Michael R. Fancher                                                            October 4, 2001

Executive Editor and Senior Vice President

Dear Mr. Locke,

            I was surprised to hear from the Washington News Council that a hearing is going forth October 13 on your complaint against The Seattle Times. The Council informs us that you plan to be in town October 11 and will be present for the hearing.

            Your letter of September 17 said, ¦I wonÃt get back to Seattle until the end of December but if you have someone give me a ring, we can set a date.² My response of September 20 indicated that we would set up a meeting for that time. IÃm disappointed that you will be in the state but are apparently unavailable to meet before the hearing to discuss these matters with us. IÃm surprised the Council would go ahead with a hearing in light of its expectation that a complainant ¦agree to make yourself available to the media outlet to try to resolve your complaint.²

            In any event, The Times will not appear at the hearing. We do not feel that the intervention of a third party is appropriate, especially considering that you have chosen not to take advantage of our offer to meet or to publish your views of our work.

            Given these circumstances, let me take this opportunity to respond to your letter of September 17. I believe your letter supports the fairness of our reporting, although I understand that you do not see it that way.

            I will focus my response on the news story in question, published July 22. The opinion I expressed in my column of July 29, and Lynne VarnerÃs opinions in the editorial of July 24 should not be of concern to the News Council. You are free to disagree with those opinions and have been offered the opportunity to do so in our pages.

            You say the burden of your complaint is that The Times ¦used appallingly misleading language to express its sentiments.² In the case of the news story, the specific paragraph said, ¦Task-force members declined to be motive-seeking investigators. They passed on the issue of race ³ in part because of philosophical differences over the groupÃs mission, and in part because some task-force members were reluctant to talk candidly in an open forum.² The story then reported the reasoning behind the panelÃs decision.

            To say the task force ¦passed on² race is not a comment on what it should or should not have done. The statement simply reflects what the task force did. Your letter of September 17 confirms this. You wrote:

            ¦Ms. KaimanÃs account of her interview with me is correct, as is Ms. VarnerÃs. The Task Force did not, it is true, discuss race until its final meeting and then only in response to proposed language in the draft report. We did not have the discussion we hoped to have because of the court ruling that all our deliberations had to be conducted in meetings open to the public. I take full responsibility for the decision not to place such a volatile, contentious, easily-distorted issue on the agenda of an open meeting. That decision can be quarreled with, it is one about which I have absolutely no regret, but it is also one which is quite irrelevant to my complaint.²

            So, there was no discussion of the topic of race in connection with Mardi Gras, except in terms of the conversation at the final meeting about the draft report. The draft included a section mentioning race and concluding it was not a useful topic for preventing youth violence. It is important to point out that the July 22 news story included information about the points made in that section of the report, specifically around the motives behind the attacks and the conclusion that other factors are more helpful in looking at youth violence. Here are some excerpts:

Like Locke, Inveen said a task-force review of videotapes from the scene did not help determine motive.

¦There was nothing before us to suggest that these (assaults) were race-biased,² Inveen said.

                        ¦We didnÃt see anything there and we moved on.²

Locke noted that the footage also includes incidents of black-on-black crime, something he said the media neglected to point out.

Deputy Mayor Tom Byers said an examination of what led to the violence was meant to be part of the groupÃs work, but that goal probably was too ambitious.

It was unrealistic, for instance, to think much could be learned about cases still making their way through the judicial system, he said.

Byers said the task force did gather information from police on the age, gender, race and criminal history of the people arrested (most had records), and learned from school officials that many of the teenagers had attendance and discipline problems at school.

But beyond that, no work was done to find out what the teenagers were thinking that night.

And in another section:

                        The task force, one of three Mardi Gras review panels, didnÃt accomplish all of SchellÃs goals, co-chairman Hubert Locke acknowledged, but made carefully considered choices based on its limits on time and investigative powers.

                        ¦We dealt with the bigger issue of youth safety,² said Pamela Eakes, a task-force member and founder of Mothers Against Violence in America.

                        For Eakes and many others on the Youth Safety Task Force, including a juvenile-court judge, a police officer, a social scientist and a city recreation worker, the information that emerged was nothing new: Tough home lives, poverty, trouble in school, alcohol, peer pressure and other stresses put youth at risk to be perpetrators or victims of violence.

                        Task-force members recommend creating an inventory of services available to children in Seattle and King County and urge city officials to adopt a nationally recognized program that tests children for risk factors in their lives.

            For the record, your letter of September 17 suggests Ms. Kaiman indicated ¦the task force did not do what some people — promised it would.² That incomplete quote is actually from an earlier story (July 18), which was not cited in your complaint to the News Council. The full quote demonstrates that Seattle Times coverage was fair and accurate. The full quote (boldface added to indicate your deletions): ¦In significant ways, the task force did not do what some people, including the mayor and the groupÃs co-chairmen, promised it would. Until yesterday, the group did not discuss the role race might have played in the violence at Mardi Gras. ‘I was not about to try it,Ã said Hubert Locke, co-chairman of the task force and a professor emeritus at the University of Washington.²

            Ms. Kaiman wasnÃt taking issue with the way in which the task force dealt with the topic of race. She reported what you told her at the time and what you confirmed in your September 17 letter to me. Again I quote from your letter: ¦We did not have the discussion we hoped to have because of the court ruling that all our deliberations had to be conducted in meetings open to the public.²

I hope you will review the July 22 news story carefully, without regard for my column or the editorial. I think you will find that your complaint ascribes to the story meaning that canÃt be found in it. Your complaint treats the story as if it contained the same language as my column and the editorial. The story reported that the panel ¦passed on² the issue of race in looking at the causes behind the Mardi Gras violence or in looking at ways to avoid future violence. It reported the extent to which the panel did discuss race and its conclusion. It reported the actions of the Task Force fully and fairly.

