I think the big question is, will she be making folks follow journalistic standards from now on? NOTE: NOT "objectivity", but actual standards of presenting all the facts and not spiking the ones that damage your advocacy. Can't even count the number of times everyone, including editor Pissy Rich, spiked facts. Public policy/court decisions that literally had information that countered the slant of the article one paragraph down from the quoted part. Or the "Hannah"art collective's deep dive about that twagic homeless guy and his encampment being harrassed by the city (Seattle being portrayed as Simon LaGree, with twisty mustache) while spiking the on record long list of crime spike in the neighborhood in the area where much of the stolen property was found in said camp. And the many drug problems there. And the violent incident and arrests. All spiked.

You don;t have to remove the slant, but you do have to publish the pertinent facts even if they hurt your slant a bit. Otherwise it's not journalism, it's just propaganda.

Also, you have to publicly own your mistakes. Pissy Rich and gang went on the record, hell on video laughing at the threat of school closures as " fear mongering" to advocate for their equityhead slate of school board candidates. Said slate promptly rubber stamped school closings. You can go ahead and advocate for any slate you want. But you can't "neener neener" legitimate concerns as an editorial board, then memory hole what you did.

Hopefully she will make the kids here actually follow some ethical standards going forward.

I wish Hannah Murphy the best and welcome her talents.

I must say, however, that "accountability journalism" has been sorely lacking in the past few years as Slog commenters have been continuously filling in the gaps and adding clarifications on articles. But I anticipate that will improve given the passions of the new team coming in.

Seattle is the best city- both for you and your pets! Best of luck!

"the type of accountability journalism that The Stranger has always done"

So, poorly sourced and edited opinion pieces?

"the type of accountability journalism that The Stranger has always done"

So, poorly sourced opinion pieces?

Welcome! It sounds like some needed new energy is coming on board. How about updating online commenting engine (speaking of nostalgia for the aughts)?

*the online commenting…. See what I mean?

I hate to judge right away, but that's way too heavy for three-year-old cats!

Kitties!!!

My hope / wish is a return of humor (I love she called out Police Beat - I too miss humorous Charles). I also miss the pieces on the arts, music, movies (Everout is okay but doesn’t replace the need for article length arts coverage).

Fingers crossed we get less scolding from the progressive writers and more actual entertainment.

Kets ahoy

Shoryuken with the best or hadoken with the rest.

(damn near) Any
Friend of Bernie's's a
Friend of Mine. Welcome Aboard!

& always Remember: it's
Don-OLD Felonious
fucking trumpfster.

Bring back A. Birch Steen, Public Editor and Ombudsman. If he (she) is dead, hire another. It was the best part of the paper.

Aramis really captures a core problem for the Stranger - it probably predates this a bit, but the Chase Burns editorship really put a near complete stop to actual journalism. The breathy enthusiastic calls to arms from the streets of CHOP/CHAZ coming right from Chase's pen in 2020 were a sign: we are not even going to pretend.

Existence of Hamas? Spiked
*Murder and kidnapping of Israelis? Spiked
*Eina Kwon's murder by a homeless man just in town from Chicago? Spiked *completely
*Corey Bellet's murder by Shawn Moore at Cap Hill Light Rail? Delegated to Cap Hill Blog
*Judge Ed McKenna: When then-City Attorney Holmes asked for a judge to resign, and then the King County public defenders took action to effectively remove the judge without an election or impeachment vote, the Stranger was all for it. When its Judge Vadaddi, the Stranger is outraged at the affront to democracy. (Thank you Tensorna for the succinct summary)

Those are not just "ideological" differences or the Stranger's favorite straw man: "conservatives". Those are deliberate choices to spike news stories, facts, stories that are otherwise being covered by actual news outlets- there's little difference between that choice and the shit that Fox or Breitbart pulls. Its not better because the Stranger is progressive. Its shitty, lazy, and its not journalism.

It matters that the Stranger has gotten so shitty because 1 horse news towns are generally a bad thing. There should be a credible legitimate news outlet in print other than Seattle Times- but there isn't.

Killing the print edition might have been cost effective but it was a terrible decision in terms of public reach and credibility.

Now the only folks who come to the Stranger are coming:
1. To see how batshit y'all are going to be (answer: nearly always, VERY).
2. To agree with you (which is from a persuasion standpoint, useless).

While its clear the Stranger is wildly out of step with where Seattle voters are at the moment, its a pendulum and swings around a lot, but being THIS out of step is a problem. If everyone who disagrees with you is a "pearl clutching Madison Valley conservative", thats not a great strategy to persuade. They're not "conservatives", Rich, Hannah, Ashley, Charles. And quite frankly, its super privilegey and gross to refer to Seattleites as conservatives. Try being queer or trans or female or BIPOC in Dallas or Oklahoma City or Wichita or Provo....somewhere that is ACTUALLY conservative and where that does REAL damage, intentionally.

This is a time for real journalism--not, for example, endorsements based on "he says fuck a lot and we love that" or telling us again how much you all love weed. Or telling people whose car windows get smashed on Cap Hill to stop being so whiny (I'm guessing if all the car windows at the Stranger in SoDo were smashed, you'd all be rightly pissed- its expensive..and more to the point, its not what you need to spend $200-500 on). That is also true of downtown businesses and the explosion of shoplifting. It's not whiners. It's real and its a problem.

Hopefully the Stranger returns to the city we actually live in...and starts to do the kind of journalism they previously did. (Erica Barnett writes frequently batshit stuff too but she sources it and does interviews and it's actually journalism--so it can be done).