Complaint Resolved With Puget Sound Business Journal

The WNC in August 2004 dismissed a complaint filed by Joseph de Beauchamp of the World Financial News Network against the Puget Sound Business Journal.  Subsequently, De Beauchamp and the PSBJ reached a private resolution of their differences. The Washington News Council congratulates the parties on their accomplishment.

WNC "toasts" Locke and Dunn at 2004 Gridiron West Dinner

The Washington News Council "toasted" Governor Gary Locke, Democrat, and U.S. Representative
Jennifer Dunn, Republican, on Friday, Nov. 5, 2004, at our 6th annual Gridiron West Dinner, at the Washington
State Convention & Trade Center in Seattle.

This gala bipartisan event came just three days after Election Day. Nearly 550 people attended, from politics, government, media, business, academia, law, and other sectors. They were treated to a fun-filled evening of comedy, song, video tributes and affectionate ?toasts? of our honorees.

To read comments on the event, please click HERE.

Both Locke and Dunn had ?family tables? with their spouses, children and other relatives and close friends.

(NEWS FLASH: Just a few hours after the dinner ended, Mona Lee Locke gave birth to their new baby daughter at Swedish Medical Center. Some speculated that the evening?s laughter might have induced labor.)

Both Locke and Dunn had announced that they would not seek reelection this year and will be retiring from office in January 2005. The Gridiron West Dinner is modeled after the Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington, D.C., where political and media leaders poke fun at each other in good-natured comedy, skits and songs.

Highlights of this year?s Gridiron West Dinner included: Emcee Mike Egan?s photographic history of Gary and Jennifer?s changing hairstyles over the past 40-plus years; Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist David Horsey?s retrospective of his best cartoons of Gary and Jennifer over the past 20 years; and a video tribute to Gary and Jennifer produced by Larry Cali and Ken Jones of KING-TV.

?Toasters,? who took the stage in pairs, included Martha Choe & Slade Gorton; John Carlson & Mary Charles; and Dick Thompson & Patti Payne. Payne did a musical tribute, accompanied on the piano by John Ellis and joined onstage by Jennifer Dunn?s husband, Keith Thompson, and her two sons, Reagan and Bryant.

After the ?toasts,? Gary and Jennifer each took the stage to respond to their ?toasters.? Jennifer recited a list of the ?Top 10 Reasons I Will Miss Being in Congress.? Gary replied specifically to each of his ?toasters,? and gave as good as he got.

The audience was entertained by song parodies sung by ?The Beetles? of Cabaret Productions. Another highlight was the entire Washington News Council singing a song to the tune of ?Sgt. Pepper?s Lonely Hearts Club Band? (?Washington News Council?s Watch Dog Board?).  To read parody lyrics, click HERE.

Past Gridiron West Dinners have "toasted" Jim Ellis and John Ellis (2003); the five living former Governors of Washington (2002); television anchors Jean Enersen, Kathi Goertzen and Susan Hutchison (2001); former Seattle P-I columnist Emmett Watson (2000); and former political reporters Adele Ferguson, Dick Larsen,
Mike Layton and Shelby Scates (1999).

Nearly 50 tables of 10 were sponsored by corporations, foundations, or individuals. ?Baby Kissers? ($5,000) table sponsors included Boeing, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Kemper Development Company, King County Journal, Microsoft, Pemco Financial Services, and Starbucks. ?Back Slappers? ($2,500) table sponsors were The Gallatin Group, Premera Blue Cross, Puget Sound Energy, Safeco, Sandy Schoolfield & Jon Kechejian, and Weyerhaeuser. ?Glad Handers? ($1,000) table sponsors included Apex Foundation, The Benaroya Company, Evans School of Public Affairs, Gorton Legacy Group, Merriman Capital Management, Port of Seattle, Regal Financial Bank, Rockey Hill & Knowlton, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Wes Uhlman & Associates, Washington Dairy Products Commission, Weyerhaeuser, and the Wingood Foundation. Many individuals also sponsored tables, including WNC members Richard Baxter, Suzie Burke, Carolyn Duncan, Cyrus Krohn, Barry Mitzman, Chuck Nordhoff, Stephen Silha, and Robert Utter.

The event was filmed by TVW and broadcast statewide. It will be repeated (see www.tvw.org for schedule.)

Videotapes and/or DVDs of the event will be available soon. Please call 206-262-9793 to reserve a copy.

