Being 'The Guy Who Hates Soccer': Still a Meal Ticket in Local Media

Posted Nov. 6 at 10:22 am by Mark Fefer

These people are excited. But why?

​Fat people like to complain that they're the last minority group of whom you're still allowed to be openly contemptuous in enlightened society.

Not true! Soccer, and its fans, remain a perennial, if thoroughly predictable, subject of bemused contempt among a certain class of wags who think of themselves as grizzled and no-nonsense.

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Topics: Media, Rants, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Sports

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Study Says Kill the Dog to Save the Environment

Posted Nov. 2 at 3:48 pm by Caleb Hannan

Sorry Seattle: In order to save the earth you're going to have to off this dog.

​The Seattle Times is having all sorts of fun with a New Zealand report that claims a medium-size dog leaves a larger eco-footprint than an SUV. The study, called "Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living," argues that the amount of land needed to raise the animals used to feed your average labradoodle is the environmental equal of driving a Hummer.

Is the science any good? That's for smarter people to debate. What's important is finding a way to make this about Seattle, a city that generally enjoys turning up its nose at a lady driving a Land Cruiser while alternately going mushy over the mom walking a Mastiff. That, at least, was the thinking of reporter Mark Rahner.

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Topics: Environment and Media

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Lawyer for King County "Jane Doe" Who Filed Alleged Complaint Against Dow Constantine Blocks its Release

Posted Oct. 29 at 8:43 pm by Caleb Hannan

Flickr

Just what do those documents say about Dow Constantine?

​We've got a mess on our hands here, folks. Let's try to untangle it.

Earlier today, conservative blog Sound Politics posted that they, along with Seattle Times reporter Keith Ervin, had been tipped off about a complaint filed against King County Executive Candidate Dow Constantine alleging inappropriate behavior towards "Jane Doe," a female county employee.

Politics says that when Ervin filed a public records request all he got was a temporary restraining order from "Jane Doe's" lawyer arguing that if the info leaked she might lose her job. Then PubliCola added their own knot to the tangle.

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Topics: Media and Politics

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Boeing Source to Times: Dreamliner Likely Headed for South Carolina

Posted Oct. 28 at 11:16 am by Caleb Hannan

Oh Dreamliner, we hardly knew ye.

​No matter your thoughts on South Carolina — whether they be reasonable and nuanced or stereotypical and just-for-yuks — it seems Boeing has made up its mind. According to Dominic Gates in today's Seattle Times, talks between Boeing and their machinist's union are effectively over, leaving the southern state the likely destination for the aerospace giant's Dreamliner jet.

Gates' source says the union wants to keep talking, Boeing doesn't. An announcement on the move to Charleston could come within the next couple days. We'll keep you posted.

Topics: Business and Media

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Will Bill Gates Come to the Rescue of Journalists?

Posted Oct. 22 at 11:05 am by Nina Shapiro

Can they fit some journalists on their laps?

​Online news site Crosscut's announcement yesterday of a $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation surely raised some hopes in the tumultuous world of journalism. Is Bill Gates waking up to the havoc caused by the digital technology he has unleashed? Will his enormously deep-pocketed philanthropy come to the rescue of a profession—and means of informing that the public— that threatens to disappear? Can the New York Times expect a bailout next?

Don't count on it. "We don't have a specific media strategy," says Greg Shaw, director of advocacy for the foundation's U.S. program. That said, he explains that the foundation is concerned with making sure that the public is informed about the issues that it works on: education especially but also, in the Northwest, homelessness, programs for low-income people and libraries. To that end, the foundation has given donations in the past to NPR and Education Week. Shaw says that while the foundation exerts no editorial control, it handed the grant to Crosscut in the "hope that they will be able to cover those issues." (Less on City Hall, more on the homeless hangouts a couple blocks away, Crosscut!)

So the foundation has left a slight opening for the media to come begging. Other philanthropies are being hit up too. As Rick Anderson reported this morning, P-I alum site InvesigateWest announced a $40,000 grant from Seattle's Bullitt Foundation.

Topics: Media and Newspapers

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InvestigateWest Has a Donor, but With Conditions?

Posted Oct. 22 at 9:42 am by Rick Anderson

Up to now, InvestigateWest, one of several P-I alumni web sites, has been a work in progress since its July launch, consisting mostly of blog items and pitches for public support. But, like another non-profit journalism site, Crosscut.com, did yesterday, InvestigateWest today says it has gotten much-needed funding from a wealthy benefactor and will commence to produce those long-promised investigations. The contribution from Seattle's Bullitt Foundation comes to $40,000. That's less than half of what the Gates Foundation gave Crosscut, but, says IW's editor Rita Hibbard (left)

​, a former P-I assistant managing editor, it will allow her site to "do the stories that would otherwise go uncovered." Bullitt and IW have a mutual admiration for preserving the environment so it's a natural teaming.

