Letters to the Editor

MURRAY'S LESSON PLAN

I was the Columbia River High School teacher in whose class of senior students Patty Murray made her infamous comments about bin Laden [Patty, Jennifer, and Osama, Feb. 12]. So, what Im about to say is not out of context and is ultimately the best informed source any news media person will find. Thus far, I have refused to talk to any media except the Daily Columbian, to which my school district administration asked me to speak.

The situation was confusing from the first moment Murray walked in. She immediately began soliciting questions from my students, for which my students were not prepared. We were told by Murrays office that she would be asking the questions to find out what my students were thinking about the war on terror, the Iraq question, education and Leave No Child Behind legislation, and the economy and jobs.

My students spent two weeks researching Murray, her voting record, the history of Saddam and the current crisis, the recent history of terrorism and its sources, and we read the Leave No Child Behind legislation. The students were ready and prepared to give her their opinions on these issues.

She didnt want to know that. She began soliciting questions, and when my students finally reoriented themselves to the reality of the situation, they began asking them. The problem was in Murrays responses. Her answers were not genuine, but clearly political rhetoric. The students became very quickly turned off to the entire situation and basically went on automatic. They didnt really engage her or themselves in the Q&A session. It became clear that it was nothing more than a campaign stop — a political presentation to recruit potential voters in her next bid for re-election.

She made very partisan remarks about Bush, the congressional resolution to support his actions in regard to Iraq, and Selective Service. My students, however, were on top of this and, although they didnt directly challenge her, the off-camera remarks and behavior were clearly negative and cynical about her presentation. The bin Laden remarks ultimately were less offensive to my students (and me) than some of her earlier statements about Bush and the Congress. At least the bin Laden remarks were an attempt to challenge their thinking on U.S. foreign policy and foreign aid. But to suggest that Bush was abrogating the Constitution in his Homeland Security legislation, or that he was single-handedly going to reinstitute the draft and put my students lives at risk (she actually said that!) by forcing them to fight his wars, or that Bush now has absolute power to wage war, violating the constraints of the Constitution — well, you see the problem. My students know what the War Powers Act is; they know the congressional resolution is non-binding; they know that any president can legally mobilize troops without congressional approval; they knew that the Republicans and Bush had no plans to reinstitute the draft but that certain Democrats were drafting such proposals. Again, you see the problem here. My students were not taken in by Murrays political machinations. By the time we got to the bin Laden comments, we werent even really listening anymore. (And I voted for Murray ... oy.)

Gary Lorentzen
Columbia River High School
Vancouver, Wash.

FRANK'S FISHY MOTIVES

I'm all for independent business, and it's great to know that Frank Blethen is a proponent of that model ["Pulp Friction," Feb. 5]. But I question the motives of anyone who wants to eliminate media diversity. What good is independence if it narrows the field and bottlenecks editorial voices? That seems an independence benefiting the Blethens but not their readership. But isn't the readership where a newspaper's true responsibility lies?

Wayne Proctor
Seattle

BLOATED BLETHEN PR

It was fun to read Frank Blethen's full-page ad in the Times last week in the form of a folksy letter to readers, and then to read a vastly bloated version of the same thing in Dick Clever's paean in the Weekly ["Pulp Friction," Feb. 5] to Frank, the "Fifth Edition" Blethenettes, and their perky, spunky brand of family journalism that is a civic treasure in Seattle, and how, as Frank's letter said, it's threatened by the "multibillion-dollar conglomerates," which shall remain nameless but are spelled H-e-a-r-s-t, that want to swallow up America's remaining family newspapers, especially the spunky, feisty ones, and how they're "focused on short-term return on investment, not on our community."

As a near-lifer with Hearst's Seattle P-I, I've read Frank's effusive self-congratulation for years but have never seen another paper so unquestioningly regurgitate it. Frank owes Clever a byline on the letter and at least a thank-you for helping spread the word in the Times' carefully orchestrated campaign for the hearts and minds of Seattle readers as he prepares to pull the plug on the joint operating agreement with the P-I.

As Clever wrote, the Hearst execs stiffed him when he asked them for comment. When a journalist doesn't feel like working too hard, it's comforting to be able to tell oneself that a failure to obtain information from one side justifies a failure to do reporting on one's own—to get information from innumerable other sources to offset what Frank was handing him, such as:

• The fact that Hearst agreed to a modified joint operating agreement allowing the Times to go mornings after Frank blackmailed them by blocking the P-I from having a Web site, which made the P-I look like a primitive, backwater rag.

• A hard look, not a perfunctory acceptance of Frank's denial that he's been spending money like a drunken sailor to ensure a third year of losses. Three consecutive years of losses legally allows him to move toward bringing an end to the JOA and try to make this a one-newspaper town.

• The systematic sabotage of the P-I's circulation by the joint Times-owned circulation department, with plenty of substantiation by P-I subscribers and even Times circulation people about how the department discourages potential readers from subscribing to the P-I and tries to steer them to the Times.

• Frank's response to the Seattle newspaper strike, similar to what Saddam Hussein's response would be to a riot at the Baghdad penitentiary. Frank threatened to eliminate strikers' jobs, strung up barbed wire, and installed black-clad SWAT wanna-bes in riot gear, ready for combat.

• The fatherly way Frank nurtures journalism in his community, such as when he bought the South King County newspapers, then closed them. That's stewardship.