I got the lowdown on life in Denver last week from Time magazine.

I always tell reporters it's a good experience to be the subject of a story. It makes them better understand the impact of their work.

Perhaps the same holds true for a city. Maybe it helps us see the gap between how people might see us and how life really is.

I laughed when I got to this sentence in the one-page report: "Meteorological disasters, shocking deaths, bureaucratic fumbles and other improbabilities, all separate but equal in their impact, have confounded natives and newcomers alike."

All separate but equal in their impact. Really? How could a reporter know that? I know they weren't equal for me. Sometimes writers can become too wedded to a turn of phrase. Life isn't quite that tidy that every bad thing has equal impact.

And how could a reporter know that the events have "confounded natives and newcomers alike?" Most Americans, trained by Monday Night Football, think this winter is what our weather is like every year. So I can't imagine too many newcomers being confounded. Maybe happy they weren't in Cleveland.

What I saw in the article was a caricature of the city I know, and of course caricatures carry a hint of truth.

I don't attend many cocktail parties. I have trouble figuring out how to eat with a glass in one hand and a party plate in the other. But the writer, Bob Diddlebock, said the "usual" cocktail chatter in Denver is "Range Rovers, real estate, skiing and where to get the best carrot juice." Now I've been here almost 15 years, and I've never once heard anybody talk about where to get carrot juice, let alone which outlet has the best version of that drink.

OK, Diddlebock did get it right that it has been a weird winter, and the ice on the streets did get people down. But have you noticed how quickly spirits seem to have lifted now that the sun is out?

I saw the mayor the other day, John Hickenlooper, the one the story said had gone through "a mile-high mound of woe." Remember what I said about writers having to watch out about falling in love with turns of phrase? You wouldn't have known Hickenlooper had gone through anything except maybe a public speaking class from the way the audience of about 100 responded to his self-deprecating humor. They loved him. They wouldn't let him leave, even though I was standing on deck ready to take my turn sharing a story or two. (Or maybe it was because I was coming next.)

Diddlebock compiled quite a list of Denver's problems, but they've been mounting so fast that even he couldn't keep up. The Judge Manzanares stolen computer flap must have broke after his deadline. But even that didn't seem to have the mayor down when I saw him.

Maybe he's able to keep his spirit up because he spends so much time out of the office. When journalists do, they find out something that Diddlebock's story didn't capture: that life is rarely as bad as some stories make it out to be.

On the same day I met the mayor, a few of us spent the morning with the George Washington High School newspaper staff. The University of Colorado School of Journalism and the Rocky Mountain News are helping the paper out, trying to encourage more young people to get involved in journalism.

I'd hate to read a Diddlebock article on newspapers. I can see the pile of problems he'd cite. But if you could spend an hour with these students, you'd see that the enthusiasm they feel for putting together the Surveyor is no less than what we feel for putting out the Rocky.

That night I attended a musical at Denver's East High School, where about 100 students were involved in putting on West Side Story. Every time I hear those songs I wish that I could write one thing as beautiful. If I could, my life would be complete.

The auditorium was packed, and the students were wonderful. OK, one of them was my daughter. But I would have felt the same way even if I hadn't known any of the kids. They clearly knew how to laugh about the things that went wrong that night.

I'm glad Time spent a bit of ink on Denver. But did they get the story right?

Sort of. But sometimes "sort of" leaves a lot to be desired.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax, Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.