Communications - #8 Feb/Mar 94

SPIKE

THE RABID
MEDIA
WATCHDOG

Our Top 10 Censored Local News Stories of 1993

illustration by Mary Collen

In the spirit of Project Censored's annual list of Top 10 censored news stories, here's the local equivalent, as compiled by The Free Press staff. You may recognize some of the stories from the pages of past Free Press editions. Others have been researched by us but have not been the subject of full-blown articles.

By the time you get to the end of our list, you will probably understand what inspired University of Washington communications Professor Don Pember to say a few years ago: "Seattle is a sleepy town. The newspapers aren't very aggressive. I don't know why that is."

Short of launching into explanations for this non-aggression, here's our list of stories that you should have heard more about in the mainstream print and broadcast media in 1993, but didn't.

10. Corporations Push to Burn Hazardous Waste

Big, pollution-prone companies throughout Washington - with Boeing leading the way - succeed in blocking legislation that would have made it tougher to build a hazardous waste incinerator in the state. (One such waste-burner was planned for Grant County in Eastern Washington.) But before they can uncork the champagne, EPA Director Carol Browner slaps a moratorium on all new haz-waste burners until the technology can be further tested. Boeing's interest in an incinerator? Simple: Why reduce waste when you can just burn the stuff? With no incinerator in the offing, the pressure now is on Boeing and other large polluters to reduce their waste stream.

9. "Zamboni John" Blows the Whistle

John Scannell, the colorful and now-former zamboni driver for Seattle Center, gets fired on Sept. 30 for "safety" violations after he reveals that Seattle Center director Virginia Anderson is funnelling construction work to her husband. Anderson winds up getting fined $3,000 by the state Ethics Commission. While Anderson keeps her job, Scannell loses his - for wanting to wear skates on the ice instead of street shoes, which his bosses inexplicably argue are safer than blades. In losing his job, Scannell also loses his seat on the city's Civil Service Board, which hears complaints from city employees. (see story: "Seattle Center Ices Whistleblowing 'Zamboni John'" this issue.)

8. Labor Issues Take a Back Seat

With union membership dropping throughout the country, balanced coverage of labor issues in large, corporate-owned newspapers also continues to dwindle. During the past year, coverage of union-management standoffs - most notably at airlines and at Boeing - focused on complaints from inconvenienced travelers and corporate managers instead of workers' rights, wages and health care. On a smaller level, you didn't read a single word in the Seattle Times or P-I about workers' attempts to form a union at Seattle's Daniel Smith art supply company. The company brought in a union buster from California (who helped decertify a union at Nordstrom) to lead the charge. Employees voted 52-18 against forming a union.

7. Indians? What Indians?

Seattle's two dailies are downright hostile to the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, which is trying to regain parts of the Sand Point Navy base, an area that lies within the tribe's traditional fishing territory. "An audacious and dead-wrong proposal," writes Times editorialist Don Hannula. "Outrageous," says a Times editorial about the Muckleshoots' request to use some of the soon-to-be-abandoned base for cultural activities, commercial space, and educational and training facilities. Article after article relegates the tribe's request to afterthought status, despite the fact that the U.S. Interior Department comes out in support of the Muckleshoots' plans to develop the base property.

6. PDC-GATE

Despite findings by the state Public Disclosure Commission that state employees performed campaign work for their bosses while on public time in 1992, the Attorney General's office shitcans the entire investigation, saying that PDC officials weren't qualified to undertake such a probe. Instead of doing its own independent analyses of the piles of evidence indicating scores of illegalities, the region's print and broadcast media take the state's word for it and go on their merry way.

5. Of Dams and Salmon

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation continue to determine that the federal dams lining the Columbia and Snake river systems pose "no jeopardy" to migrating salmon, despite the fact that dams cause 90 per cent of all non-natural salmon deaths and dozens of runs are near extinction. Are these no-jeopardy determinations a violation of the Regional Power Act of 1980, which calls for the Bonneville Power Administration and other federal agencies to do what's necessary to protect the fish? Maybe so, but you wouldn't know it by reading the local dailies and watching TV.

4. Hanford: Up to its Old Tricks

Under the guise of reducing waste, the federal Department of Energy considers spending $250 million to crank up the Westinghouse-operated Plutonium Finishing Plant at Hanford. The 1950s-era plant, which was shut down because of repeated fires, leaks and other mishaps, would produce 660 pounds of plutonium, along with the concomitant high-level nuclear waste, carcinogens and ozone depleters. Incredibly, a DOE official says the new plutonium could be converted to weapons-grade material, something that only a lunatic would think the planet needs more of.

3. The Uncommon Commons Debate

In almost complete ignorance of citizen opposition, the mainstream media perform collective fellatio on members of the Seattle Commons Committee, a group that wants to spend more than a half-billion dollars to raze and redevelop the South Lake Union/Cascade area. Left blatantly unasked are questions - most notably - about the supply of low- and moderate-income housing, the city's willingness and future ability to pay off billions in bonds floated to help pay for the Commons park and other "improvements," and about the individuals and institutions that stand to benefit financially from the enormous project payoffs - not to mention the questionable need for a 100-plus-acre park in a depressed area of the city.

