Over at the Weekly—to which, by the way, I’m extremely grateful for giving PubliCola credit for a story we broke, credit that not every news outlet was willing to give—Caleb Hannan has a piece asking whether the Seattle Times sat on reports that Chris Bushnell, until yesterday an official top advisor to Mayor Mike McGinn, had a felony record for bank fraud and had falsified his educational record (claiming, inaccurately, to have a Ph.D).
In her original story, the reporter who wrote today’s front-page Times story on Bushnell, Emily Heffter, claimed that over the past couple of weeks, “some of McGinn’s critics targeted Bushnell, tipping reporters to questions about his educational and criminal background. They also called for his firing and blamed him for McGinn’s decision to eliminate 200 of the city’s top positions.” (Heffter’s editor later changed the story to acknowledge that PubliCola broke it, the editor confirmed in a phone call).
In emails to Hannan, Heffter went on to say that she didn’t want to “drag [Bushnell] through the mud over a felony conviction 15 years ago, and that the kind of court reporting she was trying to do “takes time, but when someone’s reputation is at stake, I think it’s worth it.”
A few points of clarification:
1) PubliCola did not get the story from “McGinn critics.” We heard it from multiple sources, including people involved in the McGinn campaign who were disappointed with the mayor’s decision to hire Bushnell, people who did not support McGinn, and people who were not affiliate with either mayoral candidate.In fact, the majority of those pushing us to pursue the story were distressed McGinn supporters.
2) At no time did anyone who contacted us mention anything about McGinn’s proposed job cuts. Maybe Heffter’s sources had, as she said in an email to Hannan, “political motives,” which would be “an important part of the story.” Ours came from across the pro-to-anti-McGinn political spectrum, and never mentioned his proposal to cut strategic advisors in any context.
3) Far from looking into the story for “the past few weeks,” we’ve actually been looking into it for well over a month. We, like Heffter, are well aware that good reporting takes time, and we took that time reporting the story and getting it right. We weren’t given access to Bushnell—despite requesting it repeatedly, from both McGinn’s office and by calling Bushnell himself—but I think we gave him a “fair shake” with our reporting despite the mayor’s office being unwilling to play ball.
4) I think a felony fraud conviction is both relevant and newsworthy, even if it was 15 years ago, when it pertains to someone who’s advising the mayor of a large city on economic policy (the seawall ballot measure), not to mention hiring and firing decisions (the displacement of budget director Dwight Dively by Beth Goldberg, with whom Bushnell worked at King County; transportation department director Grace Crunican.)
Moreover, lying about having a degree in a professional context, particularly when you’re a public servant, just isn’t kosher no matter how low you are on the food chain. Heffter may disagree, but I firmly stand by our decision to run with this thoroughly reported story, as well as by the details of the story itself.
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Kudo’s to Publicola. And the reason why other news outlets didn’t carry much of the story is simply media jealousy. Why would they want to give you traffic.
But as we know the real larger story is McGinn and his judgment and handling of the story and his hiring practices. Now the narrative is his “steep learning curve” and low numbers. But its a fact that Bushnell was the most important person in his administration. He may not have the title of Deputy Mayor, but he was the David Axelrod of the McGinn Administration.
Get the copies of the emails…. those emails are great stories too. And be careful they are doing a lot of the Bush Admin stuff using their personal email accounts to ‘talk’ about this.
It’s actually a class c felony to use false academic credentials to obtain employment. The Seattle Times wrote extensively about this point when Jane Hague ran for re-election against Richard Pope.
Here is the RCW: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.60.070
ECB, didn’t you used to play Wendy Whiner on Saturday Night Live? Geezus.
No, Erica’s right on this. In general I don’t enjoy the whole”‘we broke the story first” drama but this is a major news story in a major metropolis that was reported first by a website that has no print edition on the street. It’s significant beacause 1 – it’s solid investigative journalism and 2 – it’s a non-traditional news source. It’s shameful that the Times didn’t credit Publicola, the reporter’s response to the Weekly is lame and the continued silence from the Stranger is proving them to be lacking in the hard news dept.and a little too fond of their new Mayor.
