Washington

In 2007, when The New York Times granted MoveOn.org a special discount it wasn't entitled to so they could slam David Petraeus in a full-page ad as "General Betray Us," NPR reported on the ad, but never on the Times cut-rate controversy.

But NPR is sometimes very sensitive about the "independence" of media outlets -- when it seems compromised by Republicans. On Tuesday's All Things Considered, they granted air time to KUOW reporter Sara Lerner in Washington state to discuss how the Seattle Times outrageously used their own free ad space for an favoring the Republican running for governor, and how 100 of the paper's journalists were protesting:

"Has the state's tax burden on homeowners become great enough to start looking at taxing 'intangible' property as well?"

That's how Larry Lange opened his May 22 article for the Seattle P-I website.

While Lange did note conservatives are not keen on the idea and Republicans have alternative ideas for Washington State tax reform, Lange failed to consider how taxing stocks, bonds, loans, trademarks and the like could discourage investment and economic growth.

Just weeks ago, the radio station that pioneered the tremendously-popular conservative talk radio format announced it was switching to a "classic hits" music station, thus ending a groundbreaking near-20 years of conservative talk.

In 1992, Seattle's 570 KVI picked up a rising radio star by the name of Rush Limbaugh to run a political talk show amidst the station's daily broadcast of 50s hit music. The show became an instant success, and the station proceeded to fill the slots around Rush with other conservative talkers, including Mike Siegel, John Carlson, and Michael Medved.

Barely 36 hours before Washington State voters go to the polls, CBS News aired a 14-minute unregulated in-kind campaign expenditure on behalf of “Yes on 1098" and its chief cheerleader, Bill Gates Sr, sandwiched by Lesley Stahl hailing rogue Reagan adviser David Stockman as “brave” for advocating the end to the Bush tax rates and imposition of a 15 percent national income surtax. Stahl trumpeted:

One Republican brave enough to go public is David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director. He says all the Bush tax cuts should be eliminated -- even those on the middle class. And he says his own Republican Party has gone too far with its anti-tax religion.

She segued to how “many of the states are in the same boat, facing huge deficits with few prospects for cutting, which is why Washington State is joining the movement across the country to tax the rich,” championing how “Bill Gates Sr., has poured his own money into backing Initiative 1098. The tax would bring in $3 billion a year, to be spent mainly on education, which has suffered cutbacks as the state reels under a massive deficit.”

Brent Baker recounted how CBS Evening News spotlighted fifth-grade protester Marcelas Owens on Tuesday night. David Shuster interviewed him on MSNBC on Tuesday morning. What neither network shared with the viewer is how Marcelas has become a constant talking point for his home-state Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, and how he is a spokesman for a liberal lobby, the Washington Community Action Network.

On February 26, Les Blumenthal of The Olympian reported Murray shared the Marcelas talking point at the White House health care summit:

"Sen. Patty Murray has told the story of Marcelas Owens dozens of times before, but Thursday she may never have had a bigger audience as she talked of the 10-year-old Seattle boy whose mother died after she lost her health insurance coverage."

...Marcelas, in a statement released by the Washington Community Action Network, thanked Murray for sharing his story with the president.

"Should Anti-Gay Rights Petition Signers Be Exposed?" asked a teaser headline [screencap shown at right] on CBSNews.com's front page.

"Hot Topic: Battle Rages in Washington State over Privacy of Petition Signers" the subheader read. 

While the November 3 article itself by staffer Brian Montopoli was balanced -- giving room for a social conservative activist to defend keeping the names and addresses of signatories of the Referendum 71 petition from being made public -- the headline sets the tone for readers to see pro-traditional marriage backers in Washington State as folks motivated to deprive fellow citizens of their "rights."

So what does Referendum 71 actually do? According to Montopoli:

This report carried in the Washington Business Journal typified yesterday's coverage of yet another decline in the stock market:

Dow declines further still

Wall Street’s major stock indexes followed Monday’s strong sell-off with a day of fluctuation, ending with more losses.

The Dow Jones Industrials Average gyrated between modest gains and losses throughout the trading day, ending the down 37 points, or 0.55 percent, to close at 6,726. Monday’s fall below 7,000 sent the Dow to its lowest level since April 1997.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ended Tuesday trading down 4.49 to 696, it first close below the 700 level since October 1996. The Nasdaq Composite Index ended Tuesday’s session down 1.84 to 1321.

