As someone who runs a web site, http://www.elephantjournal.com that's in a similar position as Bane's site (many of our opinion pieces excerpt and link back to real journalism enterprises�"real" being defined as they have real revenues, staff, do some quality original research; while we're more grassroots, opinion-based, and personal), I wish the Post had just called up Bane. Getting lawyers involved is always sad and generally unnecessary as a first step. I would be surprised if Bane wouldn't have been willing to walk back a bit of the excerpting, link more prominently, and the two parties could have indeed entered into a mutually-beneficial gentleman's agreement. Sites and publications like the Post are more and more vital, imho, as they generate original, hopefully well-researched journalism. Sites like elephant, to speak for myself, may get lots of traffic, but are generally just glorified blogs, echo-chambers, and do very little original work. On elephant's side, we're working to change that�to begin paying our many great writers, and to being generating more quality original researched and investigative content. That, of course, takes advertising and readers' support, which is growing but still anemic compared with the good old days of print (which are gone forever).

• Colorado Pols says the Denver Post is worthless, but they whine when they get a letter from the Post telling them they're misusing their copy. They say when they quit linking to the Post, their readers didn't notice, but at the same time they feel obliged to publish a lenghty diatribe explaining something to their readers that the readers themselves don't care about (if you believe Colorado Pols). Does this make sense? No. As far as comparing an opinion blog and a news aggregator -- they're both parasites. Why should I have to distinguish between two types of parasite?

• Gerry -- Jason Bane has never claimed to be a so-called "real journalist" (if "journalism" is really what you call the majority of what the Post does these days). Joe -- Have you ever even read Colorado Pols? My guess is "no" based on your rather silly comment. C'mon guys -- wise up. The Post is totally in the wrong here.

• You people are confusing an opinion blog such as Pols with news aggregators such as Google News and Huffington Post or even the idiotic Drudge wannabe Complete Colorado, (which apparently generates virtually no traffic, hence no battle with the Post). Sites like Pols exist precisely because businesses such as the Post have done such a piss-poor job of providing real insider information and insights or of fostering real public conversations about topics of interest to broad populations of people. Yeah, Pols perhaps should have been more stringent about the amount of Post copy it excerpted but to compare it with actual news aggregators is absurd and ignorant. The Post's idea of addressing the Web audience that wants interaction is to throw open a "Comments" feature to its online content while only rarely engaging its commenters or interacting online with its audience. The Post has a huge staff devoted to covering politics (and a so-called "blog," The Spot) that engages in virtually no real time interaction with its audience on the Web. Threatening new media operators who are doing a better job at meeting the demands of an audience isn't going to save you, Post.

• Jason Bane: just another leech on the teet of real journalists.

• One question for Jason Bane: If you don't need the Denver Post at all, then why do you use so much of their content for your blog??????????????

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