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05/13/2005: "Shoddy journalism at the Spokesman Review?"

KXLY, Spokane's ABC affiliate is reporting something I find odd:

The Morning Star Boys Ranch responded Wednesday to a story in the Spokesman-Review.

The ranch wanted to tell people its found no indication of any impropriety involving Mayor Jim West. The facility keeps logbooks of daily events, they're computerized now, but they used to be made in spiral notebooks. The Director poured through them and says he has found no record of West visiting Morning Star in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

The findings contradict the paper's story, which alleged that West and David Hahn -- then both sheriff's deputies, checked out boys from the ranch for day trips. Hahn later committed suicide amid molestation allegations.

West had served on the ranch's board of directors for 12 years, but resigned Friday.

Question: Why didn't the fine "journalists" at the Spokesman Review not call Morning Star themselves?

The L.A. Times has stronger words for the style of journalism found at the Spokesman Review. "Liars" is an accurate, one-word summary.

I'm no apologist for Jim West, he obviously curried favor with the Cowles, and helped put the 'fix in' on the whole parking garage scandal, but apparently even this politically-motivated fix wasn't enough for Betsy, so she set her dogs at the paper on the Mayor. Nobody fucks with Betsy Cowles.

A dig through the archives of The Spokesman-Review, produced two floors below Betsy Cowles' office, shows the paper did not ignore the River Park Square story. The bare bones of it are there, from the days things first began to go bad. And the stories noted the Cowleses owned both the mall and the newspaper.

What's missing is the kind of comprehensive investigation the same paper, long considered a high-quality publication for its market size, has devoted to other topics, such as neo-Nazis in North Idaho and environmental issues in Eastern Washington.

Or, presumably, accusing a Mayor you helped elect of pedophilia.

"If journalism had the equivalent of a legal bar or medical board, The Spokesman-Review would not be able to practice," Shook says, noting that Talbott's warnings would later prove prescient. "Their license would be revoked over this."