2. Free Trade vs. Fair Trade

In the course of reporting on the APEC frenzy, and the negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the dominant media virtually ignore the whole concept of "free" trade vs. "fair" trade. While an emerging debate in even moderate academic and public policy circles, the arguments for a trade strategy that draws in more than just economic considerations is lost on corporate-owned media outlets. Such factors as a country's record on the environment, labor, and human and civil rights go all but unnoticed in the mainstream press.

1. Boeing Runs Amok

Easily topping our list is the mainstream media's embarassingly sycophantic news judgment applied to Boeing. The aerospace giant, which releases 6 million pounds of toxic waste a year, is the state's No. 2 worst polluter (behind Weyerhaeuser), and its environmental policy recently was labeled "insipid" by none-too-liberal Fortune magazine. And - as the cover story of this month's Free Press explains - Boeing exposes thousands of its workers to dangerous chemicals in its plants, only to deny them even the basic medical tests needed to find out what's wrong with them. Up until only a decade ago, Boeing P.R. flacks played cards with then-Seattle Times reporter Robert Twiss, a cozy rapport that hasn't seemed to have changed much over the years. It's the '90s, but Boeing just doesn't seem to get it.

Please see a reader response to this article.

Widows & Orphans

Art Joyner has decided to step down from his post as administrative officer for the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, a labor organization representing workers in most of the major dailies in the area. He will remain in office until a replacement is found.
A recent attack by the Seattle Weekly's Eric Scigliano on two local public radio stations set off a mini-firestorm. In his Jan. 19 "Quick & Dirty" column, Scigliano accused KPLU and KUOW of lifting material for their news broadcasts straight from the local newspapers. "Such effective, if not adjudicable, plagiarism hardly inspires trust," he wrote. (How can the Weekly criticize radio stations on this issue with a straight face? Much of its "Newsgram" section is clearly rehashed from local media sources.) In an angry response, KPLU marketing maven Greg Coe says sure, the station rewrites some of its news from AP copy, but it never directly lifts material from the dailies. Coe blasted Scigliano for making the allegation without so much as a phone call to the station. "Mr. Scigliano owes the KPLU news staff an apology."
Just what you were always hoping for: more convenience when you buy lotto tickets! Lottofone, Inc. is developing a system of selling lotto tickets over 1-800 phone numbers.
The most imaginative reference to John Wayne Bobbitt's penis comes from radio's Paul Harvey: "Mrs. Bobbitt sliced off his go-go."

Bias Watch

In a Jan. 7 article, Seattle P-I business columnist Carol Smith categorized employees who commit workplace violence as psychotics, pathological blamers and those with impaired neurological functions or other mental disorders. Smith's articles also attributed the recent increase in workplace violence largely to the "tremendous restructuring of the workplace that has occurred over the last decade." Could she perhaps be speaking of layoffs, erosion of job security and benefits, declining standard of living, and the resulting disruption of families? Is it possible that more and more workers may simply be desperate, rather than mentally ill?
Conservative foundations pumped $3.2 million into prominent right-wing publications from 1985 to 1990, and another $1.1 million into right-wing campus papers, while liberal progressive foundations gave only $165,000 in the same years to prominent left-wing papers, In These Times reported recently.
A National Public Radio news report of Jan. 6 hinted that Rudolph Giuliani, the new Republican mayor of New York City, would be free to act more independently than former Democratic Mayor David Dinkins because Giuliani was elected "without the support of labor and other special interests." The report made no mention of Giuliani's corporate backing, which apparently in NPR's view is not a special interest.

New Ink

It's upsetting, though not surprising, that we've come to need an alternative to the middle-drifting Utne Reader. But we're happy that it has arrived. It's called Alternative Press Review, a quarterly out of Missouri, of all places. APR's winter issue, its second, is an 84-page explosion of social, political and cultural goodies gleaned from mags and 'zines from all over the country. Beyond excerpted articles, it includes reviews of alternative mags and original pieces about where the alternative press is headed. (How many times can I get the word "alternative" in this blurb?!) One-year subs of APR are $16. They can be reached at PO Box 1446, Columbia, MO 65205-1446.
A second women's journal has appeared on the scene (the first being Gaya). synapse is a mixed-media mag of poetry, photography, conversation, essays, short fiction, comics - even sheet music. Published quarterly by a women's collective, synapse is also doing readings and other events around town. Their second issue should be out soon. synapse can be reached at PO Box 95220, Seattle 98145-2220, (206) 524-1235. One-year subs are $10.

[Home] [This Issue's Directory] [WFP Index] [WFP Back Issues] [E-Mail WFP]

Contents on this page were published in the February/March, 1994 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1994 WFP Collective, Inc.