UPDATED: Editor of Spokane Paper Hits Back at 'Frontline'

By: E&P Staff Steve Smith, editor of the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wa., responded today to a PBS "Frontline" episode last night that raised criticism of the paper's handling of its probe of former Mayor James West. Among others things, he pointed out what he called factual errors and he charged the producers with holding a "predetermined" story arc.

He also said the program did not get to the "truth" of the story and did not understand his city.

The mayor lost a recall election and left office after the newspaper, using an outside online consultant, revealed that he visited gay chat sites and had offered at least two young men jobs or internships. The program portrayed the "sting" in a negative light and suggested that West had been unfairly targeted and did little wrong. Some newspaper reporters, in their reviews of the program, agreed with this assessment. A New York Times reviewer stated that she found West to be an almost wholly sympathethic figure by the end of the show.

Smith told E&P yesterday that he stood behind the paper's reporting and methodology, but had not been sent a preview copy of the program. So his response today on one of the newspaper's blogs is his first full assessment since actually seeing the program. One of the "Frontline" producers this morning stood her ground in an an online chat on Washingtonpost.com today.

The Spokesman-Review has been posting responses to Smith's rebuttal all day on the blog. Smith also provided this summary: "Reaction this morning has been interesting. I now have received about 10 e-mails, all critical, all from outside the region, mostly the East Coast. No calls or e-mails from anyone local yet, not to say we won't be receiving some. But I still believe folks here already made up their minds, about us, about West. Comments from outside our region, from people who have not read our stories, examined our archives, looked at the evidence, while welcome, have much less impact than comments from our local readers who, with us, lived through the 2005 scandal."

Now he has posted lengthy comments by a columnist who covered West and by one of the paper's attorneys. Those postings have now drawn much criticism at the blog, as well.

Here are some highlights from Smith's statement on his paper's blog.

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I certainly don?t want to pick a fight with the Frontline folks. They took an incredibly complex investigation and tried to squeeze it down into a 60-minute narrative documentary based on a predetermined ?Shakespearean? dramatic arc.

I think their mistakes of commission (fact errors) and mistakes of omission were not malicious, in general, but driven by the demands of their narrative and their medium. But the overall effect, I think, was to seriously dilute the depth, breadth and detail of our reporting and to place far more importance than facts warranted on West?s gayness as the cause of his fall.

Frontline got its Shakespearean tragedy - no one can dispute that Jim West was a tortured man. But I don?t think they got to the truth of the story. And I don?t think they ever understood Spokane.

Here are a couple of the fact errors spotted in an initial, cursory viewing:

? Frontline said that Robert Galliher?s first mention of abuse by West was in a 2005 interview. Incorrect. As we reported, he wrote about the abuse in a 2004 jailhouse letter to a psychiatrist who provided a copy of the letter to the newspaper. It?s posted online.

?? Frontline says Galliher could not explain why he failed to report West sooner. Wrong. As we reported, Galliher said he feared for his safety, accused West of orchestrating a jailhouse beating and had tried to avoid pointing a finger at a powerful politician with close ties to police.

?? The source who first told [reporter] Morlin he met West online and had sex with him was barely 18 and just out of high school at the time they first began chatting online and had just turned 19 at the time of their ?date.? Frontline said he was 20. That is not an inconsiderable mistake given the nature of our reporting.?

? The Motorbrock deception lasted less than three months, not the six months described by Frontline.?

? West, not Motobrock, turned the online chats to sex.? West, not Motobrock, raised the prospect of a job/internship at City Hall.? West, not Motobrock, asked for the personal meeting in April 2005.

The Frontline story suggested the newspaper dropped its investigation of West?s past history of abuse after initial reports. That is not true....

Furthermore, Frontline made no mention of the independent city investigation that concluded West had violated state law and city workplace policies. They failed to report that he used city computer equipment to download pornography, a firing offense in any company, and that he sought sexual partners via the Internet while traveling on city business. They mis-characterized the nature of the FBI investigation which confirmed West?s behavior as reported by The Spokesman-Review but determined there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him for violation of corruption statutes typically used to thwart financial graft.

Most curious is Frontline?s failure to note that the recall case went all the way to the state Supreme Court which, in an 8 to 1 ruling declared that West?s behavior ?was an improper exercise of an official duty.?

Producers continually used phrases along the lines of ?Smith and Morlin decided...? They collapsed a complex and thoroughly professional editing structure to a simple docudrama story line. The investigation team included the managing editor, Gary Graham, the city editor, Carla Savalli who also was the project coordinator, reporters Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele and myself. Decisions were made around the conference table after considerable debate and internal discussion....

Further, the producers used a sound bite of Morlin suggesting it was wrong for him to deceive the mayor but OK to hire someone to do it on our behalf. This was one area where Morlin and I strongly disagreed (we still disagree). I fully understood that anyone hired by us was serving as our agent and therefore subject to our ethical standards. Delving into a complicated discussion of journalistic ethics would not have served the chosen narrative.

I thought the show captured a couple of legitimate sentiments; the sense of betrayal felt by Spokane?s gay community and the rage of ordinary Spokane citizens appalled by the mayor?s behavior, but not concerned about his sexuality.

That is where Frontline badly missed the point. The producers claimed they came to town to use West as a beginning point for a discussion of the cultural divide in America, of the difficulty of being gay in a small city. They were so focused on the gay issue they forgot that West?s behavior, considered in either a gay or straight context, was simply repellent to citizens who expected a higher standard from the city?s chief executive. As Frontline producers knew, we often talked about the West story as if he had been seeking sex with 18-year-old high school girls, asking ourselves if we would make different decisions or pursue the story in a different way. Frontline viewers should ask themselves the same question and decide if sexuality was the issue or repllent conduct.

One of our columnists, Jamie Neely, wrote of the ?mom test.? The city?s mothers simply didn?t want their mayor stalking youngsters, barely of legal age, male or female. Think Mark Foley. Then remember mainstream newspapers could have put an end to his predatory behavior but failed to demonstrate much journalistic aggressiveness. The decision to not pursue such a story is fully as political and subject to second guessing as the decision to pursue aggressively. And what would have said about us if we had not reported what we knew and the details leaked out when West, years down the road, had announced his candidacy for governor, his political ambition?
In our newsroom we believe in this posted value: We tell people what wee know when we know it without fear or favor. Further, as have said in several talks on the subject, watchdog journalism that doesn?t piss some people off isn?t watchdogging anything.

I am not at all concerned about the show?s impact on the newspaper. We fought our battles last year and I think Spokane citizens and media observers already decided if they agree or disagree with our investigation. But the show really did a number on the community and that?s a real shame....

To those interested in learning more about the West story, I suggest digging into our posted archive which contains all of the West material ? chat logs, interview tapes and transcripts, documents and other raw materials ? that have been and remain posted for anyone to review.

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Related E&P Stories:

-- 'Frontline' Program Is Critical of Spokane Paper's Probe Of Mayor

-- Producer Defends 'Frontline' Program on Spokane Case in Online Chat