But after considering inflation, the markets are, in real terms, stuck at 1995 values, as shown in the following chart:

Count Associated Press as one American news outlet that prefers the terminology of the culture of death. On Sunday, the home page of Yahoo carried the headline "Washington to allow patients to seek life-ending prescriptions." It’s about the state of Washington, and one click gets the story headline: "Washington state to allow ‘dignity’ deaths." It did not use the term "assisted suicide." AP writer Rachel LaCorte began her story:

Terminally ill patients with less than six months to live will soon be able to ask their doctors to prescribe them lethal medication in Washington state.

But even though the "Death with Dignity" law takes effect Thursday, people who might seek the life-ending prescriptions could find their doctors conflicted or not willing to write them.

Many doctors are hesitant to talk publicly about where they stand on the issue, said Dr. Tom Preston, a retired cardiologist and board member of Compassion & Choices, the group that campaigned for and supports the law.

**Update** 4PM 11/01/08

Like Obama, the folks that run The Stranger "newspaper" in Seattle are all about tolerance... as long as you believe the same things they believe. If you don't, well, then you deserve intimidation and a good "outing." just as Obama has tried to intimidate radio talk show hosts, just like he has tried to use the office of the Attorney General to quash political free speech, The Stanger publication has decided that the best way to force citizens of Seattle to toe the far left political line is to have their homes photographed and their addresses made public for the outrageous crime of having a McCain/Palin sign on their property.

Editorial Director Dan Savage, another boring Seattle gay activist, has helmed this intimidation disguised as "humor" in order to attack his political opposition. Good thing ol' Danny is all "tolerant" and stuff, isn't it?

Jeff Poor's recent post (picked up by Drudge) reported on the potential return of the Fairness Doctrine under a President Obama--specifically for the purpose of the governing the internet.

He quoted FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell who said the following: 

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right. I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else. So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?”

Lest you think McDowell is being alarmist, consider, for a moment, the Seattle Times's pushback efforts against the erosion of MSM control and the future institution of "Net Neutrality."

Robert Burns and Robert H. Reid created quite a stir in the blogosphere yesterday with their dispatch from Baghdad, "Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost." NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard accurately called it a "stop the presses" story, and ended his post with an important perspective that you really must read if you haven't already.

Now that the story has had one overnight news cycle since its appearance at about 9 AM yesterday, I looked around to see how much coverage Burns's and Reid's work received.

I looked at what the three "newspapers of record" did (if anything) with the AP item; searched Google News for other coverage; and reviewed headline revisions made by outlets that carried it.

Results are below the fold.

It's sort of like Linda Douglass but on the local level, I guess. I'll have to ask our Seattle-area readers to note in the comments section if KING's Robert Mak repeatedly displayed a penchant for gauzy coverage of liberal Mayor Greg Nickels (D).

The 10-time local Emmy-winning reporter is leaving TV news for a job that pays $10,000 more a year than his new boss.

From the Seattle Times (emphasis mine):

One of Seattle's best-known political reporters - KING 5's Robert Mak - has been hired as Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' communications director, the mayor's office announced today.

Mak, known to many viewers as host of the public-affairs program "KING 5 News Up Front," said he wasn't looking for another job when Nickels' office approached him a few weeks ago.

A couple at the "cross roads" of a "complicated" love story.  That's how Diane Sawyer set up the feature on a transgendered Microsoft executive, his/her wife, and their son in the 8:00 half-hour on "Good Morning America."

The socially progressive bent of GMA was evident in the lack of context or perspective given to the family's story.  No consideration was given to the glaring social issues raised. It was reported as just another human-interest story.

Video (2:00): Windows (7.31 MB), plus MP3 audio (917 kB)

The five-minute feature, reported by Neal Karlinsky, explained the conflict Michael Wallent had with his identification as a male, his decision to become a female and the ramifications of that decision in his workplace and at home. 

During the four weeks preceding February 20, New York Times Company stock had been staging a nice comeback.

Lord only knows that the company's long-suffering shareholders, who before then had seen the share price drop more than 70% since June 2002, a point in time that roughly coincides with the onset of the Old Gray Lady's seemingly intractable case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, welcomed any kind of reversal of fortune.

For a while, they had it. From a intra-day low of $14.01 on January 23, the stock rose over 50%, closing at $21.07 last Wednesday.

But on Thursday and Friday, that climb was halted abruptly, and partially reversed. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4% in those two days, and the S&P 500 dipped 0.5%, NYT stock dove almost 9.7%, closing Friday at $19.03.

Are voters sick of taxes?
Gov. Chris Gregoire is worried enough about angry voters to call a special legislative session to reinstate I-747's tax limit.

That's how the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website front page teased a November 26 story by state capitol correspondent Chris McGann. The bottom line is that the Democratic governor -- who eked out a narrow victory in 2004 after a drawn-out recount process -- has called the state legislature to convene on November 29 in a special session to address a court ruling that struck down I-747, a tax limitation measure that voters approved six years ago.

