Surreal in Seattle

Rick Arthur

SEATTLE -- The Hong Kong-born wife of a friend of mine has a pithy

summation of all things Seattle.

She’s in the insurance industry, he’s a newspaperman, and both are

Southern California transplants here before me. After experiencing that

peculiar behavior that even the locals call “the Seattle process” --

News-Press columnist Will Rogers, among others, might recognize it as

particular to Glendale, too! -- Carol opined:

“They’re white, they’re whiny and they’re slow.”

To be sure, we’re painting with a broad brush here. But more than one

newcomer’s observance, after interacting with residents across all

industrial, cultural and societal levels, is that:

* The middle and upper classes here -- the dominant power structure,

if you will -- are overwhelmingly Caucasian, despite a steady influx of

immigrants.

* Everyone complains about everything, especially hard work.

* Everyone drives 5 miles an hour slower than the speed limit, and

they’re all great at schmoozing around the cappuccino machine and putting

off till tomorrow what can be done today.

Hmm, maybe the Emerald City and the Jewel City indeed have a lot in

common.

*

At any rate, one, two or all three of Carol’s conclusions are in

evidence on a daily basis around the Puget Sound area -- and no more so,

especially in hindsight, than in the celebrated Battle in Seattle that

swirled around the World Trade Organization earlier this month.

To wit:

From the AFL-CIO to the Sierra Club to the World Wildlife Fund to the

decidedly less mainstream Direct Action Network, the Ruckus Society and

those celebrated anarchists from Eugene, Ore., it was hard to spot a face

of color in any of the crowds -- and that applied also to the lines of

law enforcement officers trying to keep the peace.

Then there was the laughable incongruity -- in a state that’s a

leading exporter of apples and airplanes and wheat and Windows, and in

which nearly one in three jobs is dependent on world trade -- of

Nike-clad protesters trashing Niketown, of latte-swilling java heads

plundering Starbucks, of sophomoric college students taking their naivete

to the streets, wearing their backpacks from China, their sweatshirts

from Malaysia and their jeans from Taiwan.

And what of the city’s initial response, as demonstrations intended to

be nonviolent were hijacked by those bent on destroying society? If

“slow” isn’t the appropriate word, I don’t know what is -- especially

when you factor in the mounting evidence that the very real threat of

rioting was known well in advance, and that police apparently had passed

up the chance to arrest many of the anarchists on trespassing charges in

the vacant apartment building they had taken over.

*

Now, of course, comes a bunch of predominantly white people whining

about what went wrong, about what could have been done and wasn’t, about

what further process can be put into place to prevent any such

recurrence.

Can you say the words “blue-ribbon panel”? “Independent experts”?

“Oversight committee”? How about “sacrificial lamb,” with the police

chief’s sudden “retirement” (not “resignation,” mind you) no doubt

ensuring the mayor’s continued tenure?

All that notwithstanding, I learned again just how surreal it is to be

involved in news media coverage of big events, planned or unplanned. From

Super Bowls to World Series, from earthquakes to riots to fires, I had my

share of them in Southern California, and seemingly it’s been nothing but

more in my six months here. We’ve had a huge pipeline explosion, several

mass shootings, our own nice little earthquake and now this Rage Against

The Machine.

One rule of thumb remained operative, as always: Get your crews out

the door, and order the food for those who will be stuck inside putting

the product out for God knows how many consecutive hours over God knows

how many consecutive days.

*

KOMO TV, by the way -- whose crews were amazingly courageous,

clearheaded, responsible and informative -- was not without its own bit

of controversy, though I submit a mountain was made out of a molehill

internally, within the broadcast industry nationwide and, as we continue

to learn, on the Internet around the world.

Our news director, Joe Barnes, went on our newscasts before the WTO

hit town, announcing a principled and pioneering stand. We would take

special care with any and all protests, he said, evaluating them

carefully but working to spend more time on the issues than on the

protests themselves.

We might even not show footage of a protest, or show it but not name

the organization or the cause, focusing instead on the disruption to

traffic and commerce.

In short, we forthrightly recognized and declared that if the cameras

aren’t there, then often the protesters will go away.

And that, contrary to every other station in the country, we refuse to

be held hostage by those who want only to be on TV.

*

Viewer calls and e-mails began two-thirds to one-third in favor, then

escalated to three-fourths to one-fourth. Regrettably, once a state of

city emergency was declared, we felt compelled to go “wall to wall” with

our coverage, as it became a public service to report on the danger to

the citizenry (and the police), on the closed schools and stores, on the

unnavigable streets and freeway exits.

Some, however -- including some of our own staff, along with a local

newspaper TV critic and dozens of Internet conspiracy theorists -- lashed

out at us, wondering if we would have covered the Boston Tea Party and

Rosa Parks, and if we had not just proved what lickspittle lackeys we

were to our corporate overseers.

While Joe couldn’t and wouldn’t say it in his replies, I can (at least

here): Get a grip.

What we attempted to do is to take the kind of thoughtful, responsible

stance for which the viewers are desperately hungry and for which they

will be eternally grateful. Can you imagine, for example, a Los Angeles

television news industry that did not feel compelled to surrender its

programming to live coverage of police chases?

I can, and while mercifully there haven’t been any of those up here, I

did manage to keep a fire-breathing, bare-breasted transsexual atop a

utility tower off the air a few weeks ago -- but that’s another story.

RICK ARTHUR, editor of the Glendale News-Press from June 1997 through

April 1999, is news assignment manager at KOMO TV in Seattle. He can be

reached at 100 Fourth Ave. N, Seattle, WA 98109, or by e-mail at

rickar@komotv.com.