17 September 2001

Dear Mr. Fancher:

Due to my temporary absence from Seattle, I did not receive your letter of 28 August until last week. I appreciated your taking the time and effort to discussing my complaint with both your news and editorial staffs. I fear, however, that we remain poles apart on one essential point.

The substance of your response is that both the news and editorial staffs of the Times take issue with the way in which the Task Force dealt with the question of race and the Mardi Gras event, as well as with the conclusions the Task Force reached [Ms. Kaiman: ¦the task force did not do what some people—promised it would;² the 24 July editorial: ¦the task force declined to assign any meaning² (to the fact that most of the arrestees were African American); your subsequent column expressing disappointment over the task forceÃs work.] The burden of my complaint, however, is that the Times used appallingly misleading language to express its sentiments. I have no quarrel with the fact that the Times disagreed with what the Task Force did; my objection is to the use of the words ¦passed on,² ¦left out,² and ¦ignored² to describe what we ostensibly did not do ³ verbs that according to common, dictionary usage convey the idea that the Task Force ¦disregarded², ¦omitted,² or ¦refused to pay attention to² the topic of race ³ and that is simply not true.

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-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, but it is also one which is quite irrelevant to my complaint.

Mr. Moriwaki did offer me the opportunity to write an op-ed piece and I appreciate Mr. VeselyÃs invitation to do the same. I did and do decline because I do not consider this to be a matter of conflicting viewpoints but one of media accuracy. I still believe the Times owes the Task Force an apology and its readers an acknowledgement that it inaccurately depicted the Task ForceÃs report.

As a quite separate matter I would be delighted to discuss with you and your colleagues the broader issue of race and the Mardi Gras event. I wonÃt get back to Seattle until the end of December but if you will have someone give me a ring, we can set a date.

Sincerely,

Hubert G. Locke

P.S. As an entirely unrelated matter, IÃm teaching a graduate seminar on the United Statesà response to the Holocaust and am pleased to find in the records that the Seattle Times was the first ³ and apparently the only ³ newspaper in the country to run a front-page, above-the-fold, headline story regarding the slaughter of Jewish citizens in Europe!

cc. Mr. John Hamer. Washington News Council