Jean Godden's Cozy Relationship with PI Reporters: Part 1, Blackberry-gate

Do you want blackberries removed from a public right of way? It sure helps, if you are a PI reporter that has close personal ties with a council person:

But in 2006, and in 2007, PI writer Joe Adcock promptly had his yearly requests for blackberry removal processed directly through Jean Godden's office, after he felt the city agency in charge wasn't responsive enough. The rest of us have to go through DPD, I guess:



Subsequent e-mail shows Godden gleefully advocating on this important issue, by contacting the city's arborist, and Adcock thanking her. That might be one way to ensure that reporters never get the idea that something downtown is "broken".

And of making holiday plans?




Godden was busy on Thanksgiving, but (embedded) PI journalist M.L Lyke wishes to see her and friends on Memorial Day. Godden had ruminated on that e-mail thread (not pictured above) about her Boxing Day party, about the new futon in the puzzle room at her Lummi Island cabin, and suggesting a bed and breakfast as an alternate accommodation. Godden writes in August about "loving seeing [Lyke]" at a reception, and about how she could have crashed at the Lummi cabin for the night.

Not that there is anything wrong with making holiday plans with old friends. But there is a ton of this stuff, and it is not interspersed with the professional communication style one would expect between a trustee in our government, and "objective" newspaper reporters.

How should we expect newspapers to maintain at least some pretense of objectivity when reporting on council members? And granted, Lyke isn't exactly writing loads and loads of pro-Godden campaign puff pieces. But there are a lot of e-mails like this on the record throughout Godden's term on the City Council, with several newspaper reporters. And of virtually all of them with the reporters, practically all from the PI (curiously, not the Times), have a tone more like friendly banter between old friends bordering on gossip, and less like professionals who are serving the public good. She's got a tight, personal network at the PI, and as long as there is one degree of separation with stories, hey, it's all good, eh?

Might we think that the PI's coverage of that council race might just be a little skew?

The only communication with a reporter that indicated any strain was an exchange with the PI's Joel Connelly over his reporting of the big windstorm in 2006, over the number of people available at the city to take complaints. Turns out it was a typo.

In the meantime, if you see blackberry encroachment, it looks as though there is a fast track resolution channel for that.

Update: It is worth noting that all of the ongoing personal correspondence with the media stopped on Tuesday, August 16th; just two days after this post.