The end of the year makes you look for the perfect metaphor. It doesn't exist, but you look anyway.

And when you think about metaphors for this year's coverage in the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post, you realize the dailies act like adolescent boys, vying for attention, mature in some ways and surprisingly immature in others:

* Completely crazed about sports.

* They show a sensitive side but then slug you in the face. One day they're incredibly articulate, the next they've forgotten basic English.

* They couldn't be lazier on some occasions, happy to write the easy story about the latest media stunt by U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo. Then they show boundless energy, as in the Rocky's excellent series on the energy boom and the Post's on lost DNA evidence.

* They'll revert to impulsive, childish behavior, as we saw in the Post's decision to run a front-page editorial calling Gov. Bill Ritter names. Then they'll act like the most dependable and methodical grown-up, as in the Post's ongoing "Portraits of Valor" series, profiling Iraq war casualties.

* The dailies fall for sophomoric humor, lapping up the antics and quotes of the Independence Institute's Jon Caldara. But they also run the sophisticated wit of Garrison Keillor, Mike Littwin or David Har- sanyi.

* One minute you can't shut 'em up, as when they went on and on about Gov. Bill Ritter's property tax rate freeze. Then they become awfully laconic, as they were when it came to remembering that Colorado's Senate Republicans passed a property tax freeze in 2004.

* They'll demonstrate an adolescent's vanity - for example, when the Rocky printed "Collector's Item" on its front pages during the Rockies' World Series run. Then their stories will have a self-effacing quality, as in recent pieces about the victims of the recent church murder and Iraq war.

* You see unusual aggression, like the Rocky's February interview with Jared Polis over Amendment 41. And then maddening timidity, like both dailies' refusal to press city officials on why they won't enforce the law making possession of pot the lowest law-enforcement priority - as Seattle has.

* They can be inappropriately optimistic, as in the Rocky's Jan. 22 front-page headline, "Storms pile on more snow, misery, but there's hope, sun in forecast."

* They're vulnerable to peer pressure, overdoing it on local stories that national reporters cover, like the bizarre media fenzy over the phrase, "F--- Bush," spelled out in an editorial in a Fort Collins college newspaper.

* They can be suckers for titillation, jumping all over stories about a naked priest and a judge at a strip club.

But at the end of the day you have to love Denver's daily newspapers, as you would most kids struggling through adolescence. They provide great information and entertainment.

I just hope they'll grow up a bit over the next year.

Award stunt. Whenever someone receives an award just days after he or she committed an heroic act, journalists should be skeptical. They should smell a PR stunt.

The Second Amendment Foundation, an outfit that opposes gun control, gave Jeanne Assam, the brave security guard who wounded church killer Matthew Murray, its Eleanor Roosevelt Award, which honors "exceptional women who use firearms in the self-defense of others," as reported in the Rocky ("Heroism honor," Extra, Dec. 13).

The award was bestowed just four days after the shooting.

I asked Mark Taff, spokesman for the Second Amendment Foundation, "What does the award entail?"

"First off, we have a press release announcing the award," Taff answered. "Then we have our award shop actually produce the award. When that's finished we'll send it along with a presentation letter to her."

The decision to give Assam the award was made through an "informal discussion," according to Taff.

An award, given through an informal process and announced in a news release before being produced, loses all credibility. The Second Amendment Foundation exploited Assam's heroism to turn the media spotlight on itself.

It was distressing to see the Rocky fall for this common PR tactic.

Not a killer photo. It's a fact of life in America today that when someone kills four people at a youth missionary center and a church, he is going be famous. So rather than worry about a killer's legacy, newspapers should focus on their role of publishing information about the killer, including his photo. So the Post made the right call in putting Matthew Murray's photo on its front page.

But I have to agree with one of Rocky publisher John Temple's multiple reasons for not pushing the photo to Page 1: It was a lousy image of the killer.

As Temple e-mailed me, "You couldn't really see him."

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.