This story originally appeared in Corey Hutchins journalism newsletter, ‘Inside the News in Colorado’, on August 7, 2026. You can subscribe to his newsletter here.
Journalist, editor, and content strategist Mike Lasusa spent several years as a reporter for the respected legal website Law360.
He also served as the deputy director of content at InSight Crime where he oversaw award-winning coverage of organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Now based in Lakewood, just outside of Denver, Lasusa has been publishing news each week for his digital site The Blanket.
He describes the publication as an “independent media outlet that delivers trustworthy, actionable reporting on Colorado’s biggest challenges with a focus on seeking solutions and holding decision-makers accountable.”
A recent story explained how Colorado has become a key battleground over the role of local authorities amid federal immigration crackdowns. Included in the story is a 45-minute video interview he conducted with CU Boulder immigration and constitutional law professor Deep Gulasekaram.
Another recent story titled, “Would raising taxes on high incomes hurt Colorado’s economy?” tackles a potential ballot measure for a graduated income tax. In it, Lasusa pokes holes into an analysis by the Common Sense Institute, which he called a business-friendly think tank. No one at the organization would engage when he pressed them on certain aspects of their analysis, he wrote.
I’ve been a journalist for many years and I’ve covered a lot of reports like this. And I have to say, it raises some pretty big red flags that the Common Sense Institute either can’t or won’t defend the central thesis of this report.
While the Common Sense Institute has been dinged by other Colorado journalists in the past, the reports it churns out often get picked up and retailed uncritically by mainstream news outlets in Colorado — some more than others.
Here’s Lasusa doing a video explainer about his reporting:
Other recent stories include headlines like “How to reform prisons in Colorado,” “Colorado’s new immigration jail,” and “Colorado is upgrading a rarely used statewide gang database.”
So, how does a one-man operation like this work?
“A big part of The Blanket’s reporting involves curating great solutions and accountability journalism being done by other Colorado outlets,” he says on his site. “We also add value by digging into public records and data, and talking to knowledgeable, credible sources who can add context or clarification based on professional expertise and lived experience.”
The Blanket’s general policy is to “minimize our use of AI as much as possible, and to be transparent when we do use it,” the site states in its About section.
“We may use AI for rote editorial tasks like transcription and copy editing,” it goes on. “We may also use it for technical tasks like writing code or creating graphics, or to improve accessibility by providing narration or translation for articles and videos. We will never use AI as a reporter or fact-checker.”
Corey Hutchins is co-director of Colorado College’s Journalism Institute, reports on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and is a journalist for multiple news outlets. Subscribe to his Inside the News newsletter, here.