I just sent this email to Ted McGregor the publisher of The Inlander regarding the rather rosy eyed piece by Inlander reporters Smith and Deshais on the last decade in Spokane. The problem is a woman died in the RPS Parking Garage that was the direct result of a $100M bond fraud that was consummated by the Cowles Media Empire. This is a real page turning homicide mystery that no one wants to report. Why? And more interestingly this is a true story and not fiction!
*****
Dear Mr. McGregor,
I generally don’t expect much from The Inlander but do appreciate the stories that you break from time to time that the Cowles’ media won’t report in our little berg. The Inlander did do some heavy hitting reporting on the RPS scandal at the time but abruptly stopped for some reason. As I wrote you sometime ago I have a source who heard Cris Peck allegedly threatened you and The Inlander that if you didn’t stop with your reporting, the Cowles would pull their ad revenue and by inference the other advertisers in their sphere of influence. They have done this before with other alternative papers by undercutting their ad rates and forced them to go out of business. You have never responded to my request to confirm or deny this. At the time I mentioned I have hard evidence that the Cowles did just this to KXLY while Tom Grant was doing his reporting there. Herling confirmed they were losing $100K in ad revenue.
Sorry but I have to agree with Tim Connor’s critique of your story by Joel and Nick. I posted several comments in the article thread to alert your readers to Tim’s piece and other alternative info re the Cowles Co has so far successfully covered up the manslaughter death of Jo Savage in the RPS Parking Garage. The question is whether you will leave my comments. The S-R has used the artful practice of self-censorship which it has a long M/O of doing with its own reporters in matters near or dear to the Cowles family by removing my civil comments to conceal this alternative info from its blog readers. Why? In a normal media environment this would be Page One above the fold material. Why doesn’t it get covered here?
This story will eventually break and all the media that played along and compromised their journalistic responsibility/ethics/principles to their readers and viewers will look pretty lame as well as all who play “Spokane nice” in our town.
BTW you let Joe Shogun (AKA King Joe) off rather lightly in view of his summarily throwing folks out of Council Chambers during meetings. When I was there on Dec 7, he threw two people out. I was sitting in the audience near the front with Reporter Jonathan Brunt and I didn’t hear what was said to invoke the wrath of King Joe.
Yours,
Det. Ron Wright (Retired)
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: rocketsbrain <nar9350@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 10:32 AM
Subject: OK some counter-insurgency working re RPS:-) (Big Laugh!)
OK I know some folks have issues with Dave and why he continues to blog under the watchful eye of the S-R. . . . Dave just posted this piece in his blog somewhat by my prodding. Never forget that it’s the thousands of little pin pricks of the long tail of the Blogos that will cause the Cowles’ dike on the free flow of info in this berg to break:-)
Never forget…
Posted by Dave at 3:47 a.m. on January 4 Comments (0)
- Tags
- Inlander
- Spokane politics
Good morning, Netizens…
After reading quite a few messages about the article that appears in the latest Inlander, which appears here http://www.inlander.com/
I know too many people who simply sold their homes and businesses and moved out of the area because of the politics of the time. I remember how the stench of corruption hung over City Hall once the facts surrounding the public-private partnership first became known.
The Inlander article by Joel Smith and Nicholas Deshais appears to have deliberately ignored anyone who holds a different opinion of the facts. No mention is made of the death of Jo Savage, save for the comments to the article by both Ron_the_Cop and the Center for Justice’s Tim Connor. In fact, I cannot recall reading anything in the Inlander that is negative in any way to the interests of Downtown Spokane. Do Smith and Deshais have the balls to quote the elegant former City Councilwoman Cherie Rogers on the “mystery financing” surrounding the parking garage, for example? That might ruin their thesis. I nearly spilled my coffee upon hearing that Jim Sheehan’s developments have any ties to River Park Square. Oh, yeah, sure.
However I think someone should award Joel Smith and Nicholas Deshais a set of matching pom poms and frilly cheerleader costumes so they can stand in front of River Park Square and properly serve up more plastic cups of boosterism that they seem to have uncapped in lieu of journalism.
Dave