Opening the Conversation
COLab - December5, 2020
There are times when she does not recognize herself. Who is this cautious woman whose heart hammers …
News Team
Helping newsrooms across Colorado grow stronger with reporting, editing, and hands-on training.
- News Team journalists Susan Greene (left), Tina Griego (middle), and John Ferrugia (right)
About the Project
Veteran, award-winning journalists Susan Greene, Tina Griego, and John Ferrugia are helping Colorado newsrooms produce in-depth narrative, explanatory and investigative reporting. They are offering reporting and editing help and hands-on training to help ensure that important stories in all parts of the state are reported with the depth they deserve.
The Work
State Mental Health Safety Net is “Failing” Coloradans
COLab - December 5, 2021
Will planned reforms fix or further the problems?...
Fatal Shooting Lawsuit Alleges Culture of Excessive Force in Kiowa County
Susan Greene - October 20, 2021
By Susan Greene
Kiowa County Sheriff’s Department’s pattern of condoning illegal searches and tolerating excessive force led to last year’s killing of a handyman by the local undersheriff and a rookie deputy, a...
Kiowa County’s Sheriff Resigns Amid Controversy Around Fatal Shooting
COLab - May 5, 2021
By Susan Greene
Casey Sheridan has announced his resignation as Kiowa County sheriff a year after two of his officers gunned down an unarmed handyman during a routine traffic stop. The second-term law...
Deputy Accused of Killing Unarmed Man Had History of Using Deadly Force
COLab - May 4, 2021
By Susan Greene
Kiowa County’s sheriff ignored questionable incidents, records show ...
Three Bullets to the Back: The Striking Silence Around a Police Killing in Small-town Colorado
COLab - March 11, 2021
By Susan Greene and Priscilla Waggoner
KIOWA COUNTY, Colo. – Nearly a year has passed since the local undersheriff and a rookie deputy gunned down handyman Zach Gifford in this Eastern Plains county where trust in law...
After Wanting to Die, Learning to Live
COLab - January 29, 2021
By Susan Greene
Navee Essien has grown up keenly aware of her gifts. More times than she can count, people have reminded the senior at Aurora’s Rangeview High how fortunate she is to...
How We're Making a Difference
Reflections
John Ferrugia joins COLab’s team!
Laura Frank - March 31, 2021
Dear reader, I am thrilled to announce that John Ferrugia has joined the COLab staff to help us strengthen news throughout Colorado. John has won more professional honors than any other investigative...
Working Through Uncertainty
Laura Frank - November 13, 2020
Dear reader, Yesterday, Susan Greene was hard at work — helping a trio of our partner newspaper editors prep for a project with the Colorado News Collaborative. She helped lead a...
The Pits in Our Stomachs
Susan Greene - November 2, 2020
Dear reader, Words generally come easily for me. But I have been struggling for seven months to name how it feels to live through this time. The pit in my...
Finding Connection
Tina Griego - October 26, 2020
Dear reader, We at COLab think a lot — one could say “obsessively” — about readers, listeners and viewers of local news. We think about people we know and whom...
Your Thoughts on Truth-Telling and Bias
Susan Greene - October 6, 2020
Dear reader, Wow. We asked for your thoughts last week on the test the Trump administration has posed to journalists seeking to be “objective” while adhering to the obligation to...
The case for not holding our tongues
Susan Greene - September 29, 2020
Dear reader, From our angst department, I’m writing to fill you in about an ethical question I and journalists across the country are wrestling with this election cycle – one...
There Aren’t Enough Burts to Go Around
Tina Griego - September 22, 2020
Thank you and good luck to a Colorado reporter with a mind for data and a heart for people...
The Hunger for News Among Colorado’s Immigrant and Refugee Communities
Tina Griego - September 8, 2020
Dear reader, Before the pandemic and all that has spiraled from it — the quarantines, the distancing, the business closures, the lost work and childcare, the how-do-I-pay-the-bills-and-feed-the-kids panic — Diana...
Stonewalled: Kiowa County Sheriffs Won’t Explain Why They Killed Zach Gifford
Susan Greene - August 31, 2020
Dear reader, Brandon, population 21, lies three hours southeast of Denver. It’s a speck of a place amid Colorado’s Southeastern Plains as they reach toward Kansas. On the afternoon of April...
On Longing
Susan Greene - August 6, 2020
Dear reader, Tina and I have spent much of the last month knee-deep in documents for a difficult investigative project we’re still piecing together. So instead of a newsy newsletter,...
News Team
Susan Greene is a reporter, editor and coach for the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab). She was editor and executive director of The Colorado Independent and a longtime reporter and columnist at The Denver Post. Susan has been honored by the National Press Foundation, ACLU, Society of Professional Journalists and Colorado Press Association for her First Amendment work and coverage of criminal justice, mental health and civil rights. She was selected as a 2020-2021 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow, and is the inaugural recipient of the Benjamin von Sternenfels Rosenthal Grant for Mental Health Investigative Journalism. Read more of Susan’s work.
Tina Griego is an editor, reporter and coach for the Colorado News Collaborative. She was most recently the managing editor of The Colorado Independent. Tina has been a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, but has spent most of her career in Colorado as a reporter and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post. Her work on immigration, education and urban poverty has received multiple national and state awards. Tina lives in Fort Collins with her husband and two kids. She’s a native New Mexican and prefers red over green. Read more of Tina’s work.
John Ferrugia is a special projects journalist, trainer and coach for the Colorado News Collaborative. Colorado’s most honored investigative reporter, John’s reporting has been honored with journalism’s highest national awards, including two duPont-Columbia Awards, three Peabody Awards, a national Murrow, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, as well as numerous regional Emmys and other honors. He is an honored member of the Heartland Emmy Silver Circle for his career contribution to broadcast news. After graduating from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, John worked in Florida and Kansas City before joining CBS News in 1980 in Washington, D.C. He reported from around the world as a White House correspondent covering President Ronald Reagan and as a correspondent for the CBS newsmagazine “West 57th.” He moved to Denver in 1989 to anchor news and report for KCNC-TV. He joined KMGH-TV to head the investigative team in 1992. And in 2016, he joined Rocky Mountain PBS as anchor and managing editor of the nationally recognized program “Insight with John Ferrugia.” John and his wife Mona have two sons and live in Denver.
Related Opportunities
November 24, 2020
Times are tough all over, maybe more so than any point in most of our...
Collaborative Partners
This project was made possible through collaboration between newsrooms and journalists across the state, who are active partners in the Colorado News Collaborative, or COLab.
To support the statewide effort, donate to the Colorado News Collaborative.