With The Denver Post‘s DC reporter, Allison Sherry, under fire for her conflict of interest by dating a member of the Green Lobby without disclosing that to readers, it’s fascinating to see alternative Colorado publications leading the way on coverage of our nation’s capital.

News today from The Colorado Observer is that they’ve hired a second Washington, DC -based reporter to cover federal issues and the Colorado congressional delegation.

The media environment in Colorado has been weakened ever since the closing of the late, great Rocky Mountain News, virtually allowing Denver Post publisher Dean Singleton to be the sole press baron in the champagne room.

Well, times they are a-changin’. Now a conservative online publication has twice the DC bureau of the state’s flagship paper. Who knows, maybe Allison Sherry will actually show up at the Capitol to do her job now instead of waiting for press releases from the offices of Democratic Senators Udall and Bennet.

Here’s the bio on The Colorado Observer‘s newest addition, Audrey Hudson, most recently of Human Events:

Audrey Hudson is an award-winning investigative journalist whose enterprise reporting has sparked numerous congressional investigations that led to laws signed by Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. She won the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi award for Public Service in 2009 for her report on dangerous drug experiments by the federal government on war veterans, which prompted internal investigations and needed reforms within the Veterans Affairs Department.

The report also captured first place for investigative reporting by the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and was a finalist of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences Webby Awards for news and politics. Her breaking stories have been picked up and followed by major news publications and periodicals, including Readers Digest, Washington Monthly, and The Weekly Standard, as well as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post.

With nearly 20 years of experience in Washington as a newspaper reporter and as a Capitol Hill staffer for Western lawmakers, she will now lead Human Events’ coverage of energy and environmental issues. A native of Kentucky, Mrs. Hudson has worked inside the Beltway for nearly two decades — on Capitol Hill as a Senate and House spokeswoman, and most recently at The Washington Times covering Congress, Homeland Security, and the Supreme Court.