I used to like Publicola a lot more when it did concentrate its efforts on stories like Bushnell and less about feeling the need to be part of the story. Who cares what other news outlets think? I guess you do, so much so, that you will whine like some high school newspaper editor.
Great job ‘Cola! Good citizenship is impossible without good information, and good information is getting scarce in the new media environment. The fact that a lean, online-only news organization can do solid investigative journalism and break big stories is news. Keep it up, along with those page-views!
Um. The Times did credit Publicola in its front page story today and in the web version of the story. What do you want, a fucking medal too?
Kudos to Publicola!
This accusation of whining is nonsense. The behavior of the Seattle Times is arguably a bigger story than the presence of a sociopath in the mayor’s office. The Times just gave up any claim it had to being Seattle’s newspaper of record, which took determination and creativity considering that the PI is effectively dead. Keep up the good work, Publicola, and as for the Times…could you remind us what you are for?
@jjn: Good job skipping to the comments before reading the story.
I’m awfully glad you covered the story, and continue to wish you the best. Publicola’s a really welcome news addition around here, what with the dailies getting spacier all the time, the Stranger happily sticking to features and bombast, and the Weekly in scraping-by mode.
If this guys’ criminal record is fair game why isn’t ECB’s criminal record fair game. Oh that’s right-this is your website. But she has one none the less. Check out the weekly’s 2009 archives.
I give it up to Publicola. A felony conviction for *bank fraud* is certainly relevant in assessing the professional credentials of an *economist* who subsequently admitted to lying about having a PhD in Economics before being hired by a new mayor. Yes, the taxpayers should know what they’re paying for.
Also, I’ve never known why anyone would lie about academic degrees or credentials. Sure, people might puff up their accomplishments on a resume (which I don’t recommend because your pants will be pulled down sooner or later), but verification of a degree is the easiest thing in the world. It’s one simple phone call to a college registrar and a one word answer to the question “Does this person hold a degree from your institution?” And it’s either “yes” or “no”.
I guess some people are just arrogant or deluded enough to think no one will take 5 minutes to actually do it.
Edward, I have a criminal record too, like Bushnell based on a dishonest act, though not so serious as his. I “paid my debt to society” and learned to become an honest person. Thousands of us who get pinched get that chance every day. And most of us are careful to make sure we don’t fuck it up. So that we stay nobody’s business but our own.
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But Bushnell couldn’t or wouldn’t stay honest. He fabricated a Ph.D to look more credible to folks whose decisions he wanted to influence with his work, the type of public policy wonkery McGinn hired him to do.
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Had he resisted the urge to be “just a little” shady about his identity, he’d be a shining example of a rehabilitated ex-con, working hand in hand with the mayor of a middling city. Instead, and absolutely because he once committed a pretty serious crime pretending to be who he wasn’t, his integrity needed to be proven all over again. When he and his boss couldn’t see how to do that, he lost his job.
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Every day thousands of us get a chance to start fresh. We’re released from prison, from parole, from probation, with a chance to stay on the straight and narrow.
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Maybe Bushnell can do it. I did it. Tons of us did it. We have records, sure, but we’re solid now. Leave us alone.
I gave The Stranger/SLOG credit for McGinn’s victory, by virtue of their ass-kissing cheerleading, so don’t expect any decent coverage pf the new mayor from them. The Times seems distracted by other issues and the seattlepi.com isn’t paying attention either, for some reason. That leaves you guys. I’m already tired of the amateur hour @ Seattle city hall. It’s going to be four long years of drama and disappointment.