            My column of July 29 characterized the task forceÃs actions differently than the news story did. I wrote: ¦Much of the news in recent weeks suggests people here canÃt or wonÃt talk about race. Most disappointing was the decision by a mayoral task force on youth safety to ignore race in exploring last springÃs Mardi Gras riots. Task-force members gave several reasons for their decision, including reluctance to talk candidly in an open forum and concern that their remarks would be taken out of context by the press.²

            The column was about the complexity of talking about race, based on a reader complaint concerning a map in the newspaper. The comment about the task force was toward the end of the column and clearly in the context of suggestions that ¦people here canÃt or wonÃt talk about race.² You acknowledge that you pointedly would not allow the task force to publicly discuss race.

            As I said in my letter of August 28, I used the word ¦ignored² to indicate that I didnÃt think race was seriously investigated, thoughtfully explored, openly discussed or meaningfully considered. It was, and is, my opinion that in refusing to allow any public discussion of race, you chose to ignore it in exploring the Mardi Gras riots. I believe the task force ignored those people who felt they were attacked because of their race and those who felt they were targeted for arrest because of their race. The limited extent to which the task force referenced to race at all was essentially to justify not addressing it openly and fully, in my opinion.

            My letter of August 28 lists many things the task force might have done that would have altered my feeling that it ignored race in regard to Mardi Gras. Your September 17 letter of response addressed none of those points. That is your prerogative. As I said in my column, ¦ItÃs not my place to judge the panelÃs thinking. As citizen volunteers, the members likely did what their consciences told them was best. So be it.² Had I intended to judge on the panelÃs actions I probably would have used a different word. An editorial in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, for example, said the task force ¦punted² the issue of race. Here is the quote from the P-IÃs August 9 editorial:

            ¦Sadly, the thoughtful, responsible and concerned Seattleites who are still trying to figure out how the race card played in the Fat Tuesday melee will have to go it alone from here on.

            ¦The Youth Safety Task Force, one of three created by Mayor Paul Schell to scrutinize anyoneÃs and everyoneÃs role that night, punted on the clearly delicate but arguably important question before it. If race isnÃt a ¦broad social issue,² which the group as officially charged with examining, none is.²

            Later the same editorial went further:

            ¦However, as to how and how much racial attitudes fueled the violence that a small percentage of our current children and newly enfranchised adults committed on the last night of Mardi Gras, the task force turned a colorblind eye.²

            Is ¦punted² a more accurate description than ¦ignored²? Either way, the opinion expressed in my column and the P-I editorial is that the task force did not give the subject meaningful scrutiny.

            Again noting the separation of news and editorial operations at The Times, I have asked Jim Vesely, editorial page editor, to respond regarding Lynne VarnerÃs editorial. Here is his response:

            The underlying premise of the July 24^th editorial opinion was not its sole reliance on Professor LockeÃs actions but on the larger community reaction to the work of the Task Force. Interviews with Seattle City Council members Jim Compton, Peter Steinbreuck and Richard McGiver; Pamela Eakes from Mothers Against Violence in America, and citizen activists James Kelly and Nate Miles were conducted by Lynne Varner. All agreed that race was the elephant in the living room, looming large but virtually ignored.

            Lynne Varner adds: ¦Professor Locke has consistently agreed that he deliberately put race aside in favor of other subjects under the committeeÃs purview. In his own words, race was not discussed until the final meeting and then only in response to proposed language in the draft report. The absence of discussion on race was explained by Professor Locke in this way, (quoting from his Sept. 17^th letter): ¦We did not have the discussion we hoped to have because of the court ruling that all our deliberations had to be conducted in meetings open to the public. I take full responsibility for the decision not to place such a volatile, contentious, easily-distortable issue on the agenda of an open meeting. That decision can be quarreled with, it is one about which I have absolutely no regret.²

            The Times editorial opinion did quarrel with that decision and saw it as an opportunity lost. Lynne VarnerÃs editorial encompasses discussions with community leaders and elected officials about that opportunity and frames the issue as a larger, public policy question about the performance of an official body. The editorial opinion simply and directly takes issue with the decision not to place race on the agenda.

            That concludes the editorial response.

            As I indicated above, The Seattle Times will not appear at the hearing of the Washington News Council. My letters to you (August 28 and this correspondence) are our response to you. The News Council is free to consider or ignore them as is sees fit.

            For the time being, our offer to meet with you or to publish your comments stands.

           Sincerely,

           Michael R. Fancher