The Seattle Post-Intelligencer does not pretend to be a newspaper of record like the New York Times. It is not even a regional powerhouse like the L.A. Times. It is at best the number 2 paper in a fairly large city. Still, it is big enough to influence local opinion in Seattle and it is owned by media conglomerate Hearst. You'd think the P-I would want to exercise a certain amount of quality control on the people it hires and the editorials that it publishes.
What then, could explain the bizarre amateurish claim in Monday's lead editorial that
The constitutional standard for warfare is for the United States to face a "clear and present danger."And what could explain the surreal incompetent defense of the editorial that was offered by editorial page editor Mark Trahant?
Who knows what could explain such a lack of professionalism, but here's one theory:
Maynard Institute Chair Mark Trahant has been named editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's editorial page, becoming one of the few Native American journalists, if not the only one, ever to run the opinion section of mainstream newspaper.In case you were wondering, the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
has helped the nation’s news media reflect America’s diversity in staffing, content and business operations. Through its professional development programs, the Institute prepares managers for careers in both business- and news-sides of the journalism industry.So Trahant was a "diversity hire". Presumably the P-I also had several other good reasons to hire him. But it obviously wasn't for his knowledge of U.S. history or constitutional law or for his ability to check his own facts. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 11, 2003 12:25 PM
It sounds to be like they have been reading too much "Tom Clancy".
Maybe they should get his opinion before they use and more "Phrases like that".
Posted by: OldSeaDog57 on June 11, 2003 01:51 PMI couldn't agree with you more but I suggest that you also include the Seattle Times in your list of shabby papers. And I don't mean editorially. It simply does a lot of bad reporting.
Posted by: "Dave" on June 11, 2003 06:45 PMAs a local reader of both Seattle papers, I can add that, while both papers have a rather home-town feel, with the slovenly lack of fact checking that implies, they are also both competing over a largely lefty ausience, with the PI successfully garnering the furthest left part of the audience. In this post-war time, that requires an almost total lack of respect for the truth.
Yes, believe it or not, this former New Yorker longs for a return to the wholesomely accurate, conservative New York Times, for balance.
Posted by: Michael Gersh on June 12, 2003 04:10 PMStop it, please. The fact that Seattle has a slight leftward tilt is entirely irrelevant to the lack of quality in its two large dailys. Not everything is a matter of left and right. The papers are just sloppy.
Posted by: "Dave" on June 12, 2003 07:37 PM