Keep up the great work Josh and Erica. Your dogged tenacity of this story exposed many things: 1) that McGinn is way out of his league and has no business being the Mayor of this City (at least not yet), 2) that the McGinn administration’s self-righteous stance on “transparancy” is total B.S. (listen, as a public servant, I’m all for transparency, but in order to govern effectively and have a high performing organization, there also needs to be staff driven decision making away from the eye of the public; had McGinn had any experience managing or leading a large public organization, he would have been ok with that concept and not promised a” new, open government”, which is obviously a hollow promise and one that he has not been able to deliver on nor will he be able to), and 3) that there is nothing like good investigative journalism to keep our public officials on point. Great stuff!
Erica,
Perhaps, if you’re going to engage in journalistic one-upsmanship (or upswomanship?), you should disclose the nasty blogging you did on Emily on slog because she reported stuff you disagreed with about public meetings at City Hall. There’s something strangely personal about the way you go after Emily when you disagree with her. She’s a good reporter whose writing deserves better than you give her credit for.
Journalists have to make judgment calls about people’s privacy all the time– what is and is not just a personal smear, what is newsworthy and what is not. We can second-guess Emily’s calls on this case. But the insinuation that she was willfully trying to protect McGinn is insulting, and makes your self-promotion appear really petty.
Scissorhands: Erica isn’t being paid $110,000/yr by taxpayers. She’s a good writer and reporter; nothing else is in question.
I don’t see that Publicola’s bragging here. The only daily Seattle has completely ignored (or suppressed it’s reporters from writing about) this story. That’s the real concern. But considering it’s the Times, it’s not surprising.
I urge Publicola to review the credentials and work experience of the other McGinn advisors. If McGinn is on a steep learning curve, then who is helping him with his steep learning curve? I have heard he has some very young advisors. I’d like to know just how young they are and what their work experiences and credentials are. Maybe they have Ph.D.’s, too! How about a piece on the McGinn advisors?
Publicola rocks! Great work, ECB.
I, for one, am really glad to see actual journalism happening online. I guess I’m not suprised to see some Erica backlash but I am a little disappointed. (And no, I’m not your mother.)
I don’t think that there can be any question that Publicola did some fine work on this story and that they actively engaged their readership.
So far, in general, I’ve found the comments here to be thoughtful, diverse & intelligent. The Erica bashing on the Slog used to get pretty gruesome and proved that anonymity can be an ugly, ugly thing. So I’m giving up on it.
My name is Michael Wells, I’m a recently failed small business owner, I have no criminal record but may soon be personally bankrupt. I will sign in as Michael W from here on out. (My college GPA wasn’t stellar, either…) If you want to go the character assasination route with reporters I would ask that you do the same. (Use your name, not the failed business part) Not to make this about me, it’s not. I’ve just really appreciuated the dialog here and I don’t want it to devolve. Whatever…
This was never much of a story. Please let it die now.
Emily Hefter was beat on this story and has thus ignored and minimized the story ever since. The bragging and complaining by ECB is a little bush league, but ECB should be proud of her work. She did the citizens of Seattle a big favor in reporting this story. Clearly, Bushnell has an honesty problem and should not be rewarded with a high-level, high-paying position with the city. Integrity does matter.
The Times let its readers down. And where has the P-I been on this story? Nowhere. McGinn’s spokesman Mark Mattassa has connections with the P-I. Wonder if that’s a factor.
agreed this tit-for-tat thing seems a little bush league.
also, to ECB’s #1 point, i think it’s odd to frame it as this would be a mcginn “critic” thing. it’s clear that publicola got used by people bent the wrong way by bushnell.
i’m a little tired about hearing what a great service publicola did: if you’re a news organization, its your job to report. let’s just hope that on the rest of the stories publicola can actually report and not just regurgitate emails, press releases and call them “news.” it’s cheap, boring, and often harmful.
now let’s get back to the regularly scheduled reporting and move on.
Where has the Seattle PI been on this story? Come on now, they aren’t really a newspaper anymore, they are a news aggregation site. The PI, god rest its soul, is dead, dead, dead as far as being a working newspaper with a staff of reporters. Why do you even bother to ask where they are on a story?
I didn’t know that news orgs are supposed to credit the first to run with a story.
