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Along with a full-color, full-page ad for Referendum 74, The Seattle Times Executive Editor, David Boardman, asks readers to trust his journalists' integrity and objectivity. (Linda Thomas photo)

Seattle Times top newsman asks readers to trust news staff

October 21, 2012 @ 6:38 am (Updated: 11:06 am - 10/21/12 )

The Seattle Times made its own newsroom look bad when it decided to buy ads on its pages to campaign for Rob McKenna and Referendum 74. Now the top guy in the newsroom asks readers to trust their integrity.

"The best way to find out if you can trust a man, Ernest Hemingway advised, is to trust him," writes Executive Editor David Boardman, who didn't know about his company's plan to campaign on behalf of one candidate and one state-wide ballot measure.

A newspaper advertising executive said last week it was a "business decision that is completely separate from journalism functions of the newspaper."

Staffers didn't see it that way. They drafted a letter to the publisher, Frank Blethen, say he's undermined their independence and credibility.

In Sunday's Seattle Times, Boardman offers readers inside view of his newsroom with A vow to continue impartial reporting.

Boardman started at the paper 29 years ago. He's now in charge of the newsroom, but not the opinion page or advertising.

"I've been in the trenches with these business-side colleagues over the past few difficult years, as we've worked together to cut costs while sustaining quality journalism and service. I admire their passion and creativity in trying to capture some of the tens of millions of dollars that are spent locally on political advertising each campaign season, mostly on television. They are driven by a desire to fund Seattle Times journalism," writes Boardman. "But no one in the newsroom, including me, had any involvement in this project."

He continues, describing newsroom reaction to the ads and what he hopes readers will remember about the journalists at the Times.

"Normally, a fast-growing buzz in our newsroom is a beacon of a breaking story, the aural manifestation of adrenaline rush. Wednesday morning's buzz was different," he writes. "Within minutes of seeing the ad, a group of reporters began to draft a letter to our publisher."

Boardman stresses the Times newsroom has always been "independent" and cites examples of what the Pulitzer Prize winning staff has accomplished: Revealing safety problems in the Boeing 737. Exposing recruiting violations and criminal misconduct in the University of Washington football program. Uncovering how school districts were complicit in the sexual abuse of young girls by dozens of middle- and high-school coaches. Exposing fraud in the federal tribal-housing program. Revealing how a state program that promoted methadone as a painkiller had killed hundreds of our most vulnerable citizens.

"They say past performance is the best indicator of future performance. As Hemingway advised, let us show you," he concludes.

By LINDA THOMAS Full disclosure, David Boardman is a friend and mentor.

More from Linda Thomas

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Comments (43)


  • Add A Comment

  • ron prevost wrote...
    This story ran out it's news value a couple of days ago.
    October 21, 2012 6:22 am
    Now it's just a tempest in a tea cup.

    Again, the ONLY thine that's news about a newspaper endorsement is that it WASN'T lock step for a democrat. .. Live with it, left.

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  • Kahlua wrote...
    Refreshing...
    October 21, 2012 7:34 am
    I never read the ad, but I will say it's very refreshing to see journalism favoring a bit to the "right". You will never be "fair" and even if you tried, it would be tainted to the left. You write "Democratic" party, when there is no such thing. It's the "Democrat" party, but you use the descriptive word as it lends an appearance it is the party supporting our democratic way of governing. We all know you will never be neutral, so don't tell us another white lie that you promise to be fair.
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  • xplanes wrote...
    Doesn't change a thing
    October 21, 2012 8:29 am
    As a conservative I don't really care if there is bias in the adds. I care more about the blatant bias in the news coverage. I dropped the times years ago and only read it occasionally when I don't have to spend a dime on it. Even though the most influential paper in the state (and many others for that matter) along with teachers groups etc. are all endorsing McKenna over Inslee, the race is still tied in the polls. That explains a lot. People in this state will vote for any jack-arse with a "D" in front of their name. That's why tax restraint initiatives and private property rights initiatives always have huge support and yet the children in grown-up cloths that ritually abuse both are re-elected all the time.
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  • HPD 5-0 wrote...
    The liberal left is in a tizzy over this.
    October 21, 2012 8:40 am
    The Times did not walk the line. How dare they....
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • FormerMarineSgt wrote...
    The liberal left is in a tizzy over this.....
    October 21, 2012 8:58 am
    It's hilarious how the right wing wonks on here say that it's ok for a media organization to do this kind of blatant support for a right wing candidate, but every damm one of these wonks would be screaming and having heart attacks if a newspaper did this for a democrat. It's absolutely hilarious how hypocritical this response is from them. And Paul you can't be serious - "Democrat fraud and incompetence is all around you, enabled by propagandists such as the Times" - the Times is the MOST republican paper in the northwest region.
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  • Paul Kersey wrote...
    FunnySgt....that was a good one
    October 21, 2012 9:16 am
    "the Times is the MOST republican paper in the northwest region." Wow, that's saying a lot isn't it?