But, again like Crosscut, IW will need reader contributions to sustain its public model. And there's that nagging question of a supposedly silent partner. Media critic Jack Shafer, writing in Slate, applauds charity journalism. "But before we get out the party hats and noise-makers..." he says, "here's the bad news. In the current arrangement, we're substituting one flawed business model for another. For-profit newspapers lose money accidentally. Nonprofit news operations lose money deliberately. No matter how good the nonprofit operation is, it always ends up sustaining itself with handouts, and handouts come with conditions" - the appearance, at least, that the recipient might pull its journalism punches at the behest of the donor. Can we exepct a hard-hitting probe by Crosscut into the Gates Foundation, for example? The "rise of nonprofit journalism comes at a price," Shafer cautions. "Be prepared to pay it."

Topics: Media

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Crosscut.com Shifts to the 'Public Model'

Posted Oct. 21 at 10:50 am by Rick Anderson

​With a big wad of Bill Gates charity funds, Crosscut.com publisher David Brewster has officially taken his web site non-profit. The former Seattle Weekly publisher announced his news-generating-and-aggregating site has been granted tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status.

In a post this morning, Brewster said the revamped venture received a $100,000 gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "This key lead gift, along with $50,000 of funding from generous individuals, is meant to launch Crosscut's new mission of providing online local journalism in the public interest, and to build Crosscut's capacity and sustainability." He also announced a Charter Membership Drive, seeking support from readers.

In recent months, Brewster was slow in paying contributors during the long march to official non-profit status. Now they've added three new hires, Brewster says, convinced a reader-supported j-site, the "public model," will fly. The question is whether he can do it without Gates as his co-pilot.

Topics: Media

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Colton Harris-Moore Documentary Still in Infancy

Posted Oct. 19 at 8:02 am by Caleb Hannan

Coming soon to a TV near you?

​Last week, a three-person camera crew made their way to Camano Island and Seattle in order to speak with locals, law enforcement and media types about the coverage surrounding Barefoot Burglar Colton Harris-Moore. The crew, sent by a Hollywood producer requesting anonymity, stopped by the Seattle Weekly offices on Wednesday. They asked questions and shot some b-roll footage of me answering the phone and printing out documents. It was, all in all, a profoundly weird experience.

The goal of the shoot, says the producer, is to find out if there's enough material to produce a long-form documentary. In a follow-up e-mail, we tried to get him to explain where the project stands today.

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Topics: Crime & Punishment and Media

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When It Rains It Pours: Thornton Creek Residents Soaked by City's New Flood Maps

Posted Oct. 16 at 10:30 am by Caleb Hannan

Aftermath of the December 2007 flood that's come back to haunt some Thornton Creek residents.

​Hop in the Way Back Machine to December of 2007. As the Seattle Times reported, a "series of extraordinary events" led to the horrific death of Kate Fleming, a local audiobook narrator who drowned in a windowless room in her Madison Valley basement. A surge of floodwater caused by record-setting storms was the culprit. Mayor Nickels and the city acted quickly, setting out on a detailed course of action to resolve flooding issues including remapping local flood plains.

Now, back in present day, we have Daniel, a Seattle resident whose property backs up to Thornton Creek. OK, maybe that's being a bit generous. You can't really see the creek, but it's there, down a steep grade at the end of his lawn, far out of harms way. Even still, last week Daniel got a letter from Seattle Public Utilities telling him that, due to his proximity to the creek, he was now in what the city considered to be a flood-zone. The next day he got a similar letter, this one from his insurance company, politely reminding him that now might be a smart time to invest in flood insurance.

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Topics: City of Seattle, Environment, Media, Neighborhoods, and Seattle Times

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That Other Dying MSM: TV News

Posted Oct. 9 at 12:06 pm by Rick Anderson

​In his LA Times media column this morning, James Rainey laments the demise of another LA television news outlet, KCOP, whose operations have been co-opted by Fox affiliate KTTV. He quotes the latter's general manager, Kevin Hale (an Evergreen State College grad and former GM of KSTW Channel 11 here), as insisting that - despite the dancing meteorologists - nothing much has changed in merging the two stations, essentially leaving one news operation standing. According to Hale's bio, he helped KSTW make its momentary switch here from independent to CBS affiliate in 1996-97, until the network returned to its KIRO-7 home. The following year, Channel 11, like the LA station today, killed off its news operations. KSTW did go out with a bang - a memorable finale, with co-anchors Don Porter (later, at KING-5) and (above) Christine Chen (later, at KCPQ 13), showing flashbacks: a blind peanut vendor singing "On a clear day. . . .", sports announcer Kenny Mayne (now ESPN) with a nosebleed, and Bill Cosby doing the weather: in "Puyallupman, it was 76; in Bellinghousen and up in the Olympics the water was there and so was the frogs, and Katchacootie Mountains up here" - he slapped his hand on the map behind him - "we're gonna have a lot of foam!" All of which is an excuse to bring you Rainey's own memorable line today. Noting that 64 percent of Americans rely on television for most of their local news, he types: "Saying you count on TV to learn what goes on in your city is a little like saying you go to Raiders games for lessons in civility. But I digress."

