Open Left - Seattle Times

At 50th Birthday Party, Geov Parrish Announces New Lobbying Career

fake consultant — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:20:00 GMT

SEATTLE (FNS)--Longtime activist Geov Parrish unexpectedly revealed to the crowd gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday Friday evening his impending plans to end his decades-long career as a public issues advocate in exchange for new opportunities in the field of corporate communications management and image development.

The announcement appeared to be even more shocking to the glitterati gathered for Parrish's 50th birthday extravaganza at Seattle's tony Rainier Club than the fact that the event was sponsored by longtime Parrish nemesis Frank Blethen, publisher of the "Seattle Times" and a frequent target of Parrish's acerbic criticism regarding the state of corporatocracy and its negative impact upon the state of the Nation.

A new commercial venture and three new business relationships were unveiled: a corporate communications consultancy, tentatively to be named "I Am The State!", is to be opened in the next few weeks, after suitable office space is located, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Seattle Times Company as the first two business associates; additionally, Parrish will be joining the Board of Directors of the Strangelove Foundation, an organization devoted to maintaining the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids.
A book deal was also announced.

Parrish, who among his other work was a founder of Seattle's alternative newspaper "Eat The State!", was in an ebullient mood as he explained the thought process behind his decision:

"After spending so many years fighting for affordable, high-quality health care for all Americans-all to no avail-I've decided to focus my efforts on getting myself high-quality health care, no matter what the cost...and considering, on the one hand, that my projected income next year from just the US Chamber of Commerce and Seattle Times operations are going to be somewhere in the range of $2.5 million dollars, and, on the other hand, that when my company pays for my new gold-plated executive health insurance plan it's fully tax-deductible, I'm thinking the cost of health care is probably not going to be a problem for me going forward.

And then I thought: what better day to make the announcement...than Friday the 13th?"

Apparently channeling Dave Chappell, Parrish then offered the crowd a certain single-fingered gesture before shouting:

"I'm rich, bitchaaas!"

In an exclusive interview, Frank Blethen explained to me the rationale behind the surprising new relationship:

"There was a time when we could afford to ignore publications like "Eat the State!", but as conditions for traditional publishers continued to deteriorate we found ourselves having to face the uncomfortable reality that last year Parrish's paper was actually more profitable than "The Seattle Times", and it was at that point that the Board and I decided to approach Parrish with an offer of employment."

Parrish declined the offer, citing his unwillingness to be anyone's employee. Blethen, however, would not be dissuaded:

"...we were determined to have him, in whatever capacity we could, and finally we hit upon the idea of hiring him as a consultant. We still couldn't come up with enough of an annual retainer for Parrish to be fully persuaded, so I made a quick call to Tom Donohue at the Chamber, which is how we came up with the proposal to have him advise not just The Seattle Times Company on media outreach and branding strategies, but, through the auspices of the Chamber, to provide those same services to other companies that could use 'the Parrish Touch'."

As the Obama Administration's plans for a new energy policy begin to become more certain Parrish's I Am The State! is also expected to provide services to companies outside the media community.

I was able to confirm this with a quick call to Exxon/Mobil spokesman Harry Paratestes, who told me that:

"...we are one of several companies that are seeking to reinvigorate our corporate image ahead of any new energy legislation that might be forthcoming from this and future Administrations.

Parrish's ability to successfully position his own media property while simultaneously destroying three competing papers-first, the "Seattle Weekly", then, Hearst's "Seattle Post-Intelligencer", and finally, the "Seattle Times"-gives us the confidence we need to invest in his ideas and every expectation of a profitable and mutually satisfying outcome."

Based on a recommendation from Tom Donohue, Center Street Publishers is rumored to have offered a $3.5 million advance for the rights to Parrish's new book documenting his change of circumstances, "The State Can Eat Me!"; it is anticipated that distribution will be not only through traditional retail channels, but also through Conservative websites such as Human Events, which is currently offering books by Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin at deep discounts to entice new website subscribers.

A number of times during the evening I attempted to obtain a comment directly from Mr. Parrish regarding these developments, but due to my inability to penetrate either the cordon of sunglass-wearing security personnel or the ever-present entourage that now surrounds him that effort proved to be impossible.

In a written statement, Parrish's people informed us that his next move will be to visit the Columbia Tower, Carillon Point, and the South Lake Union area to identify a suite of offices that can be redesigned to meet his specific requirements (which, I'm told, include an indoor shooting range, a cafeteria operated by the local "Popeye's" chicken franchisee, and the largest organ in the State of Washington); during the period of construction, we were informed, he will be in residence in either the other Washington, at the Hay-Adams Hotel, or Atlanta, Georgia, at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center, where, despite the fact that he was initially recruited by the "Times'" Blethen, he will be doing his first consulting work for other members of the Chamber.

Local Media, Darcy Burner and the War over the Obama Franchise

Matt Stoller — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:26:53 GMT

One part of the story in Washington's eighth district I haven't touched on yet was Darcy's role in a major dispute over local media consolidation between the two papers here - the Seattle Times and the Seattle PI. In 2007, she co-chaired something called the Committee for a Two Newspaper town, which ultimately forced the owners of the Seattle Times to pay out $24M and keep the Seattle PI in business. I'll have more on that fight below, because it segues nicely into the overall conflict between the two wings of the Obama power structure - the center right moderates and the populist left progressives.

