Buck Fush

Penoyer turned up on Rush Limbaugh's syndicated radio show and local outlets such as Channel 4, where, on September 21, she made a series of statements that ranged from dunderheaded to disingenuous. When she saw the phrase in question, she said, her first thoughts were, "Is it legal to put in the paper? Profanity?" (Answer: Fuck yes.) She followed up that remark by insisting, "It doesn't even matter, the word after that. It could have been 'trees.'" Truth be told, CSU student Republicans would have only protested the line "FUCK TREES" had the president been a Republican named Mr. Trees. Still, Penoyer came off better than McSwane, who looked shell-shocked and tentative on screen. He sat for a slew of interviews on September 21 in the name of "transparency," but he says that after a Channel 4 package took a random remark out of context in a way that twisted its meaning, he changed his mind. "That was the moment I decided I wasn't going to talk to people anymore," he reveals.

The board meeting that evening was "overwhelmingly positive," in McSwane's view. He was caught off-guard by the level of support he received, and so was his mother, Shelly Hansen — which explains why she found the next day's coverage to be so lacking. She was dismayed that most news outlets said CSU Republicans had gathered over 500 signatures on a petition urging McSwane to step down but neglected to include the fact that student Kris Hite collected more than 700 signatures from those backing him. She also felt that outlets made it seem as if most speakers excoriated McSwane when the breakdown was actually nineteen pros versus just twelve cons.

An exception was an article by the Rocky Mountain News's John Ensslin that appears only on the tabloid's website. But space was found in the physical paper for "Student's Woes Not a Big Surprise," which juxtaposes a few nice remarks about McSwane courtesy of Hansen and Wieland with oodles of biting quotes from an array of former Collegian colleagues, who portrayed him as an arrogant fame-seeker. Take the comments of Collegian vet James Baetke, currently an intern for a branch of E.W. Scripps, the Rocky's owner. He said that McSwane wanted to incorporate information about the news-gathering process that he, Baetke and cohort Vimal Patel went through to complete a first-rate January-February series of reports about unlocked campus buildings as a way of "shining the spotlight on themselves," only to have other students veto the idea.

In reality, omitting at least one part of the backstory was a significant journalistic mistake that had negative repercussions down the road. Specifically, Patel and McSwane were caught by university police inside a campus building during the course of their reportage, and McSwane says the cops threatened to charge them and Baetke, who was found nearby, with burglary and trespassing. In the end, no charges were filed, but Patel, McSwane and Baetke served brief suspensions from the Collegian. This information should have been made public, and it was — but not by the Collegian. It formed the basis of an embarrassing February 2 piece in the Coloradoan, a Fort Collins daily.

Not that the Coloradoan got off scot-free in the mortification department. JP Eichmiller, the author of the Coloradoan article, used to work at the Collegian, and Coloradoan editor Robert Moore says he subsequently learned that "there was some antagonism" between the parties. This bad blood boiled over after Collegian types called the Coloradoan to complain about Eichmiller having been given the assignment. Moore confirms that Eichmiller responded by leaving an angry phone message for then-Collegian editor Brandon Lowrey. The harangue, highlighted by the line, "I guess ruining everyone else's life isn't always what it's cracked up to be, is it?," was later reprinted it its entirety by the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, a Fort Collins weekly that needled the Coloradoan over the perceived conflict.