Rantz: Hey Seattle media, do you plan on fact-checking Bob Ferguson at some point?

The gubernatorial race is set: Democrat Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson will face off against Republican former congressman and former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert. But will Seattle and other local media outlets hold Bob Ferguson accountable with rigorous fact-checking? Or will they continue to overlook half-truths, spin and outright lies?

When politicians run for re-election or higher office, it’s understandable they might stretch the truth if their record is at odds with the current mood of the electorate. They aim to stay in power or gain more, and sometimes their questionable records can hinder their campaigns. However, it shouldn’t be this easy. Unfortunately, Seattle media has allowed the Bob Ferguson for governor campaign not only to spin but to outright lie and dodge interviews. He’s become like Kamala Harris — a politician willing to say and do anything for power while avoiding tough scrutiny.

Bob Ferguson faces another scandal and is proactively defending himself in case Seattle media decides to cover the story. But a week after the scandal broke, and despite Ferguson’s efforts to counter bad press, coverage is nowhere to be found in Seattle media. Ferguson knows he can get away with such tactics because the media lets him.

Why does Seattle media permit Bob Ferguson to lie in his gubernatorial campaign?

Seattle media is fundamentally flawed, plagued by bias, laziness, political cowardice and indifference.

Is it too much to expect the media to do its job? They’re not even meeting the bare minimum. When covering Ferguson, he almost never participates in interviews. Instead, he provides carefully crafted written statements prepared by his staff, which give the illusion of transparency but are designed to mislead. Since these statements are typically in written form, Ferguson avoids follow-up questions and scrutiny. His X account, in particular, is filled with blatant falsehoods daring to be fact-checked.

Some of Ferguson’s claims are easy to debunk. For instance, he boasts of being the only gubernatorial candidate endorsed by a former legislator from the opposing party. This claim is false. Reichert is endorsed by former Democrat State Senator and Pierce County Executive Joe Stortini. Normally, such inaccuracies would prompt media coverage, especially in an effort to appear balanced. Yet, local media have declined.

On more substantive issues, Ferguson hopes the media will conveniently forget his past and misrepresent Reichert’s record.

Seattle media is intentionally ignoring the latest Bob Ferguson scandal

Ferguson concealed a pair of lawsuits aimed at removing popular initiatives from the November ballot. The plaintiffs include supporters and donors to Ferguson’s gubernatorial campaign, and Ferguson opposes all of the initiatives. His failure to recuse himself from the case, given the clear conflict of interest, reflects his low ethical standards.

His office never informed the interested parties — Let’s Go Washington’s Brian Heywood and state representative Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen) — so they could become co-defendants if they disagreed with Ferguson’s position. Former Attorney General Rob McKenna called Ferguson’s silence “highly unusual” and suggested it was intentional. Ferguson’s court documents confirm that the interested parties were never notified.

When initially criticized, Ferguson defended himself on X, claiming the interested parties should have known about the case because the Supreme Court docket is public. This argument is aggressively nonsensical; how can one check if they’re an interested party in a case they don’t know exists?

Plus, a statement from his spokesperson falsely implied that only plaintiffs inform interested parties, but the spokesperson did not respond when I asked for similar examples of the office not informing interested parties.

The carefully worded spin is nothing more than a lie

When Ferguson learned that Let’s Go Washington was holding a rally this week to draw attention to the issue, he posted a carefully worded thread on X defending himself. The statement seemed aimed more at influencing media coverage of the rally than informing the public. Unfortunately, local television networks ignored the rally, which was unsurprising given their tendency to act as Ferguson’s publicists.

Ferguson suddenly claimed he did inform the interested parties, an odd omission from his earlier statements. He even posted an undated document that shows cases he supposedly briefed staff on. However, a close examination of his wording reveals that no, he did not inform them. His claim of briefing senior legislative staff, including House and Senate Republicans, is misleading, as the legislative staff does not work for Walsh and he’s unable to communicate with them as a sponsor of the initiative.

Ferguson also neglected to mention Let’s Go Washington in the statement — the group leading the initiative effort — hoping that a misleading claim about legislative staff would confuse the media.

This strategy ended up being all for naught. Heywood told “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH there were no television camera crews at his event. He was only aware of two reporters there: one from NPR and an environmental reporter (why?) from The Seattle Times. Previously, the Times reached out to Heywood for comment but they’ve yet to publish anything on the scandal.

Bob Ferguson has a history on crime and drugs that cost thousands of lives

Seattle media is also ignoring Ferguson’s broader record.

Ferguson claims he wants to address the region’s crime crisis, though he played a significant role in creating it. Democrats’ legislation banning vehicular pursuits contributed to the surge in car theft, and Ferguson’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement exacerbated the police exodus. His silence on his party’s anti-police, pro-criminal legislative agenda reflects his agreement with it.

Ferguson was a loud voice demanding the state decriminalize drugs in 2021. At the time, KUOW Radio celebrated his stance with a press release masquerading as a report. Since Democrats followed Ferguson’s advice, the state has seen a historic rise in fatal overdoses. It became so bad, that Democrats had to retreat on their position and recriminalize.

Outside of KTTH Radio and our sister brands, are you hearing local media question any of this or even remind the public of his positions? No, they’re too busy letting him benefit from his spin.

Mr. Transparency himself!

Ferguson declared his “position on transparency is clear as day: I will not assert the executive privilege exemption to withhold public records.”

It’s odd for the media to give him a pass on this X post given it was media members from the Washington Coalition for Open Government (WCOG) that called him out for dragging his feet in releasing public documents. A WCOG member offered biting criticism in an editorial in The Seattle Times.

“You would think that, given his role as the people’s attorney, his agency would outperform all other agencies on Public Records Act compliance,” Joan Mell wrote. “But it does not, and he does not seem to care. Ferguson’s promised leadership during his campaigns regarding the important principles of transparent governance in a democracy hardly appears where it really matters.”

More troublesome, Ferguson’s office was fined by a judge for withholding documents from a plaintiff in a case involving a developmentally disabled adult who, through her guardian, sued the state for negligence. The judge said there was “no reasonable justification or excuse” for withholding the documents.

Judge Michael Ryan noted that “rather than take responsibility … the AGO (Attorney General’s Office) instead tries to point the finger at (the) plaintiff and her counsel.” He also noted that Ferguson’s office alleged the plaintiff wasn’t forthcoming with her discovery, even though the office didn’t issue any discovery requests to her.

The role of the media

Local media outlets are giving Ferguson a pass, allowing him to issue statements instead of conducting interviews. They fail to address his about-face on major issues or his transparency issues. Washingtonians deserve better, but they won’t get it from a media landscape eager to support his candidacy.

Some local television stations, like KING 5, do not hide that they’re politically progressive. Others were once known for more objective and balanced coverage but have since either dramatically gutted resources and lost top talent or relegate political issues to one reporter. One other doesn’t appear to even know what it’s doing anymore.

Print media is no better. The Seattle Times has more former Stranger writers than the Stranger has current writers. And other papers have become shells of what they once were. The Tacoma News Tribune has become little more than clickbait titles and press releases about new restaurant openings.

I’m not complaining as a conservative. I’m not even complaining about their left-wing bias being so evident in their reporting. This is about the media not even pretending to be objective.

With one party in power, who will hold Democrats and their leaders, like Ferguson, accountable? It seems there’s no outlet willing to do so outside of KTTH Radio and our sister properties.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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