Curbing the Watchdog

John Hamer is smiling.

Standing in the middle of the Washington News Council’s one-room office in Seattle’s SoDo district, he is rewinding the last decade, recalling shining moments in the history of his media watchdog organization.

“I’m proud of everything we’ve done in 10 years,” says Hamer. The WNC provides an alternative to litigation for those who feel they’ve been damaged by the media. The amount of publicity their complaints receive, of course, is up to the local media—and it has been relatively sparse. Hostility from the local print and broadcast media has been problematic for the news council—which also faces other challenges as it tries to stay afloat amid the tide of mass media shifting toward the Internet, as well as the economic downturn that threatens all nonprofits.

But Hamer remains upbeat. The new year ushered in a big assignment for the WNC, with Secretary of State Sam Reed filing a complaint against KIRO-7 TV over stories alleging that his office sent ballots to felons and dead voters. Reed’s complaint claims KIRO’s reporter based his report on erroneous information and calculations. At press time, KIRO had not responded to the complaint, but Maria Lamarca Anderson, KIRO communications relations manager, tells L&P the station plans to meet with Reed to try to work things out. It’s the second time the WNC has had a chance to critique KIRO-7. The first was a 2003 complaint, which the WNC upheld on behalf of the Washington State Beef Commission and Washington State Dairy Products Commission, over stories alleging that “downer” cows (animals that can’t walk) were being mistreated and taken to the slaughterhouse for possible human consumption. The commission contended the report was biased and misleading.

But the WNC has had the chance to pass judgment against the media only a handful of times. Since its first hearing in February 2000, in which a failed city council candidate accused The Olympian of mischaracterizing him in an editorial, it has received 24 formal complaints against local media. More than half were denied as not meeting WNC guidelines. Five were resolved with the WNC acting as an informal mediator. Four went to a WNC board hearing, with three upheld. None of the media involved attended the hearings, although they responded with written statements.

“Admittedly, we haven’t been deluged with complaints,” says Hamer. “When we started, we thought we’d have more. We didn’t get a flood partly because the media didn’t publicize us. A lot of people, to this day, after 10 years, still don’t know about us.”

The media’s skepticism stems largely from the bad taste left after Hamer and his wife, Mariana Parks, wrote a series of right-leaning media critiques in a column called “Watchdogs” for he Seattle Weekly. Hamer launched the column after leaving his job as an editorial writer for The Seattle Times, where he had been passed over for a promotion at one point. He says his personal views were not the motivation for establishing the council. “I used to be feisty,” he admits. “But this is a different approach. We don’t want to kick them in the shins all the time; we just want them to be better.

“People thought that we were going to be right-wing media-bashers. They thought we were going to be biased, partisan. But we said from Day 1, no, we’re going to be balanced—and we have been.”

The council’s founding board included a broad-based mix of prominent citizens: public-transit booster Jim Ellis, former KIRO president Ken Hatch, past state Senate Majority Leader Jeannette Hayner, former Gov. Mike Lowry and former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer. Financial backers include Bill Gates Sr.

But detractors cite another possible conflict of interest: the employment of Hamer’s wife in Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert’s office. Reichert was the sheriff of King County for part of the time frame covered in a 2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer series accusing the department of failing to properly discipline rogue deputies. Also, several WNC board members had made campaign contributions to Reichert or current King County Sheriff Sue Rahr.

The P-I skipped the 2006 hearing at which the news council upheld a complaint about the series filed by Rahr, who accused the P-I of running stories that were “intentionally biased, unfair, malicious” and sensationalized. Hamer says he recused WNC board members with possible conflicts of interest from participating in the hearing, though they did attend.

“We basically had no faith in the legitimacy of the [WNC’s] process,” says P-I managing editor David McCumber. The P-I did, however, post a 17-page response to the complaint on its Web site, which was read at the hearing.

Hamer takes a different view. “That was their Pulitzer entry, and everybody knew it,” he says. “They were salivating for a Pulitzer. They went with this story that essentially didn’t meet the highest standards in professional journalism in my view, and our council unanimously agreed.”

For the WNC, it was a glowing victory to expose alleged inaccuracies in the P-I series on TVW (the Washington State Public Affairs TV Network). A larger dose of credibility came later that year. The WNC was approached by Steve Smith, then-editor-in-chief of Spokane’s daily newspaper, The Spokesman-Review. Smith asked the council to conduct an audit of the paper’s coverage of the questionable financing of the Spokane River Park Square redevelopment, a long-running civic nightmare. The paper, whose publisher owned the property involved, had been accused of biased reporting. Smith wanted to restore the public’s trust.

The WNC’s 48-page report ultimately critiqued the Spokesman’s reporting as inappropriately influenced by the newspaper’s ownership.

Though Smith admits he, like other editors, doesn’t like the “quasi-judicial process” of the WNC’s hearings, he says, “I do think there’s a role for outside monitors of press credibility. I think the audit showed one additional way—or maybe one better way—that the council can perform its function. The report was highly critical, but I thought it was appropriately so.”

In addition to watching the media, the WNC promotes community dialogue about media ethics, hosting public forums with panels of journalists and citizens. Expanding those forums and continuing to engage journalism students through mock hearings are priorities as the WNC grapples with its role in the future of media. There is little expectation of an increasing number of formal complaints. And with the rise in online media, the WNC has new issues to decide, such as how to be most effective promoting ethics in the new types of media, and how to become more interactive online. “We’re trying to figure out what exactly makes sense: what we should be doing more of; what we should be doing less of,” says Hamer. 

Though Hamer says the economic downturn hasn’t yet affected the non-profit’s bottom line, it does warrant some concern. The WNC’s annual “Gridiron West,” a dinner at which the council roasts VIPs and collects donations from corporations, politicians and a few media members, brings in about 40 percent of its annual budget. The rest comes from grants and private donations. Each year, the WNC awards two $2,000 scholarships to journalism students.

P-I managing editor McCumber says the heavy private funding—not the success of the WNC’s unenforceable judgments—is the thing that’s kept the WNC around for a decade. “I view them as basically irrelevant,” he says.

Hamer says there’s a reason public trust in the media is so low. If you own up to mistakes, he says, “people are going to like you more.”

According to Hamer, “Journalists pound their chests and say, ‘We’re noble, we’re pure, and our motives are good.’ Well, wait a second: What makes them any more pure than any other profession? What they need is a little more humility and willingness to be open and admit mistakes.”  L&P