On Aug. 1, The Denver Post exposed the names, locations, voter registrations, and employment of three private citizens who legally obtained public information and sent some to the popular social media account Do Better Denver. On Aug. 7, a Denver Post columnist defended the paper’s decision to dox the three women for sharing public information.
“People who claim to be citizen journalists must stand by their work with a byline and endure the negative comments and threats that come with the job,” wrote Denver Post columnist Krista Kafer.
The Post identified the three people it doxxed by doing a public records request for those women’s public records requests: “The Post filed open records requests to obtain copies of requests tied to DoBetterDNVR,” wrote The Post’s crime reporter Shelly Bradbury in her Aug. 1 article. On Aug. 5, the Denver Gazette confirmed the three doxxed women are not the account administrator. The public records they shared with the account holder comprise less than 1 percent of Do Better Denver posts.
Bradbury also wrote that the Post targeted the women specifically for exercising their legal rights to view public information. The three, Bradbury wrote, “stand out because of their involvement in the account since its early days in 2023, their connections to each other, and because they did not just send a single video or photo to the account but pursued information through open records requests.”
Do Better Denver alleged the Post did this at the behest of local government officials angry about public disclosures of their activities. One public record one of the women discovered, for example, showed the city paid $2.1 million for vacant rooms for illegal immigrants. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s spokesman did not respond to Federalist requests for comment Monday.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/12/denver-post-doxxes-citizens-for-sharing-pictures-and-public-records-about-crime/