Lt. Gov. Diane Denish (Photo by Heath Haussamen
Days after I reported that the office of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish had removed its archive of news releases from its Web site, the news releases are back online.
Today I discovered that the news releases are back on Denish’s Web site, archived all the way to 2003. You can find them here.
I’ve asked Denish Chief of Staff Joshua Rosen in an e-mail for comment, and you’ll read it here if I get one. Rosen said last week that the news releases were removed from the Web site on July 3 because they were “old news” and “archived” as part of “web site maintenance.” He said there was no political reason for removing the news releases.
The state GOP had other ideas. Denish is running for governor, and GOP spokeswoman Janel Causey suggested the news releases were removed to make it more difficult to scrutinize Denish’s past statements.
One more note: In last week’s story I reported that the secretary of state’s Web site doesn’t include archives of its news releases. Today, the secretary of state’s spokesman informed me that his office’s Web site includes archives dating back to 2008.
They’re located on a page with no direct link from the home page, but you can find them by clicking here. My mistake.
That means all statewide elected officials have at least some archives of news releases on their government Web sites.
Update, 5:10 p.m.
From Denish:
“I was recently made aware that press releases had been taken down from the official site. Upon learning this, I have directed my staff to repost these releases.”