McGann found a politicial scientist and a Democratic state legislative leader to suggest that voters are not really all that steamed about high taxes. By contrast, McGann produced just one man, Tim Eyman, to suggest voters in Washington State are fed up with high taxes.

What's more, nowhere does McGann find any conservatives to suggest that Washington State voters might chafe at their legislators failing to do anything to address overreaching or judicial activism by the court that struck down a ballot initiative approved by the voters themselves.

Here's an excerpt of McGann's article, with portions in bold reflecting my emphasis.:

Displayed prominently on the home page for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Web site at 12:30 Tuesday afternoon was this tease for a story about a local politician in hot water for crude remarks to a colleague:

GOP lawmaker punished
Minority House Republicans have severely disciplined a Vancouver lawmaker for inappropriate remarks to a female staffer.

The link takes readers to AP writer Curt Woodward's story, "House GOP member punished for remark to woman aide," in which we learn in the lead paragraph that "Minority House Republicans" in the Washington state House of Representatives, "already reeling from a sex scandal that prompted one member to quit, have severely disciplined a Vancouver lawmaker for inappropriate remarks to a female staffer."

David McCumber, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer managing editor at the center of the storm over his paper's refusal to publish photos of two men the FBI was seeking to identify and locate as part of an investigation into possible terrorist threats to the Seattle-area ferry system, once justified his paper's publication of a photo to readers by saying the paper "did it because we have an obligation to show you reality."

The photo in question came from the Indonesian tsunami tragedy. McCumber wrote about it on the paper's website.

 An August 22 article in the UK's Times Online gave some insight into the paper's behind-the-scenes views with this headline, “Paris vacates the moral highground to give Washington a helping hand” (h/t Fausta).

For the Times, France's “moral highground” was a four-year diplomatic lock-out with Iraq that began after the “US-led invasion” (and, interestingly, at the end of several Frenchmen profiting from the corrupt UN Oil For Food scam) that Sarkozy broke by sending his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to Baghdad yesterday for a three-day fact-finding trip with the goal of helping the Iraqis, through the UN, rebuild and stabilize a country that could easily devolve into genocide without adequate attention.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is apologizing for its decision to run a haiku contest about its decision to not run the photos of two men sought by the FBI for questioning related to possibly terrorist-related activities involving the Seattle-area ferry system

The paper's "online reporter" Monica Guzman writes on the paper's "Big Blog":

The paper's decision not to run photos of the two Seattle ferry passengers sought by the FBI didn't take long yesterday to become part of a widespread debate that provoked readers around the country.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is refusing to run the photos of two men the FBI is seeking to question in connection with suspicious behavior aboard a Puget Sound ferry - behavior that could be a precursor to a terror plot, or could be nothing nefarious at all.

The Seattle PI reports the story here and explains its rationalization for not publishing the photos here. And - in a steller example of complete touchy-feely uselessness - the paper is holding a haiku-writing contest for readers to write about how they feel about the FBI alert and the way the paper handled it.

From the report:

On Wednesday’s "Good Morning America," ABC reporters offered advice to Dick Cheney on how to resuscitate his "rock bottom poll numbers." The network featured clips from a Bush-bashing cartoon and correspondent Cokie Roberts even suggested that if the Vice President wants to change his image, he needs to do it on "Jon Stewart and maybe talk to Doonesbury."

The Claire Shipman-hosted segment, which played like a media victory lap over Cheney’s unpopularity, also featured snarky comments, such as this dig about the Vice President briefly taking over for George W. Bush during his colonoscopy in July:

Claire Shipman: "He was even acting president for a few hours during the President's recent colonoscopy. Did he dream about taking on Iran? No, he says. He wrote a letter for his grandkids and then made it public."

In Friday's Best of the Web Today column, Opinion Journal's James Taranto displayed how a major American metropolitan newspaper shows they can be soft on fire-bombing terrorism -- if it seems devoted to a fierce love of trees and turkeys.

"Jennifer Kolar and Lacey Phillabaum seem unlikely criminals," declares an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Well-educated young women passionate about environmental causes, they share a love of the outdoors and similar backgrounds.

Then we get some background on them. Both attended the same high school in Spokane, Wash. Phillabaum was "bright, outspoken, sometimes in-your-face but never dull." Kolar, who studies science, "had the makings of a good scientist, her adviser said, but her heart seemed elsewhere."

How mad is Miller?

Cal Thomas, you’ve made me mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.

I’m tired of hearing radical columnists like you besmirch the good men and women who struggle daily to put out the very best newspaper they can.