"It sounds like a baseball hitting a bat, except that it's Heaney's teeth, breaking on cement."

That's 9News reporter Deborah Sherman's narration during the airing of video Monday showing Denver police subduing John Heaney, who was accused of punching an officer near Coors Field.

But thanks to the video, he's accused no longer.

Heaney was facing three years in prison, but police dropped all charges after 9News showed prosecutors the gruesome video. Now police are conducting an investigation.

Citing the 9News piece, the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post both ran stories about the Heaney incident.

But none of Denver's other TV stations did, according to a search of their Web sites through Wednesday.

You'd think a video like this would be all over local TV news, especially as police descend on Denver for the Democratic National Convention and the public's need to know about police brutality is at a high point.

Why didn't 9News make the video available for all Denver news media?

The video was shot by an outside production company, and 9News didn't get the rights to distribute it, according to Patti Dennis, news director at 9News.

And Dennis wasn't interested in seeking permission or offering it to other stations, even if she could.

Sharing a video like this would turn 9News into an advocate for the story, and that's not her job as a journalist, she said, adding that it's up to other TV stations to do their own research for imagery to tell the story, if they want.

Dennis should use her journalistic judgment to decide if her station's videos merit treatment as public documents.

If so, they should not only be posted on the station's Web site but also made available for others to use.

In this case, if 9News makes the video available to other stations, it looks like they'd use it. Brad Remington, general manager at Fox 31, said he'd "probably take it" and give 9News credit. Ditto for Carl Bilek, news director at News 2.

Though not common, local TV stations share important video with each other, and they use the same sports video and feeds of runaway animals all the time.

Denver's TV stations should make a regular habit of sharing video. It would take two seconds to alert each other by e-mail.

There's no evidence a station would lose viewers by doing this, and the public would be better informed.

Be a TV journalist. 9News received the Heaney video from a sports crew.

Your digital camera would probably have been able to pick up the crunching sound of the Heaney's teeth, too.

So Heaney's story should be an inspiration to carry your video device with you during DNC week in Denver. You never know what you're going to stumble on.

And even if it's not so dramatic, some local TV stations will accept it online.

On the home pages of CBS4 News and Denver's 7 Web sites, you can find links that allow you to upload video. So you can publish your video on a TV Web site.

Rocky restraint. The Rocky showed impressive restraint last week in being Denver's only major news outlet (TV or print) that decided against running a story about the Facebook page of U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's 19-year-old son.

His site had offensive content, like an image with "Slavery Gets S--- Done."

I agree with Rocky editor John Temple, who explained that, "as with the antics of [Gov. Bill] Ritter's son in the mansion, which we also didn't publish, we didn't see the relevance of the noncriminal actions of a child of a politician," and, "Justin isn't the candidate nor was he acting in the candidate's name."

Responsible journalism like this will help keep responsible parents from avoiding political careers to protect their kids from predatory reporters.

Official rhetoric. Schaffer's spokesperson, Dick Wadhams, is taking official campaign rhetoric to a new level. (Disclosure: a client works for Democrats.)

Wadhams is throwing quotes at reporters with words like "a--" (to describe the part of U.S. Rep. Mark Udall's body up which the Schaffer campaign will "shove" 30-second ads during the campaign).

I can't find another campaign spokesperson in a major Colorado race who's unapologetically used a word that can't be printed in the Rocky.

To give voters a complete picture of Schaffer, reporters should ask him if he approves of his spokesperson's language.

When I asked to discuss this with Schaffer, Wadhams said, "I don't want to waste Bob's time talking to you."

Jason Salzman, president of Effect Communications, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at salzmanj@RockyMountainNews.com.