    Newspapers shouldn't be partisan at all. If they make the claim that they are watchdogs, then they should catch a crook once in a while. The Times gets most of its stories from the AP, hardly an unbiased organization. Any news source that reprints stories from the AP (Almost Pravda), is a Democrat propaganda outlet, that includes mynw.com.

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  • maplefish wrote...
    Fake sarg
    October 21, 2012 10:11 am
    The times is the MOST republican paper in he NW region. I have not stopped laughing ll morning! And Paul Kersey is absolutely correct about Democratic Fraud & Incompetence being all around you... You are in denial... It's part of the Liberal disease....stupidity & denial
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  • William Lawn wrote...
    Fake sarg
    October 21, 2012 12:52 pm
    Notice how you aholes call names and hate. Who knows? You don't.

    Just want to hate someone who served.

    Unlike you.

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • kato1967 wrote...
    "the Times is the MOST republican paper in the northwest region"
    October 22, 2012 9:01 am
    Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!! Good one Private Pyle! I think we finally found something you do well!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Paul Kersey wrote...
    The last line says it all
    October 21, 2012 8:44 am
    "They say past performance is the best indicator of future performance"

    Based on that, I would say that the Seattle Times is not a watchdog, but an old toothless Chihuahua that doesn't bark. There is no cure, put it to sleep.

    If you can't come up with better examples of past investigative journalism, as the largest paper in the NW, you are a pathetic excuse for a "newspaper". Open your eyes, Democrat fraud and incompetence is all around you, enabled by propagandists such as the Times.

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Burn_Notice wrote...
    No worries about the Seattle Times
    October 21, 2012 9:17 am
    In 10 years they will be delivering it free like garbage community ad rags dumped on your driveway. When a newspaper used to "endorse" a candidate it carried weight, now ask anyone under 30 if they even read the Seattle Times and you will be met with a blank stare or maybe a reply of, "The Seattle what?"

    There is very little journalist integrity anymore. How often do they get the facts wrong, half report stories, make idiotic grammatical errors or claim to be "reporting" when in fact they editorialize with impunity? They are bloggers, nothing more.

    I don't blame them as the bar has been set so low when it comes to the media that we merely have to look at ourselves and our appetite for garbage TV and tabloid journalism to blame. "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Walt Kelly

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  • mpgunner wrote...
    "Continue impartial reporting"? LOL
    October 21, 2012 9:42 am
    When did this change happen? Times has always been in the tank for lib's. Perhaps the recent change to Rob is thanks to Obama's incompetence and our nation on the brink.
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  • bmesick wrote...
    Seattle Times is a joke
    October 21, 2012 9:54 am
    But it's not because they endorse McKenna and Ref 74. I support Ref 74 and not McKenna. The problem is that the Seattle Times doesn't understand the issues on education, climate change, density and mass transit (among other things). They continue to produce some of the worst news in the northwest about factually wrong and misleading information that directly contradicts brilliant and educated experts right here in the northwest. They're shills for politicians pushing useless emotional rhetoric. Seattle is smarter than the Seattle Times, which is why Seattleites know it's crap.
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  • maplefish wrote...
    Bmesick
    October 21, 2012 10:14 am
    We don't understand the issues....? Wow. Good thing we have someone as superior as you to hip us to your personal wisdom....BAWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! Democrats: constantly striving for a new level of hypocrisy!
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  • Paul Kersey wrote...
    If these comments were on the Seattle Times web site
    October 21, 2012 10:55 am
    all but one would be deleted.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Cameron wrote...
    You have to forgive the FmrMarineSgt.
    October 21, 2012 11:14 am
    He got tired of getting his behind handed to him standing for election in the 5th District as a Democrat.
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  • LoyalListenerPhil wrote...
    The bizarre thing here is that...
    October 21, 2012 11:33 am
    anyone would think of a newspaper as being neutral -- ever! People buy or start newspapers for a purpose and that purpose is usually to control or alter the readers opinion on various subjects. If you were rich and powerful, you bought for yourself newspapers, and radio and TV stations. Almost every major newspaper in this country is known for their political position and it is not neutrality.
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