WNC Awards Dick Larsen and Herb Robinson Scholarships

The Washington News Council awarded its Dick Larsen and Herb Robinson Scholarships for 2004 at a reception at the WNC office on July 9, 2004. This year?s winners of the $1,000 scholarships:

Sarah McGuire, 19, a junior at Washington State University in Pullman, won the WNC?s Dick Larsen Scholarship. Sarah, who is from Spanaway, is a staff writer for the Daily Evergreen campus newspaper. She is serving as Leisure editor this summer and will be Life (Arts and Entertainment) editor in the fall. Her goal is to become Editor-in-Chief. She was named the newspaper?s ?Outstanding Underclassman? as a sophomore. She has a 3.8 GPA and also plays intramural tennis, softball and volleyball.

In her application essay, Sarah wrote: ?I know I have much to offer the profession of journalism. I cannot even express in words how determined I am to make this dream of being a world-class journalist come true?. Like Peter Jennings said when he came to WSU, journalism is meant to be a public service. It is a weapon meant for battling ignorance, intolerance, and indifference, and I plan to use my skills in fighting instead of letting my talent go to waste.?

Michelle de Beauchamp, 18, who will be a freshman at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, won the WNC?s Herb Robinson Scholarship. A 2004 graduate of Bainbridge High School, Michelle was Editor-in-Chief of Campus Voice, the school newspaper. She formerly served as News Section Editor. She was active in Future Leaders Exchange, vice president of Model United Nations, president of the Opera Club, and a member of the Concert Band and Marching Band. She maintained a 3.8 GPA.

In her application essay, Michelle wrote: ?From working on the newspaper for the past two years, I have found my calling, which is to educate the public on issues. The media has so much power on the public?s view on things, and can cause things to happen, be it swinging an election or just telling what happened around the world today. I want to be a part of this great thing that can change the world, but keep my opinion out of my reports on the events, because the news media?s job is to educate not persuade.?

The Dick Larsen Scholarship was established by the WNC in 1999 to honor the former Seattle Times political reporter and editor. The Herb Robinson Scholarship was established by the WNC in 2003 to honor the late Seattle Times editorial-page editor. The Larsen and Robinson families help select the scholarship winners.
 

Reception Held for Prof. John Irby?s New Book, ?Kill the Editor?

WNC Media Member John Irby, associate professor of journalism at Washington State University, has published a new book, Kill The Editor ? The Often Bizarre Relationship With Readers, which reflects on the often-tumultuous world of a newspaper editor.

At a WNC reception on July 9, Irby read excerpts from the book and answered questions. Copies of the book are available for sale by the author. For more details, visit http://www.wsu.edu/~jirby/.

In the foreword to Irby?s book, Peter Bhatia, executive editor of The Oregonian and 2003-04 president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, wrote: ?Newspaper journalism is a wild, often wonderful, often frustrating, often amazing career. Newspaper journalism also brings you into contact with society in all its good and bad, from the stunningly reasonable to the sadly insane. Kill the Editor is a reflection of that ? Some of what you read will amuse you, some will depress you. But it accurately represents a big part of the wild, wonderful world of editing a newspaper.?

WNC Executive Director Speaks at Rotary Clubs, TDA

John Hamer, WNC Executive Director, has been invited to speak to several groups:

July 22, 2004 ? Magnolia Rotary, Palisade Restaurant

Aug. 26 ? Redmond Rotary, Marriott Town Center

Sept. 9, 2004 ? Spokane Rotary, Ridpath Hotel

Sept. 29, 2004 ? Redmond Rousers Rotary, Emerald Heights

Oct. 1, 2004 ? Trade Development Alliance, Rainier Tower (group of visiting Asian journalists)

Oct. 7, 2004 ? Burien/White Center Rotary, Angelo?s Restaurant, 12 noon

If your organization would like to learn more about the Washington News Council from John Hamer and/or News Council members, please call our office at 206-262-9793.

WNC Meets with Public, Students in Eastern Washington

Washington News Council Executive Director John Hamer and Media Member Chuck
Rehberg spent three days in Spokane and Pullman in April to help raise the
profile of the WNC. They spoke to Valley Rotary in Spokane Valley, then
conducted a student mock news council hearing at Eastern Washington
University's Spokane campus. They also attended the Edward R. Murrow

Symposium at Washington State University in Pullman, where Hamer was on a
media-ethics panel with Kit Seelye, a political reporter for The New York
Times, and Beth Hindman, a journalism professor at WSU. John Irby, a Media
Member of the WNC who also teaches journalism at WSU, conducted a student
mock news council hearing on campus. Hamer, Irby and Rehberg also attended a
banquet and speech by Peter Jennings of ABC News, who received the
prestigious Murrow Award.