I’m glad ECB did run it. I, like many people, had read about this in the comments section for a couple of weeks. Nether ECB nor Heffter seem to have done any major digging.
The journalism has yet to be done. What else has he done that involves the public sector? How does a guy without a degree get a job at UW in some sort of budget job (I think I read that somewhere.)
Who did he bring from the county? What is the connection to the PR companies? He worked for GM formally GSM a formerly powerful consultant group. Are they still pulling strings of puppets. He is super tight with Broadhead.
Bushnell was low hanging fruit. Let’s see which news org does the real digging. I’m betting against the Times.
Just read Heffter’s email to the Weekly. She says Bushnell was “not a public official.” HA! Under that logic, folks like Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gates aren’t public officials either. So when the Times writes their next story that is critical of a non-elected government official, I’m going to be very confused as to why it is news.
“what has he done in the public sector?” you mean Bushnell?
I guess working as budget director for County Executive Ron Sims doesn’t count as the public sector, nor does working for the City of Seattle for two weeks. People are seriously lack in both long-term and short-term memory these days…
Doug: Not much of a story? Mayor McClean suckers a bunch of naive Seatleites with his Mr Smith Goes to Washington story line. Upon taking office he installs a Rovian political operative as one of his top advisors — except unlike the real Mr. Rove, this one has a seemingly endless amount of questionable activities in his background and lasts less than a month before his house of cards comes down. How is that “Not much of a story”??
Falsifying your educational records is apparently only a Class C Felony if you are not a member of the WSP.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008699553_webtrooper03m.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010172988_troopers31.html
Obviously this was a story that needed reporting. The importance of the story itself is still up for question.
But, Good Grief betrays precisely what seems to be the motivation of many of the commenters on Publicola on this story and recently throughout many stories on this site: They simply want to beat up on McGinn. Which is fine, but let’s not pretend that there’s much more to it than that.
To wit, Good Grief, in explaining why this story matters, doesn’t begin with an explanation of the impact that Bushnell’s previous activities might have on his job or to what degree his wrongdoings are relevant to the citizens of Seattle, he goes after the legitimacy of Mike McGinn. Bushnell doesn’t matter, this is just one more way to take a swipe at McGinn.
Great reporting, Publicola.
The primary issue for me is this guy Bushnell/Haugen.
Don’t know him. Never met him. He however appears to be a very dangerous type. He doesn’t seem to know right from wrong. Few can change that within themselves. He will go on to scam one way or the other, if not called out and put on some kind of watch.
I worry about the others associated with McGinn and hope he will reassess those around him, those that brought B/H to him and those that B/H brought to him.
Thank you for running this story, Erica. And, thank you for calling Emily Heffter on the lack of coverage.
You are accurate that many core McGinn supporters were very concerned about Bushnell’s hiring. It is an integrity and credibility issue for both Bushnell and for McGinn. People supported McGinn because they agree with him on issues and trust him, but they don’t trust him blindly.
If Erica had not covered this story, no one would have covered it. It is clear that Erica has supported McGinn over the years and shares similar views. However, Erica is a professional and is not clouded by fear of losing McGinn as a source or of challenging him. Erica is the true professional journalist here.
There is a difference between an elected Public Person and an appointed public official in what parts of their lives you can write about, or investigate. There are legal issues here, so you really do have to have facts.
An elected official, much like a celebrity, chooses a public life, and is subject to broader examination. Much of Mike McGinn’s life is fair game, and became that as soon as he officially announced he was running for mayor.
Bushnell has been appointed, so he has less of his life open to reporting.
The part of his life that is open to reporting is his role with the public. He may have broken the law in the past, but he might not have broken the law getting this particular appontment.
So, getting the facts correct is important, it limits defamtion, and your time in court.
The facts had been presented, this was about his limited public life, and the Seattle Times was slow to react.
Their only defense is that they are slow, not on whether Bushnell’s limited public life can be reported on.
ST, back to COM 440 Mass Media Law for you!
