Rep. Diana DeGette should get more news coverage from the Rocky Mountain News and Rep. Tom Tancredo deserves less.

So far this year, the Rocky offered us 29 staff-written news stories with an exclusive or significant focus on Tancredo's activities (over 15,000 words total) - versus just seven articles for DeGette (fewer than 3,000 words). Sixteen of the Tancredo stories were about his presidential campaign.

Diana DeGette may not be campaigning for president, but she's leading what's arguably a more real and important campaign to provide health insurance for 5 million uninsured kids in America.

As Chief Deputy Whip, she's been assigned the job of lining up a majority of her fellow House Democrats for a bill authorizing $50 billion over five years to do this. Yet we've seen almost nothing in the Rocky about DeGette's role in this, even though the bill passed the House on Wednesday.

For my 50 cents, I'd rather read details about how one of the leaders of the U.S. House is fighting for health insurance for kids than about how Tancredo's going-nowhere presidential campaign is going nowhere.

Tancredo has the support of about 1 percent of Iowa caucus goers yet the Rocky is following the play-by-play of his campaign as if it really mattered, telling us big news like has-been Phyllis Schlafly's support of Tancredo in his little fight with presidential candidate Sam Brownback.

I'd rather read about how DeGette's chief of staff corrals the egos in Washington to support health care than about how an alienated Iowa hog farmer, who's Tancredo campaign chair, is promoting Tancredo's presidential campaign as reported by the Rocky in May. Given that we know so much about Tancredo, so what if his campaign chair takes cell phone calls from his corn field?

Don't get me wrong. I understand that when the home town congressman runs for president, it's news. And many of the Rocky's stories about Tancredo, including the one about the alienated farmer, have been compelling and fun, even if they were low on the meaningfulness scale.

The problem is that Tancredo's campaign is a joke, even judging from the tone of some of the Rocky's own coverage of Tancredo.

In a July 2 Tancredo interview, the Rocky subtly mocked Tancredo by twice asking him, "What are you doing?" This is a useful and fair question. But when a reporter has to repeatedly ask a candidate what he's doing, it should be a clue to the Rocky to cut back on covering him.

Rocky reporter M.E. Sprengelmeyer told me he's irreverent with all the candidates, and it's a mistake to combine Tancredo's presidential and congressional news coverage and compare this with DeGette's coverage.

But it's obvious that Tancredo's presidential run, like his other media-friendly stunts, is an extension of his congressional agenda. This is particularly true now, as more analysts are saying that Tancredo is completely ineffective at whatever he's doing in Iowa - except getting media attention.

Now it's time to move the media spotlight to DeGette. Even if you exclude presidential coverage, DeGette got about half as much coverage in the Rocky as Tancredo in 2007. DeGette's work on health care and food safety, among other things, has been virtually ignored.

The Denver Post has run about half as much news about Tancredo this year as the Rocky. And about double the coverage of DeGette. Still the Post should tell us more about what the congresswoman is up to.

Inexplicably, DeGette ranks not just behind Tancredo in coverage but near the bottom in the dailies' overall coverage this year of the Colorado congressional delegation.

"Sometimes I feel like the local press would be much more interested if I picked a fight with somebody or said something outrageous than if I was just back here working hard every day trying to pass legislation that benefits my constituents and the American public," DeGette told me.

Let's see if local journalists can prove her wrong.

Video questions. The YouTube presidential debate was so informative and entertaining that you'd expect local news outlets to be falling over themselves to duplicate it.

The local show that's best positioned to do this is Your Show, Channel 20's public affairs program, whose content (topics, interview questions) is determined by viewers.

Host Adam Schrager says people can also send him video questions via the show's Web site, but no one's done this yet. He agrees that this could make effective TV.

Next time Your Show has a major interviewee lined up, Schrager should plead with viewers (using promos on 9News and elsewhere) to submit video questions. And if Your Show won't do it, another outlet in town should give this experiment a serious shot.

Jason Salzman, president of Cause Communications and board chairman of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at salzmanj@RockyMountainNews.com.