
Super blue moon rises over Denver
It is a night for the ages in Denver as a full, super blue moon rises in a rare combination that's like a trifecta. It's the first time in over five years.
Watch CBS News
Alan Gionet loves living and working in Colorado. He has been in news for more than 30 years. "I find new things every day and truly love people, so this is a great job for me."
Alan started in a small market in Mississippi where he lugged the camera and the video recording deck around, shot, wrote and edited stories; then put together the newscast.
He also anchored and reported in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he exposed deplorable conditions in the state's foster care system resulting in more vigorous enforcement on behalf of children and reported on worker safety issues leading up to the largest workplace fine in state history.
Prior to his first stint at CBS Colorado in the early 1990s, Alan worked as an investigative reporter in Providence, Rhode Island, where he reported on the city's infamous, but charming mayor Buddy Cianci and exposed tax breaks for nonprofits.
While at CBS Colorado in the 1990s, Alan reported extensively on forest fires and was the first to report that the firefighters killed on Storm King Mountain did not get critical information about the changing weather conditions that put them in danger. He also showed how registered sex offenders were often not living where they showed their registered addresses.
In the late 1990s, Alan left to serve as main anchor in Jacksonville, Florida where he was later also named nightside managing editor. He logged many hours during hurricanes and the 2000 election controversy, when he first revealed voting irregularities in Duval County. His reporting on endangered North Atlantic right whales brought national focus to a little-known species, of which there are only a few hundred known left. His newscasts won a long list of awards including Emmys and Edward R. Murrow Awards and individually Alan has been lauded with Heartland Regional Emmy Awards covering the Denver area as top anchor and for his innovative Good Question reporting. He has won awards for everything from spot news to feature stories.
Alan returned to CBS Colorado in the 2000s and is glad to be back in Colorado with his wife and four grown daughters. His love of journalism is surpassed only by his love of fatherhood. He has covered all of Colorado's biggest stories over those years, like forest fires and environmental stories, mass killings and COVID. A student of science and politics, he loves to break down complicated concepts and ask questions that get to the core of the story. He reads extensively, plays blues harmonica and hockey and loves trail running. He has marked off quite a few of Colorado's 14ers.
"If you're a television journalist, CBS News Colorado is recognized as one of the greatest places to work the nation, because of the quality of reporting, the videography and the team atmosphere," Alan says. "I consider each new person and place in Colorado a privilege. I believe in listening, it's a skill my parents, who were both highly regarded public educators, taught me that I treasure."
Alan holds a degree from Boston's Emerson College where he studied broadcast journalism. He also studied at Harvard University Extension and the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Amherst.
Just The Facts
Dream job: That's why I returned to CBS Colorado. There's no place I'd rather be.
Favorite word: Understanding - intelligence is the ability to consider another's point of view.
Favorite noise: The sound of children laughing
Year hired: 1994 (first stint at CBS Colorado) and again in 2006
First TV appearance: Tupelo, Mississippi
First story: The death of an impoverished woman in Mississippi.
Most memorable interview: An African-American high school principal in Mississippi who said after a racial incident: "Show me a man who who has a problem with Black people and I'll show you a man with a problem with all people."
Dream interview: Meriwether Lewis
Star sign: Virgo
Why I am a journalist: I love the craft of storytelling. I enjoy writing television news and the access I get to people and places.
Hidden talent: With four kids, going anywhere takes an Eisenhower-like ability with logistics.
Hometown: Pittsfield, Mass.
Number of children: Four
Hobbies: Reading, running, hockey, biking, finding new places in Colorado
Favorite food: Burrito
Favorite musician: James Taylor
Number of siblings: Four
Number of pets: One dog
Favorite sports team: Avalanche, I'm an old hockey player.
Favorite author: Joseph Mitchell
Favorite vacation spot: Anything I haven't discovered in Colorado
What one word best describes CBS Colorado: Teamwork
Least favorite household chore: Cleaning up after the dog
Least favorite word: Hate - I hate it.
Least favorite noise: Loud motors in the mountains
Favorite music? Running tunes and the blues, JT - who lives in the Berkshires where I'm from
What keeps you in Colorado? The wide open spaces and open minds
What's the biggest risk you've taken? I've been in a couple of spots on 14ers I wish I'd avoided.
Who would play you in a movie? If I get to pick, let's make it Jason Bourne.
You can contact Alan by sending an email to yourreporter@cbs.com.
It is a night for the ages in Denver as a full, super blue moon rises in a rare combination that's like a trifecta. It's the first time in over five years.
As rain fell in Colorado's mountains Friday, concerns were renewed that it might bring a gush of mud, ash and debris-filled water downstream from the headwaters of the Cache La Poudre and Big Thompson Rivers as they ran out of the burn scars of Colorado's two largest fires in recorded history.
Denver leaders are considering 11 different sites for micro communities in each of the Mile High City's 11 districts in a plan that's similar to Aurora's.
The Boulder grocery store shooting suspect has been found competent to stand trial. The determination comes from the Colorado Department of Human Services about the current mental state of suspect.
Building pressures, serving refugees and undocumented immigrants have led to disagreements and fights as a shortage of resources puts people in conflict.
The man who wrote the book on climbing Colorado's 14ers and many other popular mountaineering guides and stories is in a hospital in Durango after a climbing accident last week.
There were a couple of big winners in the Pack Burro Races at the Gold Rush Days that capped a summer series of three big races in Fairplay, Leadville, and finally Buena Vista.
For nearly four months the people Emerall Vaughn-Dahler called family and the relatives of Ignacio Gutierrez Morales have felt hollow and at the edge of a void.
Dirk Younkerman is thinking nonstop about Hawaii right now. Working for years out of Lahaina, the thought of the town in an ashen shambles hurts.
Colorado school children are heading back to school amid another report of falling vaccination rates in the state.
Dazzle Denver moved this week from its home in the former Baur's restaurant on Curtis Street to a spot near the corner of 14th and Arapahoe Streets.
Gov. Polis has signed a new ballot measure up for a vote in November, Proposition II, required under TABOR which will ask voters to approve the idea of retaining more funding for universal preschool from increased taxes on cigarettes, tobacco and nicotine products approved under Proposition EE in 2020.
Another human case of the West Nile virus has shown up in the rain-soaked Front Range.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Administration Tuesday sent a message to Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment to do more to monitor the Suncor refinery in Commerce City and the pollution it emits in Adams and Denver Counties.
Hanging on for dear life in the back of his carjacked pickup, he hung on as deputies chased the vehicle for over 30 minutes and at speeds of 108 mph before using stop sticks to blow out a tire and arrest the carjacker.