Topics: Media

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Reported Rapes Are Down, But Why?

Posted Oct. 7 at 3:32 pm by Mark Fefer

The front page of today's USA Today trumpets FBI statistics showing that reports of rapes have hit a 20-year-low nationwide (when measured per 100,000 people). In the story, this finding prompts a long round of self-congratulation from various researchers, advocates, and law enforcement types, who seem to believe that the explanation for the trend is that prosecutions are being handled so much more sensitively than they were in the bad old days, and DNA evidence is so damning, that more rapists are being put behind bars where they can't offend again.

But the story doesn't offer any evidence to support that claim. It has no data on number of prosecutions or rate of rapist incarceration or anything else. Ironically, the story quotes a study saying that "women are more willing to report rape now than two decades ago"—but that hardly seems to follow from the fact that reports of rapes have dropped.

Unmentioned in the story is the fact that violent crime rates in general have been in steep decline for some time now. And rape "typically tracks with other violent crimes," says Ian Goodhew, Deputy Chief of Staff at the King County Prosecutor's Office. Goodhew says rape reports have fallen in King County too recently, along with murder, robbery, etc.

The one crime that did see a slight uptick recently is burglaries. Yet, even there, Goodhew says property crimes haven't jumped nearly as much as people imagined they would, given the dire economy. Though that could still change. Muggings and burglaries and the like are often "a lagging indicator," he says.

Topics: Crime & Punishment, Law & Courts, and Media

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Glenn Beck at Safeco Field

Posted Sep. 27 at 3:00 pm by Don Ward

​In the media event of the decade, or at least the last week of a slow summer news cycle, controversial Fox News talk show host and conservative radio broadcaster Glenn Beck swooped into liberal Seattle to speak to supporters at Safeco Field.

Roughly 7,000 people turned out to watch the event, some standing in line for a couple hours hoping to snatch up the few remaining tickets on sale. Across the street on First Avenue, a scant hundred or two counter-protestors showed up to heckle and recite dated chants.

"Glenn Beck lies. Shame. Shame. Shame."

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Topics: Books & Authors and Media

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Press Not Allowed to Cover "Glenn Beck Day" in Mt. Vernon

Posted Sep. 21 at 5:07 pm by Lauren Lynch

​To those of you who were eager to attend the "Glenn Beck Day" in Seattle's northern neighbor Mount Vernon, you might as well save the gas money: It's a sold-out event, and not even the press is allowed. That's right—journalists won't be able to report how many outrageous comments Beck might mutter about Obama or Al Gore. Strangely enough, though, when I made a call to the Mt. Vernon mayor's office, I was referred to Robert Shelton from the marketing and sales department at Cascade Radio Group, who delivered the "no press" blow. Meanwhile, Nida Tautvydas, Executive Director at McIntyre Hall Performing Arts & Conference Center, where Beck is scheduled to speak, confirmed that the decision to shut out press was made by "Glenn Beck's management." She added that she could not speculate why the decision was made, although she characterized such a maneuver as "not uncommon."

Topics: Media and News

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Emily White, Itinerant Editor, Departs City Arts

Posted Sep. 17 at 9:36 am by Mark Fefer

Emily White, who had a brief and mercurial tenure as arts editor of the Seattle P-I, has now left City Arts magazine, where she was also editor for less than a year.

According to a statement I received from Paul Heppner, president & publisher of Encore Media Group, City Arts, which recently merged with Sound magazine, will be edited by City Arts talents Tim Appelo and Bond Huberman, along with Sound's Mark Baumgarten. (Appelo is a former SW staffer, colleague, and friend.)

White, says Heppner, "has left, giving her an opportunity to meet an impending book deadline."

Topics: Arts & Culture and Media

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News Flash From Publicola: Developers Like Density and Taxpayer-Funded Parks

Posted Sep. 11 at 10:50 pm by Mark Fefer

This afternoon, Publicola revealed that, gasp, corporations have given money to Mike McGinn's Great City group. In fact, you can find a list of these malefactors right here. Reporter Erica Barnett says this news "may come as a surprise to some of [McGinn's] idealistic supporters." Uh, only if you include clueless along with idealistic.

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Topics: Campaign 2009, Environment, and Media

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