I am pleased to see Publicola take an interest in journalist integrity. Hopefully this will help them when writing their own stories in the future. The framing of opinions as facts on this site are not worthy of this level of exepectatiin contained in the story above.
Timothy accuses Good Grief of not explaining “the impact that Bushnell’s previous activities might have on his job or to what degree his wrongdoings are relevant to the citizens of Seattle.”
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Let me fil in for Good Grief. Timothy, don’t you think Bushnell’s propensity for deception, which nobody seems to deny, is relevant to the citizens of Seattle given the fact that Bushnell would have been (and, perhaps, will continue to be) one of the Mayor’s closest advisors?
Baker please explain – Bushnell has been appointed, so he has less of his life open to reporting.
The part of his life that is open to reporting is his role with the public. He may have broken the law in the past, but he might not have broken the law getting this particular appontment..
Just as much of his life is open to reporting but it is easier for him to claim defamation or liable than an elected official. Reporters should validate all stories.
If we followed your logic, there would no crime reporting unless it involved an elected official. Now it wouldn’t be of much interest to report every faked degree, but certainly for top city employees it is.
So are you saying for common decency those not elected should only have reporting directly related to their job performance or are you saying that unrelated acts are somehow not legal to report?
Not Tikka…we can talk about what you’re asking, but you’ve fundamentally misquoted what I said. Can you figure out how?
Timothy, why don’t you explain how you were “fundamentally misquoted” because I don’t see it.
McGinn’s supporters who post here apparently will go to any lengths to defend him and say that this Bushnell fiasco is somehow not a reflection on McGinn. But of course it is.
They’ll even slag on Erica for being a reporter, for a change, which amazes me, because these are the same people who defended her from accusations of cheerleading and sycophancy when she was in the tank for McGinn, which of course she was.
Erica’s reporting has sucked before, and it well might suck again. But this time it didn’t suck. This time she kicked every other reporter’s butt in this town, and I congratulate her for a job well done.
Remember what you did right, Erica, and please do it again.
This whole thing goes to the core of how McGinn planned to administer- a string of “emergencies” accompanied by polls showing that 65-70% of the city approved of McGinn’s ‘solution’.
IOW, government by plebiscite.
Bushnell and his polling showed McGinn where to change course, and what promises to appear to be making, with McGinn’s skills as a lawyer making most of those promises into clever statements to which no accountability was attached. In the second act, Bushnell’s polling provided the numbers intended to bully the City Council (“66% of the voters want a new tax to fix the seawall NOW.”)
Great reporting by Publicola.
Interesting how Heffner was so excited to publish a story about Darcy Burner’s degree (when she in fact had a degree, from Harvard no less), but wasn’t interested in running something about someone who did not have a degree.
The fact of the matter is there have been plenty of raised eyebrows among those at the county familiar with Bushnell and his work over the years. But politics is politics. The culture at the city and county has unfortunately become more mean spirited and vindictive with every passing year. And our new city and county leaders seem more interested in politics as opposed to managing two of the largest governments in the state. They seem to care even less about the employeees doing their best to provide service to the public. I bet we’ll be seeing more and more employees speaking out in the future.
For those of you claiming this is a non-story let’s play make believe.
“It was disclosed today that a top aide of Governor Dino Rossi lied on his resume about his educational background”
Mr. Baker and Timothy are more accurate to the reality of this. ECB doth protest too much, and she is digging a hole for herself. Most of it did not need defending. No one is claiming that this was not a newsworthy story, since it had the traction of a former Felon behind it. To belabor this further is to make it into a sideshow, and circular self-interest. Meet for a drink at Palimino and make up, you two.
There seems to be a deliberate lack of basic civics understanding on how important Bushnell’s role actually was. The buck stops with McGinn, in that he is the one who decides to implement advice he gets from anyone or not. McGinn was certainly naive in trusting Bushnell and thinking his background would not be an issue that would compromise his effectiveness. I don’t deny that someone as brazenly pretentious as Bushnell needed to be brought back down to Earth. He is obviously a con-man, and the Publicola article flushed him out to the public at large, with a lot of encouragement from some who have an agenda to use it as grist for the mill during the next four years. Anymore than that is just innuendo and pettiness. Having said that, we are all better off without Bushnell, but that does not automatically follow we would be better off with someone other than McGinn.
