"I am very grateful to the Washington News Council. In the fall of 1999, I was a candidate for Olympia City Council. During the campaign, The Olympian published an editorial about me that was factually inaccurate and woefully misleading concerning an incident involving me that had happened two months prior to the editorial at an Olympia City Council meeting. That incident was so insignificant the reporter for The Olympian, who was at the meeting, and her editor, did not see fit to print a news story about it. Yet the subsequent editorial purported to describe the incident, described it inaccurately, and concluded from it I lacked the ‘civic deportmentà to qualify me for office. As the election transpired, a swing of 700 votes would have won it for me. It seems likely the unfair editorial could have accounted for that many votes.

"I learned about the Washington News Council shortly after the election by watching on TVW a dinner event the News Council held honoring one of my friends, Mike Layton. I contacted the News Council and initiated a complaint against The Olympian based mostly on the paper's violation of its own ethical rules set forth by its parent, Gannett Newspaper Division. The members of the News Council courteously traveled to Olympia for a hearing on my complaint in February, 2000, and I prevailed by a 9-6 vote.

"That outcome quite literally enabled me to gain back the dignity and respect I had lost in the community as a result of the unfair editorial. Nothing other than such a judgment by a peer institution like the Washington News Council could have achieved that result.

"I consider the Washington News Council to be among the most valuable organizations in our state. The various news media are the only occupation that conducts business in our state entirely free of government regulation and oversight. There are no licensing regulations establishing even the most minimal requirements for someone to be a reporter. There are absolutely no sanctions for incompetent, unfair, malicious, reprehensible, corrupt, or self-serving editorials and news reporting. The American people have granted the news media these privileges and exceptions by the First Amendment.

"Thus, if not for the Washington News Council, there would be no one to call into account bad news reporting. In a country that prizes due process and fundamental fairness above all other values, the Washington News Council serves a most valuable public function. Those who volunteer their time to the News Council, and those who provide financial support to it, are deserving of the highest honors."