Buried in the contours of the massive shift in politics we're seeing with the collapse of the conservative movement is a burgeoning fight between center-right establishment, both locally and nationally, and populist progressives. The McCain campaign is falling apart, and the far right is basically playing for 2012, positioning that race as Palin versus Romney and grooming a new generation of right-wing populist Republicans to come at Democrats in 2010. As Sirota shows, right-wing Villagers are freaking out, while the Chris Matthews of the world are mocking McCain/Palin the way they used to call John Edwards gay. It's a stunning reversal. And it's happening on a local level as well, with newspaper endorsements all over the country - even conservative newspapers - going for Obama.
But as I've noted, these forces are organizing themselves to undercut progressives and are seeking to position Obama as a moderate, like Clinton. In Seattle, I'm seeing this play out as a vicious media hit on Burner, a cooperative set of attacks by local Democratic and Republican political consultants (who both served as sources for this Time magazine piece by Amy Sullivan) and the Seattle Times.

The structure here is similar to what you see in DC and around the country. As reported by Josh Feit in the Stranger, some of the political consultants are bought off by AT&T and co, and even some of the 'liberal' ones work for both sides, as Erica C. Barnett showed in her reporting. Burner, who did not come out of this establishment, defeated a Blue Dog Democrat in the primary, using her support from the netroots to first clear the field (of Rodney Tom, a local developer who chose to drop out and endorse Burner) and then win the primary. This primary candidate, Jim Vaughn, then turned around and endorsed Reichert, realizing that he agrees with Reichert "on all the major issues and the only difference I could find was that I am pro choice and Dave is pro life." Vaughn lavished praise on Reichert and the Blue Dogs and noted he was "tired of going to work each day and getting taxed to death (over 50 different taxes in our state) to pay for someone to sit at home and abuse unemployment, the welfare system and worker's compensation."

The Seattle PI, the more liberal of the two major papers, decided to show its bipartisan credentials and endorse Reichert, as did the Tacoma News-Tribune and the conservative Seattle Times. Even liberal journalists like Eli Sanders of the Stranger in the alternate weekly drove an odd sort of anti-netroots conventional wisdom, choosing to overlook polling data to make an anti-Darcy case. Sanders analogized this latest fiasco over Burner's degree to the 'macaca' moment of George Allen, as if a falsified attack from a Republican is equivalent to a long legacy of racist slurs and actions revealed by a bullying comment towards an Indian-American campaign worker. The NRCC is focusing on this race, one of the few incumbents in the country they are spending money to defend, and they have even set up a phone bank in the basement in DC to make thousands of calls out here.

Burner isn't just opposing the DC establishment in terms of issues like FISA and by putting forward plans like a Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, she's also fighting through this local set of kingmakers. In 2007, she began a stint as a co-chair of The Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town, a citizens lobby (partially funded by labor) to prevent the Seattle Times from putting its competitor out of business.

In the 1980s, the Seattle Times and the Seattle PI struck a deal to combine non-news operations and split the profits in a special Joint Operating Agreement. The Times publisher, Frank Blethen, wanted to get rid of this agreement in 2003, as it would lead to the end of the Seattle PI and allow the Times to become a local monopoly. There was a four year lawsuit between the Blethen and the owner of the PI (Heart). In addition, a citizens committee emerged to fight Blethen, citing a compelling public interest to gain standing in the case and seeking to keep both papers open. The committee successful intervened in the case and Blethen cited them as a reason to settle with the PI.

The net payout from the Seattle Times to the Heart company as part of the settlement to keep the Joint Operating Agreement going was $24 million. That's $24 million that Burner, as one citizen activist among many, helped cost Blethen and the Seattle Times. As they say, don't make someone mad who buys ink by the barrel. Only, Burner ignored this rule just as she ignored the rule to be silent about a bipartisan consensus to enable illegal wiretapping, and fought successfully for a diverse media in Seattle. Now Blethen is getting his revenge via his reporter Emily Heffter's 'scoop' that Burner falsified her degree (a charge repudiated by Harvard ex-Dean Harry Lewis). This hit piece is part of a series of slanted articles going after Burner for, among other things, her association with the netroots. And the local TV stations are extending credit to Media Plus, Reichert's media buyer, who is lending money to Reichert, to let him push this charge around on TV.

The pushback from the progressive populist space has been fierce. Heffter is thoroughly embarrassed by her shoddy reporting job, the Seattle Times changed its headline (without explanation, of course), and a response from Lewis is online. Dailykos is doing its own polling and has helped raise massive sums to aid in pushback. And the volunteer operation here is stuffed to the gills, which will hopefully solidify the Obama vote behind Burner.

But what's important to understand is that the lies from Reichert are not isolated tactical events, but are laundered and pressed firmly by a whole series of interlocking Democrats, journalists, media business executives, and Republicans threatened by progressive populists like us that look to the public and not the good ole boys for legitimacy. At every step, progressive populists are going to encounter this nexus - the consultants, the journalists, the publishers, the magnates, all couched under the rubric of 'moderate' Republicans and 'conservative' or 'Blue Dog' Democrats.

The only way through this thicket is to have these fights and slash through the branches, one at a time. Backing candidates who rely on us and not the establishment network makes us stronger, and them weaker. It's not that we're giving to Burner or Grayson or Franken or anyone else, it's that we're freeing them from having to kowtow to people like Steny Hoyer, Frank Blethen, Michael Bloomberg, and their servants like reporter Emily Heffter. It's a complicated set of steps we've taken, but it's working. Obama has repudiated lobbyists in his campaign, and has acquired massive amounts of power and influence through his ability to inspire trust in the electorate. Unlike Burner, though, he did this both through the networks of the establishment and the progressive populists; he doesn't need any of us to get elected and never did, and he's shown that through his vote on FISA and his whipping for the bailout.

Obama, though, is not just a guy, he's a franchise, a network of people currying favor and looking for jobs and seeking to impose their own stamp on the world through differing ideas about how to govern. And by fighting through these thickets, by helping people like Burner and Merkley into office, we help give Obama and the people in his orbit a little bit more space to make the choice to be a progressive populist.