Bushnell was smart enough to see the writing on the wall this time. All it took was someone to challenge him from outside of his protective bubble. ECB’s point #4 seems based upon a mistaken correlation equals causality reasoning that certainly needs a bit more explanation to be credible from unnamed sources. It’s sounds more like a defensive straw man justification based upon hearsay. Advising the mayor on the Seawall ballot measure as “economic policy?” That’s a pretty weak and very transparent defensive overgeneralization, ECB.
Remember Bushnell did not lie about his credentials to get THIS job. He did not have to. He was appointed, remember? That others who were not aware of that or willfully wanted to add fuel to it, does not make it true.
It appears his life is a lie. He did have to lie to get this job, just not at the time of appointment.
@Howie “I gave The Stranger/SLOG credit for McGinn’s victory”
actually that and the votes dragged in by Department of Neighborhoods’ Stella Chow and her “Planning Outreach Liaisons’ who were used for outreach into the immigrant communities to game support for the south end station area up zones wanted by Nickels. Note that Chow is still in her job and there were McGinn rally events that include this same cast of characters.
So McGinn wins because of votes from immigrants and Stranger slackers – two groups that arguably have some uninformed – or more likely – impressionable votes.
How about people put the time of the comment, rather than the commenter’s tag, so that we have a hint where to find the original?
The UW Daily broke the story about Bushnell’s felony convictions in 1999. Of course his name was Haugen then.
Stella’s name is Chao. And not all Stranger readers are slackers. And if by slackers you mean young people, they aren’t the only demographic that’s impressionable. The tea party people weren’t slackers or young but they unfortunately were quite impressionable.
Ya betcha, all assumptions are false.
Congrats Erica! Solid reporting, professional integrity and serious backbone. Heffner was trying to justify why she did not do her job, and at least there is an editor at the Times with some integrity.
With Josh’s interview of Sen. Cantwell and your stories this week Publicola got statewide and national notice.
Not Tikka…take better care when you quote someone, please.
I did not state that Bushnell’s actions are not relevant to the citizens of Seattle (though, I do think they are less relevant than many people here seem to believe).
What I said was that Good Grief betrayed his motivation when he chose to focus on the Mayor, rather than focusing on how or why Bushnell’s actions would affect his job or even how they are relevant to Citizens.
I didn’t say they weren’t relevant. But, I will say that they’re not as relevant as McGinn critics are trumping them up to be.
Bob,
read the part of this linked page about Public Persons.
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/personal_injury/defamation.html
while McGinn is a Public Person by running for elected office, Bushnell was more of a limited public person in this context. Coloring his present job with something he did in the past is tricky, and the reporting has to stay within the scope of his public role (which it did). Had Publicola, or ST, gotten the facts wrong they coulda ended up in court.
Where Bushnell removed any sense of limitation was when he willingly had an interview.
It was all newsworthy, the choice to publish is up to the publisher.
My point was that people sue the Seattle Times all the freaking time, so they are extra careful. And, they did not see rehashing the checkered past of Bushnell as headline news. I know it is a staple here, but that is the publisher’s choice.
Also, ST claiming Bushnell was not a public official is flat wrong, Bushnell is a public official that could be reported on in a narrow scope, and this story clearly fits within that scope.
