Is the Seattle Times at War with Itself?

If you read their latest "reporting," versus their endorsement picks, you just might think so.

This story - Budget cuts, school closures top issues in Seattle School Board Election - is all over the place. Let's chart its issues:

- Starting with that headline - who says those are the top issues? Nothing that followed in the article indicated that in a big way. Not including safety issues in that headline is strange.

- In District 1, they put a photo of the editorial board's pick, Debbie Carlsen. Why not thumbnail photos of all the candidates in this is reporting? 

- In writing about Carlsen, there is some odd wording. 

Carlsen works as a nonprofit consultant and says she’s been a preschool teacher, interim policy director at the National Alliance on Mental Illness and former executive director of LGBTQ Allyship. 

"says she's been?" If the Times has doubts about her statements, go do some investigative reporting. Otherwise, it should read, "and a preschool teacher, ..."

- Rankin uses the tired incumbent line of "I’m the only candidate that has that understanding of the district and our schools and issues as a whole.” Well sure, she's been on the job for four years. But, she, too, started as a newbie four years ago.

- Blaine Parse, a challenger in the D1 race, had an interesting comment about school "consolidations":

Alternative schools will “suffer the most with school consolidations,” Parce said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the next couple of years and we need to pause and take a look at what we’ve been doing and where we need to go.”

- Then, in the D3 section, they put a photo of just Evan Briggs who the editorial board rejected in favor of Ben Gitenstein. Again, why not thumbnail photos of all the candidates?

In the article, Briggs says she's for community engagement but meanwhile over at the Facebook HCC Elementary, it sounds like parents at Thornton Creek were asking for answers when she was the BLT president and she didn't deliver. 

- Then, in talking about Gitenstein, who actually mentions the declining enrollment issue, the piece mentions two things. One, that he has one children in private school during COVID times because of "the child's mental health."  I myself have said, over and over, people need to do the best thing for their child and sometimes, for some kids, it is private school. 

Second, they insert that his wife is part of group suing the district over the hiring of Jones for superintendent. I had no idea this was happening and what does it have to do with Gitenstein's qualifications?

And if they are gonna bring up lawsuits, let's talk about Chandra Hampson who is speaking for Evan Briggs at legislative district meetings and who is STILL suing SPS herself. 

- The D6 part of the article was also uneven. The qualifications of Gina Topp were front and center. They couldn't reach Rosie McCarter and didn't bother to note any qualifications. They talked to Maryanne Wood but seemingly forgot to ask her what her qualifications are.

Other notable parts:

- Christie Robertson, more than I have ever seen before, puts her whole campaign on Special Education and says:

I don’t want people to think my campaign is just about special education — that’s the fire that’s under me,” Robertson said. “To fix some issues in special education would be healthy for all kids.”

Readers, what say you on that statement?