The kicker is, this wasn’t the only time this month that the Post did not, in reporting on fundraising totals, note a wealthy candidate’s contributions to himself. As the Post’s Bartels wrote on Sunday:

Monday was the deadline for candidates to file first-quarter reports showing how much money they raised and spent. An earlier Denver Post story about first-quarter fundraising mistakenly omitted [Colorado Democratic Rep. Jared] Polis’ contribution to himself.
And, self-contributions account for roughly one-sixth of Polis’s first quarter fundraising haul—and more than half of his fundraising total this election cycle.

As the role of money in politics grows, so must reporters’ attention to the basics of the job. One such basic ought to be: don’t file your report on campaign fundraising before the campaigns have filed (and you have seen) theirs.

Correction: This piece originally misidentified the Colorado Congressional District in which Joe Coors Jr. is running. It is the 7th, not the 2nd. CJR regrets the error.

Mary Winter has worked for seven newspapers, most recently the Denver Post, and was assistant managing editor at PoliticsDaily.com. She spent the bulk of her career at the Rocky Mountain News, first in features and later managing the legislative and state government teams. In 2008, she oversaw delegate coverage at the Democratic National Convention for the paper. She wrote a weekly column for the News for 10 years.