I feel compelled to write to you in response to the ever-increasing political slant on the editorial page I see in issue after issue of your paper. Week after week, I see only a conservative point of view on subject after subject, cartoon after cartoon, and “View from the Right” opinions. A recent paper had its entire editorial page devoted to two op-eds bashing Governor Inslee over everything from budgeting to his changing view on the Kalama methanol plant.
The authors of both articles to which I refer cite polls and articles from right-leaning business interests, but neither mention the recent U.S. News & World Report that listed Washington State as number one in the nation in livability, including categories such as education, the economy, fiscal stability, health care, and the environment. Instead, the Republican representative from Aberdeen used such phrases as “addled governor,” “the governor stammered,” “profile in cowardice,” and accused environmental activists of “screeching” and called them “seedy out-of-state protestors.” His word choices clearly show his slant.
Your other writer, a business analyst, laments an increase in state tax revenues, while glossing over the fact that the bulk of increased taxes will be paid, not by middle-class taxpayers who in fact get breaks, but mostly the rich, big banks and super profitable corporations that have enjoyed their own forms of loopholes and corporate welfare for decades. He also complains that we haven’t cut programs and budgets in spite of the fact that we have had “higher than predicted revenue projections.” I believe we have plenty of needs in this state that are not adequately funded, including police services, parks, and infrastructure. It is clear that your writer is biased towards the “cut and gut’ philosophy that has contributed to red states in this country, like Louisiana, ending up at the bottom of the U.S. News & World Report list. He wants us to be more like them?
If you truly want to be the “newspaper with integrity,” and wish to serve all of your readers, you might consider making a purposeful effort to balance the “news” we are being fed by including an occasional liberal or progressive voice on the editorial page. Most issues are complex enough to benefit from being looked at through different lenses. That, or ditch the motto of “integrity” and simply put an elephant on the front page.
