In late March, Lowry scolded the print media for oversimplifying his "revenue enhancement" programs and overusing the word "tax" in headlines. The normally non-confrontational governor was quoted as saying that he could "come up with a cure to the most dangerous ailment facing mankind and if it was going to cost a dollar a month per family, the headline would be 'tax increase.' "

He called newspapers "an unwitting subsidiary of the conservative Republican Party" and joked that headline writers use the word "tax" so much "because they can spell it correctly three out of four times."

Brutal, Mike, but justifiable. The Guv is right: Mindlessly throwing around the "T" word without keeping in mind that the state is facing a $1.8 billion budget deficit is a great example of how the mass media can reduce a complex public policy debate to its most base level. Try some analysis, gang.

Never one to sit there and take it, Seattle Times cartoonist Brian Basset, the day after the governor's rant, pictured a necktie-wringing Lowry daring reporters to print some "good news." The punch line shows a newspaper with a huge headline: "Governor Lowry's Term Up in 1,391 Days."

With the help of others in the religious right, Mabon is planning to introduce a statewide, weekly newspaper, this summer called the Oregon News-Leader .

A lot of people in Oregon, Mabon was quoted in media reports, "feel disenfranchised by the media establishment. They're fed up with all the lies and distortions." Mabon promises to deliver the "most conservative editorial pages in the state of Oregon."

The newspaper reportedly is being backed by the Freedom Investment Network, a company led by former Baptist minister Joe Lutz, who twice ran losing campaigns against Sen. Bob Packwood and helped start Mabon's Oregon Citizen's Alliance.

Mabon said 2,000 people have sent him $90 checks for a year's subscription.

One could go on for several pages detailing Burlington's notorious record. Among its claims to fame:

• Burlington has a division called Chempro, which dumped hundreds of barrels of toxic waste into an abandoned coal mine in south King County.
  
• Burlington's Chempro division is having to spend millions of dollars to clean up its contaminated Georgetown site near South Boeing Field.
  
• Burlington was sued by the city of Seattle to help pay to clean up the city's shut-down Midway landfill in Kent.
  
• Hundreds of people had to be evacuated last November because of a chemical leak at Burlington's Kent Valley facility.

During the segment, KOMO showed gas-masked Burlington workers emptying drums of used solvents and other hazardous wastes, along with a company official boasting of Burlington's value to the local economy.

Viewers were not told of Burlington's shoddy environmental record, which the slightest journalistic research would have discovered.

While it is not uncommon for newspaper publishers to serve on government, community and corporate boards (Gillenwater serves on the Executive Council of Pierce County, an influential group of CEOs from Boeing, Weyerhaeuser and elsewhere), a powerful irony surrounds this situation.

Former reporter Sandy Nelson was taken off her education beat in September 1990 because News Tribune management felt it was a conflict of interest for Nelson also to be active in gay and lesbian and other political issues. The newspaper argued that the appearance of objectivity - notwithstanding the degree of Nelson's actual editorial evenhandedness - needed to be maintained at all costs.

Nelson, with the help of a legal defense fund and the support of many political and social leaders, continues to fight her transfer to a desk-bound copy editing job.

"How influential am I compared to him being on Executive Council? - compared to one private citizen holding a sign saying 'stop the war'? The magnitude is very small," Nelson said.

"What do I stand to gain by being involved in the democratic process? What does Kelso have to gain by being involved with Executive Council," Nelson said, hinting that what's good for business in general is good for the News-Tribune , and therefore good for Gillenwater. "You can really find a conflict of interest in that. But because he's the publisher he can do anything he wants. It's a double standard."

Gillenwater did not return a telephone call from the Free Press .

"Lowry transit plan off track ..." (headline)

"You could almost hear the squeal of train brakes ..."

"Swerving to avoid Gov. Mike Lowry's tax bill..."

"The Transportation Committee all but derailed his proposal..."

"He can't assume they're along for the ride ..."

"Transit plan jumps track" (headline)

"Proponents walked out complaining of whiplash ..."

"By jamming the brakes on sales-tax increases ..."

"Political gridlock as ugly as any rainy, Friday-afternoon rush hour."