Matt Calkins, who resigned from the Seattle Times today because a column on transgender athletes was spiked by his bosses. He is getting good support from Seattle media obserurnesdvers. More from Matt:
https://mattycee.substack.com/p/agreeing-with-sophie-cunninghams
https://x.com/i/trending/2090496802487201837
From Aaron Levine of Fox 13:
Matt has never shied away from tackling some of the hottest-button issues and I give him tons of credit for that.
Wishing you nothing but the best going forward, Matt, and truly appreciate and admire the full explanation in your Substack.
From Ian Furness of KJR:
"When a columnist is muted by a newspaper, the paper of record for the region, we have reached a dangerous place. The fact that it has happened multiple times to Matt is even worse."⁸
I’ve never been a fan of the Seattle Times starting with the attempt to run the P I into the ground. The owners of the paper have a right to a point of view, however they should not suppress information because they don’t like the subject.
ReplyDeleteThe trans issue is a political red herring. If people would just look at the numbers,they would realize it’s not an issue that really matters.
Calkin's piece on Substack is still available to read.
ReplyDeletehttps://mattycee.substack.com/p/i-was-a-sports-columnist-at-the-seattle
The column in question has also been posted to Calkin's Substack.
https://mattycee.substack.com/p/agreeing-with-sophie-cunninghams
I wish Calkins all the best in his future endeavors, and I hope that the Seattle Times will reconsider censoring the work of their columnists in future. Columnists are supposed to present their perspectives and opinions for readers to mull over, and that is what Calkins tried to do here. This particular column was bound to stir up more controversey than most due to the topic it was discussing, and the opinions presented weren't likely to be popular in a market like Seattle. But that doesn't mean they deserved to be censored. If anything, this piece could have helped people better understand the issue from a perspective they may or may not have considered. That would have been a good public service.
I have a lot to say on this but I will preface by echoing IDC 100% here and seconding his comments. All Calkins was doing here was providing the two girls he interviewed for the column - who BTW are the two girls' HS athletes leading the push to pass the initiative on the November ballot that would ban transgender competitors in girls' HS sports in WA - a platform to air their perspective on the subject in order to spark discussion, to spark conversation, to spark debate and most importantly, to stoke engagement with the paper.
DeleteAnd to be fair, much of that would have been negative and you would have had a lot of people probably calling for Calkins to be fired. Fine. But this is what a newspaper is supposed to be about, and truth be told, in a past time, this is exactly what the Seattle Times actually did. A lot of you may not realize that this city was a two-newspaper town for many years with the Times and the rival Post-Intelligencer. And editorially, both papers leaned liberal, but the Times when they competed against the P-I it was perceived their editorial lean was closer to the center than the P-I’s was.
That the editorial team at the Times now feels it needs to be the one gatekeeping is unfortunate. The national attention this is generating is an embarrassment for the newspaper and worse, this is on top of something else that the Times is dealing with concerning alleged editorial bias in their coverage. A conservative media figure in Seattle has filed a complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission over whether the Times’ “Climate Lab” reporting and the manner in which it was funded during the 2024 campaign over an initiative to repeal the Climate Commitment Act amounted to an unreported campaign contribution to the “No” campaign on that initiative.
Right now is not a good time to be in the editorial department at the Times, and unfortunately, at least in Calkins’ case, this is all IMO self-inflicted. Hopefully, Mr. Calkins is able to land on his feet and provide the type of coverage and takes he feels he can provide readers moving forward.
Rhett, just what in the hell do you think editors do? They gatekeep! It is literally their job!
DeleteI dunno, if Calkins was really just going to interview them and present those interviews as a column — without verification of their claims or simply taking what they say at face value — then that’s a pretty poorly reported column, no? If you’re going to interview them but not delve into how they got such nice seats, is that not an editorial disservice?
I would be willing to bet he had this planned for some time and was waiting for the right time to pull the ripcord. Conservative opining is a lucrative field, and his byline will be at Barstool in no time.
Brian, your points are duly noted but I would argue differently on this. A lot of media folks have come out in support of Calkins because they understand the issue the same as both I and IDC above. He was trying to present their perspectives on this issue to give readers another side of the discussion. Do you see other columnists at the Times going to the lengths you think Calkins should have gone to here in their columns when they discuss topics of importance? Westneat for example?
DeleteDo I think they should have gone to those lengths? Yes! That is their job — to publish *informed* opinion. Otherwise they’re just another Stephen A Smith wannabe.
DeleteFor the sake of argument: If you were Calkins, and you wanted this to run — knowing that other pieces had been spiked and for what reason — wouldn’t you *want* to have all your ducks in a row, if this topic was that important to you?
All of their columnists should be doing due diligence on the topics they choose. One interview isn’t going to cut it. Like that just seems to be a point of professional pride to me.
Did Calkins written other columns on this subject for the Times? If he did, then this could be seen as a companion piece to them and might not have needed to cover as many perspectives since other perspectives would have been covered in the prior columns.
DeleteThanks for finding the Substack post. It would not post and bumped some material. I finally added it. Really appreciate.
ReplyDeleteOnce again we are losing sight of the issue. It isn't ONE column that was spiked, there were multiple occasions since 2020. This was the final straw from what he has stated and written. The Seattle Times doesn't look good here.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is because he had multiple terrible takes that his editors didn’t feel were worthy of print. Columnists don’t have carte blanche to publish their every desire.
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