Keep digging…as with any good story, there are twists and turns. Some corners to explore: who made the decision that the seawall proposals would be evaluated by the Mayor’s office and not SDOT? Was Bushnell hired before the proposals were submitted or after? What did the Mayor himself know about Bushnell’s wife’s employment with one of the seawall bidders, and when did he know it? Aren’t they all from Greenwood? Was Bushnell on the proposal review team before the bids had to be thrown out? And if Bushnell is really only 36 years old, and claimed a BA, law degree, and PhD on his resume, was there anyone in the City of Seattle’s human resources department checking credentials? How was someone who was being paid $110,000 a year hired with this much wrong in the resume? Was anyone determining whether he actually had the experience and skills to earn $110,000 a year? Let’s get real, Seattle. This Mayor has never known what a fair, open hiring process looked like. And how would he know if Bushnell should be earning $110,000? The Mayor’s missteps may be lack of experience. They may also be a reflection of lack of respect for fair hiring practices.
Timothy,
Readers can easily verify that I quoted you correctly.
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You insist that criticisms of Bushnell aren’t motivated by Bushnell’s own acts of deception, but by a desire to bring down the Mayor.
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I suppose someone who thinks that Bushnell’s deceptive acts, or as you euphemistically call them, “Bushnell’s actions,” are “not as relevant as McGinn critics are trumping them up to be” would find it difficult to see the point of moral criticism in general.
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Some of us make judgments for reasons, and if you don’t find Bushnell’s duplicity a reason for criticism, then I’m not sure you know what a reason is.
This is now two stories in one; the Bushnell/McGinn story and the post-PI, print journalism is dead in Seattle story. For the past few months it has been clear that the Times was no longer doing any serious political reporting and that Publicola was the sole source of local political reporting. The Bushnell story just confirms this. Now, maybe KUOW can pick up the death of Seattle print journalism story, which would benefit from further reporting, while Publicola can keep digging into the Bushnell/McCoy/Broadhead story. These are both really interesting and will probably be picked up in the national media before long.
I think the real problem with Bushnell/Haugen is that the Mayor depended on him during the campaign, knowing that he was a liar, and knowing that he continued to be a liar (as late as December), and then hired him to be paid with tax dollars. I voted for McGinn, but I have some expectation that he as Mayor would not hire people such as Bushnell/Haugen on my dime. I’d also like to expect that he’d be professional enough that he wouldn’t allow a bid from a company that employs his SA/friend’s wife, and then when that becomes known, spend more of my dime having to let the bids again. I don’t care who’s mayor; those are not unrealistic expectations.
Mr. Baker – thanks for the link, but you are still wrong when you say:
“There is a difference between an elected Public Person and an appointed public official in what parts of their lives you can write about, or investigate”
The difference between a public person and a regular person is that the public person in addition to proving that the allegation is false must also prove that it was done with malice. That they knew it was false.
The press can’t be successfully sued because they reported about some aspect of a non-public person unless they are breaching some law protecting something such as medical records. If the statements are true or even if they are reasonably believed to be true the paper will not lose the suit.
In this example if the paper had a business card, the power point and a witness to the false credentials that would a slam dunk. He would have to prove that he had a PhD or convince the court that he hadn’t claimed to have one.
Perhaps, you think they should and in fact news orgs do give non-public people more privacy, but not because of law.
I hear Chris Bushnell is going to work for Publicola. He will be the FraudNerd.
I stopped reading the Seattle Times after Susan Kelleher’s self-aggrandizing hatchet jobs on the snowstorm. We (I am not alone) try not to click on their website unless absolutely necessary, to avoid giving them any circulation numbers. I urge all of you to do the same until the quality of their journalism increases.
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This latest thing with Bushnell… I don’t want to pretend that I understand the Times’ motives. I don’t. I do know that it smells like awful journalism and reinforces all of my negative feelings about that paper.
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Great job, ECB, but please don’t get a big head. Just keep following the stories. You need us and we need you. We certainly can’t count on the Times.
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Together we did a good thing. Bushnell was no Dick Cheney, but he had to go, and McGinn needed that ass-whooping to send a clear message.
Okay – so Bushnell lost his job as a staff member… what’s to say that he won’t keep consulting for McGinn as he was before McGinn took office? (I believe that he works for the company that one of McGinn top staffer’s, Julie McCoy, husband owns, no? Consultants make more $$ than public servants, even at $110k/year.