This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.
It’s not a done deal yet, but legislative negotiators appear close to finding middle ground on payday borrower protections.
Sometimes, the surest sign that lawmakers have found a reasonable resolution to a seemingly intractable fight is the lukewarm reception coming from both corners of the ring.
So it is with regulation of payday lending. Neither advocates for the poor nor the payday lending industry are thrilled with a promising compromise taking shape.
That’s not surprising, given how far apart the two sides started – and remain, philosophically at least, to this day.
This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.
The proposed abandonment of a Nevada disposal site means there’s no destination for Hanford’s nuclear waste.
Nothing seems to be more permanent than “temporary” nuclear waste storage.
Washington is learning that the hard way. For decades, this state has put up with the biggest concentration of the deadliest waste on the planet. Now Barack Obama has told Washingtonians: Get used to it.
President Obama’s new budget proposal would kill funding for a long-planned nuclear disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nev. That site has been the intended destination of thousands of tons of intensely radioactive reactor byproducts now sitting at the Eastern Washington nuclear reservation.
If the Yucca Mountain option is foreclosed, there would be only one destination for that Hanford waste: Hanford. In other words, the thorough Hanford cleanup long-promised by the federal government simply won’t happen.
This is a grand victory for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been pushing to kill the Yucca Mountain for many years. He’s doing the bidding of his Nevada constituents – but the Obama administration has no such excuse.
A reader wondered if I – me, specifically – am trying to suppress skeptical points of view on global warming. Here's an excerpt from his e-mail:
Many of us simply don't buy into the notion of the global warming thing as a consequence of human created conditions. There are creditable scientists that don't either. And, there are papers that print both sides. Why not the TNT?
A reasonable question. Readers deserve to know what's going on behind the scenes here. Actually, what's going on behind the scenes here is a little more random than some would suppose. Here's an excerpt from my answer:
Newspaper journalism is a daily scramble to put together a package of news and commentary with the resources and information available to us that day.
In scientific disputes, the information almost always comes from our wire services, with news judgments made elsewhere. We just don't have the time or energy to carry out a conspiracy of fact-suppression. Nor can we provide a comprehensive picture of all facets of a scientific issue as complex as climate change. That's the job of scientific and polemical journals.
In our jobs, information comes at us so fast that it is like drinking from a fire hose. At any given time, any one of us is tracking several dozen issues.
Sometimes, the surest sign that lawmakers have found a reasonable solution to hotly contested issue is the lukewarm reception coming from both corners. So it is with regulation of payday lending.
Nothing seems to be more permanent than "temporary" nuclear waste storage. Washington is learning that the hard way as the Obama administration moves to kill the Yucca Mountain project that was supposed to take Hanford’s radioactive waste.
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.
The Tacoma School District sent me some helpful data on the achievement gap between minority and white students late Monday afternoon.
I skimmed the line graphs and bar charts while on deadline for our editorial about opposition to the Tacoma school bond measure. But the information deserves a fuller discussion and posting here.
Much of what the district provided strikes at any lingering notions that black kids in Tacoma are faring far worse than black students elsewhere. In the lower grades, black students in Tacoma are performing on par with the average black student statewide. In upper grades, they trail the state averages but are keeping pace. (Bond supporters have made similar points.)
