Endorsement tainted

Renton reeks and I am not talking about the sewer plant located at the edge of the city. Murdoch appears to be “Mother Teresa” when comparing ethical standards and integrity with the Renton Reporter’s editorial/candidate evaluation board!

Renton reeks and I am not talking about the sewer plant located at the edge of the city. Murdoch appears to be “Mother Teresa” when comparing ethical standards and integrity with the Renton Reporter’s editorial/candidate evaluation board!

There is an open seat for Renton City Council and there are three candidates for the position who were interviewed by the editorial/candidate evaluation board at the Renton Reporter. The editorial/candidate evaluation board was comprised of the newspaper publisher, the editor, and two members of their community board. One of the community members who was serving on the evaluation board failed to disclose that he had already decided on “his horse in the race.”  The member had given money twice to one of the candidates, endorsed him, and was actively campaigning for one of the three candidates!

When Robin Jones, candidate for Renton City Council, learned of this situation, he questioned the participant’s ability to be unbiased.  Considering that the relationship between one of the candidates and one of the interviewers had NOT been revealed prior to the interview, the circumstances “smelled.”  The community member who had donated money twice, endorsed and was actively campaigning for one of the candidates did evaluate all three candidates (of course with equality!).

Shame on the Renton Reporter for not selecting on objective community members to give the community an unbiased evaluation of the next Renton City Council member! The process was tainted and I urge people to support Robin Jones, a candidate that DOES understand ethical standards and integrity.

Rosemary Quesenberry

Renton

Supporter and endorser of Robin Jones

 

(Editor’s note: Rosemary’s letter originally appeared on rentonreporter.com. Here’s my response I posted after her letter. Dean Radford.)

Yes, Rosemary, there was a good discussion about whether editorial board member Jim Medzegian could provide an unbiased appraisal of the three candidates, even though he supports one of them, Ed Prince. Jim said he could and his vote was not assured until after the interviews. By the way, the results would have been the same had Jim’s vote been discounted. However, that revealed, it’s still important to keep the newspaper’s process as transparent as possible, meaning we’ll explain how it works. Frankly, I don’t think we could find anyone to serve on a community board who doesn’t have some preconceived notion about which candidate he or she will support. That’s why we try to keep such a board as broad and as large as possible, to help counter those preconceived notions. Of course, for example we wouldn’t have a campaign manager for a candidate sit on the board. I am glad Robin raised the issue.