Here’s a weird one: I’m told that advocates of the downtown Seattle tunnel project have lodged a formal complaint with KUOW 94.9 FM, saying they deserve equal time on the station’s Friday news roundup because I’m a regular guest on the Friday news roundup, and my bosses at The Stranger have donated to the anti-tunnel group Protect Seattle NOW.
I find this weird on several fronts.
First: As anyone who listens to the show knows, I’m usually on the Friday news roundup with Joni Balter of The Seattle Times, who always takes equal time (and then some) to push for construction of the downtown tunnel. This isn’t a show that I host. KUOW’s Steve Scher hosts it, and I’m one of his invited panelists, selected (I think) because I represent a certain perspective on the city that clashes and contrasts in (hopefully) interesting ways with the other invited panelists. But I don’t control the conversation, and in any case the pro-tunnel perspective, as I said, is always very well represented on Weekday. In addition, listeners are always welcome to call in and voice their views. If equal on-air time were given to everyone who ever disagrees with me—or Joni, or the other regular guest, Knute Berger—on any given Friday, I’m not sure how we’d get through a show.
Second: Political donations by Stranger employees aren’t new—or secret. Just dig around in here and you’ll find them. In March of this year, Stranger Editorial Director Dan Savage gave $500 to Protect Seattle Now, Stranger News Editor Dominic Holden gave $100 to the group, and Stranger Publisher Tim Keck gave $200. It’s no secret. We do advocacy journalism here at The Stranger and, among other things, people’s donations are often a way of them putting their money where their mouths already are. I don’t personally make political contributions, in case anyone’s wondering, and my boss’s political donations don’t buy my point of view, in case anyone’s concerned.
Third: What are the pro-tunnel “equal time” demanders really trying to achieve here? More time with my mouth closed and their mouths open? I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. We’re supposed to talk about all this on the air, perhaps with the “equal time” demanders joining in the conversation. (That’s 94.9 FM, starting at 10 am, on Friday.)
NOT
UNTIL
THEY
FIRE
STEVE
SCHER
and
BRING
BACK
CLIFF
MASS!
I’ll bet they’re counting on Steve Scher firing you.
So, talk KOUW into letting them have some time. Are you afraid of a debate? SLOG and its anti-tunnel supporters complain bitterly about “The will of the voter”, how “Our voices must be heard!”. But a public debate on a partially tax funded local radio station, seems like a no brainer to me.
KOUW will come off as hypocrites if they dont allow a the pro-tunnel folks to debate this issue.
Perhaps the supporters feel Joni Balter is harmful to the cause, and is really helping your side with her inane blabbering?
While I would listen to a program featuring representatives of both the pro- and anti- tunnel groups, the Friday news round-up is not the venue.
That show is specifically for a discussion with journalists (in a broad sense) to discuss the news of the week.
@4 that’s not her fault.
It’s just the pro-tunnel anti-car crowd has weak arguments for why we should waste taxes and tolls on an insane tunnel.
If you hate cars, you’ll love the lower capacity tunnel and it’s $10 roundtrip tolls.
@5 just had a thought … maybe if Richard Conlin tweeted a pic of his underwear we could have him show up on Weakday.
Interest groups have learned that KUOW will fold under pressure.
You find it weird that an advocacy group would do what it can to get its message out?
Launch into a tirade about weather and then demand that Cliff Mass be given equal time to refute your claims.
@10 for the insightful We Want Cliff Mass Back, al-KUOW, win!
@10 I say he should just talk about the need for better science and math education.
Maybe we need to recall Steve Scher …
What would tunnel supporters say, exactly? They can’t say it will improve traffic movement, because every study finds the opposite to be true. The only arguments they have (at least here on Slog) are:
1) We have to do something, and this plan is underway.
2) We have the money for a tunnel; no money is approved for anything else.
Seems like they’d have a pretty short on-air segment.
Uh, takes a lot of chutzpah to just up and demand free airtime for your campaign because a private citizen doesn’t support you.
I’m sorry if you are shocked that normal citizens — and not members of a group you hate — are voicing a private personal opinion against a pet project of yours, Let’s Move Forward. Perhaps one of your small handful of donors can pull a Pamplin and start Seattle’s own KPAM.
Wait, here, I’ll help them come up with some convincing arguments, free of charge:
1. We need to build the Tunnel because people with limos need a sweet ride to their private jets at Boeing Field from SLU and the Gates Foundation paid for by Seattle taxpayers.
2. We need to double our particulate pollution and carbon pollution by building this to compete with coal-burning states and bring on the coming Dinosaur Revolution!
