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Washington News Council
Attached you will find my complaint and the relevant materials
regarding several stories that appeared over the course of eight days in
the Seattle Times. The background of the complaint, briefly
stated, is as follows:
On Sunday, 22 July, the Times carried a story headlined
¦Youth-oriented Mardi Gras task force passes on race issue.² The
story, which carried the by-line of Beth Kaiman, repeats the
misinformation of the headline, to wit, ¦Task Force members declined
to be motive-seeking investigators. They passed on the issue of
race—.² [attached].
Ms. Kaiman attended the final meeting of the Task Force on 17
July where she received a draft copy of its final report. That draft
copy underwent a number of revisions in accordance with the wishes of
the Task Force; what was not changed was Section II of the report
entitled ¦Mardi Gras, the Media, and Race² [see Final Report, July
2001, attached]. Two days later [24 July], the Times carried an editorial headlined ¦Youth task force fails at its task.² It repeated the misinformation in the 22 July story, stating ¦While mentioning that most of those arrested after Mardi Gras were African American, the task force declined to assign any meaning to this² and proceeded, several paragraphs later, to state, ¦Only in Seattle, where politeness often hides anger, can race be left out of a topic so obviously infused with racial overtones² [attached I was interviewed by phone by a Ms. Varner
from the Times editorial staff the day before this editorial
appeared. I expressed to her my dismay at the Kaiman article, pointing
out its inaccuracy and reading to Ms. Varner portions of Section II of
the Task Force report. Ms. Varner seemed surprised that the report
contained any references to race; nevertheless, the editorial continued
to convey the misleading impression that the Task Force report had
ignored the topic altogether.
The following Sunday [29
July], the Times Senior Editor, Michael Fancher, used precisely this
language in a column on page 2 which criticized the Task Force for
¦ignoring the issue of race² in the Mardi Gras riots. The following day, I sent Mr. Fancher the following note, handwritten because I did not want to wait until I went to my office at the university to send it:
¦Dear Mr. Fancher:
I apologize for this
handwritten communiquª and hasten to add that this is not a ‘letter
to the editor.Ã Your Sunday column is the third time in the past eight
days that your paper has criticized the your safety task force for
¦ignoring the issue of race² in the Mardi Gras riots. The Task Force report, a copy of which Ms. Kaiman who first made this assertion had at the time she wrote her story, contains an entire section titled ‘Mardi Gras, the Media, and Race.Ã You may well take issue with what the Task Force had to say but to repeatedly accuse it of ignoring the matter is blatantly false ³ and that is the most charitable way I can describe it!
Sincerely,
Hubert G. Locke² My indication that my note was not a ¦letter to
the editor² was meant only to alert Mr. Fancher to the fact that I did
³ and do ³ not feel that the Timesà error should be
corrected merely by printing my letter. I believe it points to a matter
of sufficient seriousness to warrant some inquiry and discussion with
the Times staff and a public acknowledgement by the Times
of its several misstatements. To date, I have not received even the
courtesy of an acknowledgement of the receipt of my letter. As a quite separate matter, I have lamented
publicly the steady drumbeat that the local media have kept up during
the spring and summer about a racial crisis in Seattle. The Times
accounts may be viewed by some as contributing to the perception that
the city is experiencing a racial crisis but that is not the substance
of my complaint. I simply
believe the Times printed a series of accounts that two of its staff
knew to be inaccurate. The Times should publicly acknowledge as much. Sincerely, Hubert G. Locke
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