The Cure did not do the music, silly rabbits.

BTW, what would be really cool is if O'Brien proposed some choice-related thing that had to do with Seattle.

For example, is birth control covered on the City's (11,000-employee) insurance plan?

@1,

I goofed and left the "why choice is relevant" part out of the video. I'm splicing it back in now.

Re: The Cure. True. Name all 3 bands....

Good to see Jessie Israel at SIFF tonight for the premere of Sonicsgate.
For that matter, Sonicsgate was a little rough in spots, but entertaining and informative.

I knew everything in the film, and still found it an interesting story. Good nob Jeremy Reid.

Hey Josh & Erica

Your roundup feature is a decent idea, but the little video segments just aren't doing it for me. No offense. Please continue to write them up, too, cuz that's what I'm reading.

@4

I agree with you.

I love to video feature, but can use it while on my work computer. I imagine its probably inconvenient for Publicola to do both but it is a nice option.

@4, @5 -- Aye.

Write 'em up, Publicola, and I'll skim 'em for content of interest ... and without having to dig out headphones.

Josh,

Something a lot of folks have missed on the Obama story is that he did something rather more significant than "giving a speech in Egypt" - he walked back Bush's version of the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka "Star Wars") that was poised to put ABM sites in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. This is a major step toward ratcheting down a huge (and hugely expensive) expansion of the nuclear arms race, and in and of itself probably merited his Nobel prize.

@7
Considering Russia was ready to use force to prevent the deployment of an ABM site on its borders I'd say President Obama did more than just avoid a new arms race.

Sandeep and Josh didn't just co-found the site together, they're close friends. Sandeep also continues to advise Publicola on business decisions, such as seeking new investors. Isn't that right, Josh?

As for Jason Bennett, who in addition to Dow's campaign is under investigation by the state, he too has a role here at Publicola. As a contributor and advertiser. Of course, there's no disclaimer for that. Oops.

So, disclaimers or not, this site cannot be objective as it pertains to Dow Constantine.

Case closed.

@9,

Fair questions. I've addressed them before, and I'm happy to address them now.

Sandeep and I are close friends, and he does play a business role, but he has zero to do with the day to day operations.

In fact, we've made a couple of cool business decisions recently that we'll announce next week, that Kaushik had zero input on.

And more to the point: Kaushik has zero to do with our editorial decisions or our content.


Re: Bennett. We've disclosed his role here (along with Kaushik's) several times:
http://publicola.net/?p=12245, http://publicola.net/?p=10541. (Bennett writes a semi-regular satirical column for PubliCola.)

He has no editorial role in our news coverage. (He's never even been to our offices.)


We were the only local site (besides partisan GOP sites) to pick up the Bennett/Constantine story early—and write about it several times.

You'll find all our coverage linked in the most recent post we did on the story here:

http://publicola.net/?p=15508

The Seattle Times eventually wrote about the Constantine/Bennett story, but not until after the PDC decided to investigate the complaint and not until after there was a protest at the Seattle Times offices about its failure to cover the story.

In fact, the protest notice linked PubliCola's coverage of the Bennett story as evidence that the story was, indeed, newsworthy:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=140673202...

Bennett's firm does advertise here (along with several local consulting firms that have worked against his candidates.)

And as you can tell from our consistent coverage of the Constantine/Bennett story and from our recent 1,000-word story on the Northwest Film Forum's budget fiasco (the film forum is also an advertiser), advertisers do not get kid gloves treatment here. http://publicola.net/?p=15355

For what it's worth, Bennett also advises Joe Mallahan. Does our Mallahan coverage seem biased in favor of Mallahan?

You're asking fair questions. But you're going to need examples showing that our coverage is biased for the questions to become more pertinent.

Since it's apparently mea culpa night here at the Cola, how about splaining why you haven't taken a closer look at Bennett? We know there's only so many hours in the day; but if you've been as thorough as you say, then surely Josh, you know about this?

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2007...

Greg Smith ring a bell? Jason Bennett was never able to quite explain how the "clerical error" happened.

Apparently Jason has had a number of brushes with the city and state watchdogs. How about chasing down those leads sometime, then asking old Sandeep why it was imperative to hire him?

@4,5,6: Yes, and I keep the sound off so I don't hear the annoying comments from my email program, which means I have to turn it back on again and adjust the volume just to get the videos of Josh and Erica sitting there talking. I'd rather read.

Re media influence: Look at the advertising in the Seattle Times and all other still-in-print media. Does everyone question the editorial staff of those papers about the influence of those advertisers? No, we just assume there is influence, not only monetary but via the good-old-boy network. Why are we so closely questioning a blog's editors? It seems Josh has spent 1/4 of his time responding to demands for explanations.

Has there been in reporting on Publicola about the Housing Levy Seattle is renewing this year? That is a major social justice issue that is being overlooked.

Also not a big fan of the video roundup.

Will I ever read another Press Release Roundup?

Signs point to "No".

So this is the new journalism -- somebody reading from his laptop, lousy sound, lousy camera. Tedious at best.

@16,

Except! It comes with a cool soundtrack. The Clash. Sly Stone. Tommy James & The Shondells. You can't beat that mix tape.