Adele Ferguson - March 11, 2010

Seattle Times: A change in ‘left coast’ outlook?

I’VE LIVED in Washington state long enough to remember when the Seattle Times was considered a conservative newspaper.

Compared to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer anyway.

I don’t remember exactly when it started going the other way.

But it did, to my great disappointment.

I knew the reporters and some of the editors on both papers, and found the P-I’s to be more liberal than the Times.

Richard Larsen was probably the best known and most respected on the Times as their chief political writer.

He told me once that he never read his own paper’s editorials because he didn’t want to be influenced by them.

Lyle Burt was their other political reporter.

as fair as they come and a good writer who also was a hypochondriac.

He caught or thought he caught every sickness that came by.

Larsen once said about Lyle that even on his best days he was in critical condition.

They’re all gone now, as is the P-I, which also had good writers. One of the publishers, Dan Starr I think it was at the time, once did a survey on how the Legislature could be improved. All us political reporters covering Olympia got questionnaires to fill out.

I took mine to Leroy Hittle, then the Associated Press bureau chief in Olympia, and said 1 wasn’t going to do it. It isn’t our job to try to improve the Legislature, I said. We were there to report what they did, without opinion. That’s the definition of journalism, by the way, reporting the facts without an attempt at interpretation.

Leroy agreed and said he wouldn’t answer his either. We both mailed back our questionnaire politely declining to take part. We were furious, of course, when the report came out, listing the two of us as having responded by mail, without explanation that our responses were refusals to take part and why.

ANYWAY, WHAT I’ve been leading up to is my surprise at seeing some of the editorials in the Times during this legislative session.

“Legislators in Olympia should resist all temptation to repeal the rule that requires them to have a two-thirds vote to raise taxes,” the Times said on Feb. 5. The people have voted for that three times. The Legislature should concentrate on spending cuts. Good.

“A judge’s ruling that Washington state under funds public schools should, launch an uncomfortable conversation about our state’s priorities and values,” said the Times on Feb. 14. In order to keep their promise to obey the Constitution and make funding education their paramount duty, “lawmakers should not run first to tax increases. Public spending should decline in other areas as it increases in education.” Fine.

“The Legislature is being asked to add $40 million to maintain the medical and dental benefits of state workers,” said the Times on Feb. 18. “There is no money to do this.” Increase the share employees pay on their medical bills and raise premiums. Great. “Legislators should focus on cuts before taxes,” the Times said on Feb. . 21. Instead of proposing taxes on bottled water, pop, candy, cigarettes, etc., legislators should be focusing on lightening the burden of the state by culling the highest paid state employees, freeing the highest cost pension plans, reopening labor contracts, closing optional social programs such as general assistance unemployable, etc. Terrific.

“The Legislature’s eagerness to regulate signature gathers seems overdone,” the Times said on Feb. 23. “A citizen, or group of citizens should not have to register with the government in order to circulate a petition.” Dandy.

How much of this advice the Legislature will take before adjournment I don’t know but it’s a pleasure seeing the Times behave like it did before we became the Left Coast.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)