SPECIAL OFFER: If you GaveBIG! on May 2 as part of The Seattle Foundation’s campaign to help ALL non-profit organizations in our community, then you can GetBEER! any day in May (M-F, noon-6 pm) at the WNC office above the Pyramid Alehouse across from Safeco Field. The Washington News Council is offering ONE FREE BEER to [...]

On Saturday March 31st, 2012, The Washington News Council had a hearing on the Vitae Foundation v. KUOW case involving a story on Vitae’s youroptions.com website. You can read about the results of the case and watch the hearing in its entirety below. Also feel free to check out some of the “press” surrounding the case. Part 1 – [...]

“Do you like tattoos?” was my standard pickup line. OK, pretty cheesy, but hey, it worked most of the time. I was sitting at a table at the Washington State Convention Center for two days last week surrounded by about 4,000 high-school journalists from all over the country. It was the national Journalism Education Association /National [...]

Mike Wallace changed my life. I never actually met him, but he had a huge influence on my career. Here’s how: Back in the 1990s, I co-edited a media-critique newsletter called CounterPoint  (motto: “Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?”) and co-wrote a column that ran in Seattle Weekly and Eastsideweek called “Watchdogs” (motto: “Woof!”). Barking at journalists, [...]

Watch the hearing video in its entirety National coverage from CPB Ombudsman Joel Kaplan National coverage by Mike Janssen of Current.org National coverage by Valerie Richardson of The Washington Times Local coverage from Mark Griswold of Sound Politics Local coverage from NW Daily Marker’s Bryan Myrick Local coverage from PubliCola’s Erica Barnett

The Washington News Council (WNC) held a three-hour public hearing [...]

The Washington News Council is accepting applications for two $2,000 scholarships to be awarded in 2012 to Washington state students planning careers in communications: •    The Dick Larsen Scholarship will go to a past graduate of a Washington high school currently enrolled in a public or private college/university in this state. NOTE: Application deadline is June [...]

***UPDATE*** we now have the hearing video and full set of documents involved with the complaint as a downloadable PDF. We also have national coverage by The Washington Times and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Ombudsman . Plus local coverage in Sound Politics and the Northwest Daily Marker .

The Washington News Council’s Board of Directors has set a date for a hearing [...]

The Washington News Council has just been awarded two new grants to sustain our operations in 2012: A $100,000 matching grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is the third year of a Gates challenge grant, which the WNC matched by raising more than $100,000 from other sources in 2011. A $10,000 community activities grant from [...]

Student journalists from across the U.S. took the TAO of Journalism Pledge during annual Scholastic Journalism Week, Feb. 19-25, promising to be Transparent, Accountable and Open (TAO) in their work as journalists. Student journalism groups are invited to take the TAO Pledge at any time, but Feb. 22 was set aside as National TAO of [...]

The Newspaper Association of America recently unveiled a new advertising campaign: “ Smart is the New Sexy. ” I wrote a snarky blog about it, asking “Whose idea was this?” But I’m having second thoughts. I just read the Valentine’s Day issue of my daily newspaper, The Seattle Times. Yikes! This paper is smokin’. Take Page One: There’s a [...]

Chris Stein of The Pacific Northwest Inlander gave The News Council a little coverage in an article about Spokane Police ombudsman Tim Burns. The article says:

When police ombudsman Tim Burns laid out his ideas for reforming the police department to a Spokane City Council committee last month, he also had a few choice words for the [...]

From time to time we receive correspondence from fellow news junkies outside of Washington State, and sometimes overseas as well . As the last fully operating news council , we’re starting to show up in search engines for people who need answers on accountability in the news media. A fellow named Bill Santagata wrote to us asking for advice on [...]

Watch it on the Seattle Channel Visit the photo album from Team Photogenic

The Washington News Council’s “Toast and Roast” of Dale Chihuly at our 13th Annual Gridiron West Dinner on December 15 at Fremont Studios was a smashing success. About 400 people enjoyed a raucous and rollicking evening of comedy, songs, videos, slideshows and affectionate “toasts” of Dale [...]

by John Bowen and Kathy Schrier from the Washington Journalism Education Association to the Student Press Rights Commission blog

Principals will not have a chance to prior review Seattle School District journalism students because the school board recently withdrew its proposed and controversial policy change. “As a former journalism teacher, it is important for me — as I [...]

In my first post on the Seattle Interactive Conference , I went over some locally developed tools designed to make information more relevant and insightful. Mobile apps like Trover, which allows geo-discovery through photos, and Evri, which organizes ~15,000 news feeds into a friendly iPad interface, are useful on an individual level. But my concern is: How can they scale to community [...]

Journalists have always covered the tech industry as a section of the newspaper, but now, due to the personal media explosion, the very existence of the trade is dependent on conversations and decisions that happen at events like this year’s Seattle Interactive Conference . #SIC2011 had many of the same trimmings as the now messianic #SXSWi (South By [...]

Hackathons are getting trendy. Not just in journalism, but health care , education, entrepreneurism, crisis management , mobile tech , government, and other arenas. Yes, it’s another technology buzz word, but one that hopefully sticks around and evolves into a combustible formula. Bringing together software experts and social leaders who sprint together to solve big challenges is a remarkable thing, especially when there’s a $10,000 prize [...]

Secretary of State Sam Reed, who announced his retirement recently, is being hailed for standing up for transparency, accessibility and openness in government — and justifiably so. Reed received the Washington Coalition for Open Government’s coveted James Madison Award last week in recognition of his work. The awards breakfast just happened to fall on International Media [...]

David Brewster’s recent little blog on Crosscut.com, “Chihuly Conquers Boston” (Aug. 8) caught my eye because I saw the Chihuly exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in May. My wife and I spent several hours there. We both thought it was fabulous. Brewster said the exhibit “drew large numbers…and mixed critical reviews.” He cited two [...]