3. If we don’t have outrageous tolls for a tunnel, how will we keep the bus traffic and cars and trucks used by poor people out of our Rich Person’s Highway?
4. We need to burn up our bonding authority so that we can kill the 520 floating bridge and bring back zeppelins!
… there, how did I do?
@14 Why would you expect the replacement of a road to improve traffic? That’s not the point. The point is to provide for the important capacity that is being lost due to an aging structure.
Its like wondering why insurance does not buy you a nicer car when yours is wrecked.
@17 Your right insofar as @14 should have said that the tunnel will worsen traffic movement, not that it will fail to improve traffic movement.
The point @14 was making is that the tunnel, with it’s lack of downtown exits and $8 round-trip peak hour tolls, is only projected to carry slightly over 50% of the viaduct’s current usage rate of 110,000. And it is more expensive than any of the other alternatives that have been studied.
To use your insurance simile, it’s like wrecking your car and having your insurance company buy you a more expensive car that only does half of what your old car did.
F that. I love weekday, but Joni already runs her mouth and stomps about getting more air time for her anti-tax, anti-union, pro-tunnel viewpoints. (Forgot Anti-bike, anti-transit, anti-McGinn, anti-education, anti-common sense).
She somehow is outnumbered two to one but still gets to talk more than anyone else.
(By the way, she definitely didn’t answer your question last Friday – if the tunnel is voted down by Seattle, as someone who crows that the will of the voters must be respected, will she then agree that it’s a bad project? Cause you asked her twice and she dodged both times.)
Sanders is not a private citizen while on the air. He is from “The Stranger”, not introduced in some other way.
The rest of you, esp Eli, you are focusing on the wrong part of the equation. Follow the money, it is that The Stranger gave the money, and it really could be any one of a handful of employees, had they appeared on the show as being from the Stranger.
Advocate all you want, but that money thing is something you have to be careful about.
@20 Your “follow the money” claim is a bit of an over reaction. This isn’t some conspiracy, tons of people have donated to this campaign, the mayor included. A more appropriate use of the phrase “follow the money” might apply to the other side of this argument. i.e. The $1.9 billion contract between WSDOT and a multinational conglomerate. But that’s off topic.
As for Eli’s post and LMF’s whining, I’m calling b.s. Eli, Knute, and Joni are talking heads. It’s a pretty balanced group if you ask me, certainly as far as Western Washington politics go. That’s all that show ever is, a host and three talking heads kicking around the news of the week.
If everyone interested party with a stake in the issues being discussed can airtime because one of the talking heads has a boss who contributed a few hundred dollars to one side or the other where does it end?
@21, no, it is their argument.
I didn’t say that I agreed with it, just that Eli and the choir appear to be missing the point in Eli’s own report.
@21 Alright, it’s LMF’s argument and not yours. It’s still a crap argument. The show is not about giving equal time to everyone who has a stake in what is discussed. It is a more or less static group of 3 talking heads. There are a gazillion cable news channels with this format. Talking heads aren’t supposed to be neutral or even entirely disinterested.
A balance must be struck of course, but a few hundred bucks donated by Eli’s boss isn’t enough to tip that scale. Especially when Dan et.al. have no financial stake in defeating the tunnel.
I am essentially riffing off of Scher and Sewall’s argument about why it was okay to fire Cliff Mass. There are certain roles played by certain contributors, during certain portions of KUOW’s programming and these boundaries need to be maintained. Cliff wasn’t part of the Knute, Eli, Joni trio who get to spout their views on the news of the week / issues of the day. He had a defined role in the eyes of the Sewall and Scher and they weren’t willing to let him step out of that role.
If LMF want’s to ask KUOW to do a show with both sides of the tunnel debate, I’m all for it. But to file a formal complaint over something said by a regular contributor whose view is counter-balanced? Over a few hundred dollar donation. Give me a break.
Whoever’s making this argument, I call b.s.
Alright, time for me to go lodge a formal complaint with Fox News over Karl Rove’s appearance on their show this evening. My viewpoint wasn’t represented, and I’m pretty sure American Crossroads received anonymous funds from a corporation whose interests he was representing on the show. It’s practically as bad as Eli, Dan Savage, and the tunnel.
This sounds like a typical Eli Sanders non-story based upon nothing but conjecture. “I’m told that…” is not a basis worthy of a post on SLOG.
The problem with anti-T versus pro-T with Eli and Joni is no one is able to represent the only reasonable alternative:
REPAIR (the Viaduct in Place)
&
PREPARE (to tear it down over the years it will take to establish the transportation infrastructure.)
I’m with 25
Hell, at this stage why not bring back the Great Wall of Chopp.