The next day, Hamer and Rehberg attended the Murrow School Advisory Board meeting, and t
hat evening held another mock student news council hearing at Gonzaga University in Spokane.
At all three of the mock hearings, which used the complaint against KIRO-TV by the Washington
Beef and Dairy Products Commissions, the students voted almost exactly the same way as did
the actual News Council at its hearing in June 2003.
 

WNC co-presented "Breaking News: The State of Today's Information Media"


The Washington News Council co-presented a highly successful six-week long
public forum series titled "Breaking News: The State of Today's Information
Media" in February, March and April. Lead sponsor of the series was the
Bainbridge Island Arts & Humanities Council (BIAHC), which asked the News
Council to help select topics, moderate panels and invite panelists. Several
hundred people attended the series.

The forum began on Feb. 27, with a keynote speech by James Fallows, national
correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. Fallows strongly endorsed the work
of the Washington News Council in his speech, while addressing how changes
in ownership and structure of news media are changing their role in public
life.
 

On March 1, in a panel on "The Media and the Law," Bruce Johnson, media
attorney with Davis Wright Tremaine, and John Merton Marrs, journalism
instructor at Everett Community College, gave a fascinating history of the
First Amendment, libel laws and how the internet is affecting mass
communication.

"The Impact of New Technology on the News Media" - WNC Vice President Steve
Silha moderated a March 8 panel that included WNC President Cyrus Krohn,
publisher of Slate.com; Alex Dunne, managing editor of Blue Ear Daily; Doug
Schuler, Seattle Community Network Association; and Stanley Farrar, website
editor for The Seattle Times.

"The History of Political Cartoons" - David Horsey, the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer's two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, did a
multimedia presentation of his work on March 15 to a crowd of about 200
people at Bainbridge High School.

"Television News: If It Bleeds, It Leads?" - John Arthur Wilson of The
Gallatin Group moderated a March 22 panel that included Enrique Cerna,
executive producer for KCTS Television; Melanie McFarland, television critic
for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; and Peter O'Connell, assistant news
director for KING-TV.

Mock Student News Council Hearing - The WNC sponsored a mock hearing at
Bainbridge High School on March 26, with students playing the role of the
News Council to consider an actual case: "Washington Beef Commission and
Washington Dairy Products Commission vs. KIRO-TV." The students voted almost
exactly the same way as did the actual News Council, upholding the complaint
on nearly every count.

"Journalistic Ethics, Objectivity, Accuracy and Fairness" - March 29 panel
moderated by WNC Executive Director John Hamer included Brad Knickerbocker,
Christian Science Monitor reporter; Larry Johnson, Seattle
Post-Intelligencer foreign desk editor; Rick Jackson, journalism instructor
at Seattle Pacific University; and Philip Dawdy, media writer for Seattle
Weekly.

"The News Media and Society" - Final panel on April 2 moderated by Ross
Reynolds, KUOW radio host, included Margo Gordon, WNC Public Member and
University of Washington professor of public affairs; Steve Silha, WNC Vice
President and communications consultant; and Mark Trahant, Seattle P-I
editorial-page editor.

The forum also featured three other events:
March 13 - "Dear Editor: A Playreading of Letters to The Bainbridge Review."
March 20 - "Media Matters: A Conversation with Youth and Adults about Living
in a Media World." An Open Space forum sponsored by Imagine Bainbridge.
April 5-8 - "Breaking News Film Festival," Four-evening film festival of
movies about journalism and the media business, including All the
President's Men; Broadcast News; The China Syndrome; His Girl Friday/The
Front Page; The Insider; Medium Cool; and Network.

"We were very pleased to co-present this forum with the BIAHC," said WNC
Executive Director John Hamer. "This was one of the most thoughtful and
comprehensive series of panels on the news media that has every been done
anywhere. And the turnout proved how concerned many citizens are about the
media."

WNC elects new 2004 officers, adds new public member

The Washington News Council elected new officers for 2004 at its annual
meeting on Jan. 31. They are:
President - Cyrus Krohn, publisher of Slate magazine
(www.slate.com)
Vice President - Steve Silha, writer and communications
consultant
Treasurer - Carver Gayton, University of Washington lecturer and
consultant
Secretary - Sue Frause, freelance writer

Krohn, who had been acting president of the WNC, said he agreed to become
president because he strongly supports the mission of the News Council.
"There is more need for news councils today than ever before," Krohn said.
"There should be a news council in every state."

The Council also approved Sandy Schoolfield as a new public member,
replacing John Dimitriou, who stepped down. Schoolfield had been special
projects director for the WNC, an unpaid position.

For biographies and a list of all Council members, please click here.