If you haven’t heard by now, the two random complainers formally withdrew their recall petition against Mayor Katie Wilson, just days before it would almost certainly have been thrown out by the court. The judge never got to rule on the merits — they pulled it first.
Andrew Villeneuve of The Northwest Progressive Institute beat me to the punch with the following excellent piece: Melinda Jacobson and Dale Osterud’s non-recall of Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson was a media stunt that the mass media fell for.
His sub-header was even better, “Two disgruntled constituents had no legally sufficient grounds to start a recall of the Emerald City’s chief executive, but Seattle newsrooms rewarded their ploy for publicity with weeks of credulous coverage anyway.”
But I think Andrew was being generous when he called the coverage “credulous.” I think this silly saga was an open embrace of sensationalism and disproportionate coverage in service of the media’s embarrassing political bias against Seattle’s Socialist Mayor.
Let’s take a quick look.
First was the use of the word “charges” in headlines.
MyNorthwest went with “Jake and Spike analyze recall charges filed against Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson,” and followed up the next day with a petitioner explaining “why she filed charges.”
Washington’s recall statute calls the complaint against a Mayor “charges.” That’s the term of art, and it means a civil petition alleging misfeasance. To a normal person scrolling a phone, “charges” means the police. Which is almost certainly why it was in the headline–to make an indictment out of an inconvenience.
At least one national conservative media outlet moved beyond subtle hints. Fix This Nation put up a headline that read, “Socialist Mayor Faces RECALL Over Criminal Allegations.”
In fact, the use of “charges” was so stupid that even rightwing KOMO eventually included a note that mentioned that “The recall allegations were made by the petitioners and are not criminal charges filed by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.”
Every single story that mentioned “charges” should have said something like this.
But they didn’t.
The headlines came hard, fast, and ready for the National Enquirer.
Post Alley: “Under Fire: A Petition to Recall Mayor Katie Wilson.”
MyNorthwest should get an award for its slate of idiotic quotes as headlines. There was one from one of the two crank petitioners (“She’s failed this city miserably”) and some big-biz loving KIRO podcasters (“She’s still floundering,” “They think she’s bad at her job,” and my favorite, where they came up with a fake hypothetical charge that wasn’t even in the filing, “it hits the bar for malfeasance.”) Host “Gee” of Gee and Ursula also got a headline, (“You knew what you voted for’: Gee says don’t act shocked as Katie Wilson’s approval plunges amid recall effort“).
Amazingly, their only reasonable headline came from a conservative talk show host, John Curley. (“‘A little outside the bounds of credulity’: Curley questions who’s behind the Katie Wilson recall effort.”) No kidding!
The Everett Post picked up a story from The Center Square, a conservative site, which led with “‘Not surprised’: Reactions follow recall effort against Seattle Mayor.” The “not surprised” quote came from local MAGA-friendly crank Andrea Suarez, who pals around with Seattle’s right-wing media grifter industrial complex–like credibly accused abuser Jonathan Choe (of Proud Boys promoting fame) and Brandi Kruse, who made a cringey appearance at a Trump roundtable, urging him to go after “antifa.”
Other national conservatives were just as delighted. The Washington Times started with “Socialist Katie Wilson losing the love of her own leftist Seattle voters” that led with her “fending off a recall effort” and followed up with a poll from the super objective Chamber of Commerce. Four days later, their headline read “Seattle Residents Petition to Recall Socialist Mayor Katie Wilson Over Crime Woes.” The Gateway Pundit, “THAT WAS FAST: Seattle’s New Socialist Mayor Katie Wilson Already Facing Recall Effort”.
Fox News (the national one) quoted a local right-wing radio host saying she “should not have been elected in the first place.”
A national outlet.
Because two angry randos filed a document.
Just for context, there are about 284,000 cases filed per working day in the United States, or 71 million per year.
KOMO, FOX13, KING 5 and KIRO all had headlines that were more neutrally written, but managed to keep the completely irrelevant and frivolous petition top of mind as much as they possibly could. They found headlines to write about the Mayor responding, when court days were coming, which court they’d be in, and a bunch of other uninteresting things meant to make the Mayor look bad and beleaguered and get you to feel like most of what is going on in this city is some sort of mass uprising.
One of the most absurd came from local Fox affiliate Fox 13, when the couple that filed the complaint missed their briefing deadline, which put the case in jeopardy. Somehow they still managed to use this to make the Mayor look bad. Their headline read, “Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson Recall Chaos: Major Deadline Missed” with Katie Wilson’s face front and center.
Sure the deadline was missed by the people complaining about the Mayor. Sure that wasn’t really chaos. Sure, the Wilson administration had responded in a controlled, professional manner and was kicking the petitioner’s ass while barely attending to it because they are living in reality and actually focused on governing.
But it gave Fox13 a chance to put the word “chaos” in bold with Katie Wilson’s name and picture and they were delighted to do so.
Not all the coverage was bad. Scott Greenstone’s piece was among the best. His headline made it clear, “Recall petition filed against Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson faces uphill battle.” It was well-written and researched, with expert commentary and historical context.
And remember that MyNorthwest headline “’You knew what you voted for’ Gee says?” Read past it. In that very same segment, on August 20th — eleven days before the hearing that never happened — Ursula Reutin said it straight: “This recall is gonna go nowhere. Let’s call a spade a spade. It’s not gonna go anywhere. Malfeasance would have to be proven, and I don’t see this succeeding.”
All in all, I count over 40 headlines (with help from Claude) about this nonstory, and a good number of them are national.
A frivolous, obviously-doomed stunt pulled by two random people got far more coverage than things our Mayor is actually doing — work that will likely save dozens of lives and prevent countless injuries, that transformed thousands of daily commutes overnight, that feeds every kid in Seattle Public Schools. That’s an indictment of the media’s core job: telling the truth and informing the public.
I’m not just suggesting they cover her wins. They could cover the things going wrong in the city too - there’s plenty of work to be done in Seattle. They could cover the suffering of the unhoused, the inequities in enforcement related to sex work, the way that commercial land value decreases raises residential tax rates and more.
The point isn’t that they need to be friendly or fawning (although they often were with the last Mayor). It’s that they need to actually root their coverage in reality. The coverage should represent what is actually happening in the world and impacting people’s lives–rather than shining a spotlight on a non-event sideshow repeatedly until it manifests into whatever reality they are trying to create.
And there is plenty of local politics that has nothing to do with the Mayor that is also far more important than this silly little sideshow. Seattle teachers may strike for a fairer contract, delaying the start of school. This is hugely impactful but getting far less attention.
Even though anyone who read these articles could easily see that the case was meritless and that the couple trying to push it forward are way in over their heads, the headlines highlighting the end of the case came with what is, I fear, some unfortunate foreshadowing. The two cranks had nothing ready for court and they withdrew their complaint, but the headlines from KUOW, KOMO, KIRO 7 all decided to continue to elevate their words by putting them in the headlines, “it’s not over.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think that is just a reference to the case.