FOX News brings out the dirtball in all of us, Leadville discovers

Leave it to FOX News to elicit even more stereotyping on a story already loaded with bias.

Denver Post reporter Mike McPhee was discussing the bizarre case of Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, of Leadville – arrested in Ireland in a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for depicting the Prophet Muhammad on the body of a dog – when he referred to Leadville as a “dirtball town” and “nothing to write home about.”


Leadville: FOX smeared
Leadville: FOX smeared

That prompted an apology from McPhee in the Leadville Herald Democrat and an invite from state lawmakers Rep. Christine Scanlan, D-Dillon, and Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Parker, who represent Leadville, to join them for “A Day in a Dirtball Town” tour of the mining town-turned tourist spot.

“I feel terrible about it,” McPhee told the paper. “I grew up near Leadville. I wrote a book about the railroads’ race to serve Leadville. I’ve ridden my bike there, stayed at the Delaware Hotel, shopped at the antique stores.”

He went on to explain that the dirtball comment was a reference to the tailings piles scattered around town from Leadville’s mining past – a potential source of tourism that are their own wellspring of controversy. Former Colorado Independent reporter and Leadville resident Katie Redding was all over that story.

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