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Camas Investigation Wins National Prize

	4/13/2004

"How The Spokesman-Review Subverted Democracy in Spokane, Washington" Lands Top Journalism Award

FOR THE SECOND TIME in four years Camas Magazine has won a top national award from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) for its in-depth reporting on Spokane and River Park Square. Earlier today, SPJ announced Camas had earned the prestigious citation (known as the Sigma Delta Chi Award) for independent, online investigative reporting. The winning entry is a package of stories entitled "How The Spokesman-Review Subverted Democracy in Spokane, Washington." The articles were prepared by the Camas editorial team of Tim Connor, Larry Shook, and Judy Laddon and published in 2003.

The articles documented the involvement of Cowles Publishing Co. executives (and agents working on their behalf) in the controversial, Cowles-owned River Park Square shopping mall. The articles also highlighted what the Cowles-owned Spokesman-Review newspaper wasn't reporting about the publicly financed project. Many of the stories relied on documents Camas obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests and time-consuming reviews of records turned over in litigation discovery associated with the RPS federal securities fraud case. The Camas stories submitted to the SPJ judging panel were:

* "Missing Man" (Dec. 11, 2003)
An article about Chris Anderson, the former Spokane city councilman who lost a series of jobs under suspicious circumstances after he questioned the wisdom of the proposed River Park Square public/private partnership in 1995 and 1996.

* "Breaking the News" (Oct. 2, 2003)
An article presenting evidence that strongly suggests developer Betsy Cowles altered a key newspaper story in order to exaggerate the expected construction costs for expanding and renovating the River Park Square garage. Cowles real estate companies later sold the garage for $26 million--a sum several experts now say was $11 to $16 million greater than the actual costs of the project.

* "OUT" (Sept. 10, 2003)
How an "independent" credit analysis by three Gonzaga University business professors was altered by a Cowles agent who had access to early drafts of the report.

* RPS to City: Keep Talbott in the Dark (Sept. 3, 2003)
An article reporting on the effort of Cowles Publishing Co. and River Park Square attorney Duane Swinton to prevent then-Mayor John Talbott from gaining access to sensitive RPS documents. The mayor and city council were at odds over the RPS project at the time.

* "Jamming Tom Grant" (Aug. 22, 2003)
An article examining the pressure put on Spokane's ABC-affiliate KXLY-TV to rein in the station's River Park Square expose by reporter Tom Grant. Pulled from his award-winning story, Grant later quit in protest.

* "Betsy's Choice" (August 10, 2003)
An article showing how Betsy Cowles steadfastly pursued the now infamous River Park Square garage deal despite warnings from lawyers that the transaction would violate federal rules for tax-exempt bond offerings.

* "April Fooled" (June 19, 2003)
Documents obtained through a Camas Freedom of Information Act request revealed yet another River Park Square scandal: five years ago, at a crucial moment in the RPS controversy, U.S. Senator Patty Murray issued a false press release that hoodwinked the people of Spokane. The news of the false press release was prominently featured in a Spokesman-Review article.

* "City Releases 'Confidential' Betsy Cowles Memo" (April 30, 2003)
A memo that surfaced in the RPS legal discovery showed that while it was arranging to borrow $23 million from the City of Spokane, the Cowles family zealously guarded its own assets by not pledging sufficient collateral. This crucial decision, which quietly shifted much of the risk of the loan on to the backs of Spokane's poorest citizens, has never been reported in Cowles news media.

* "RPS 101" (March 18, 2003)
An overview of the complicated River Park Square transaction.

* "Hocus-Pocus" (3 parts, Feb. 17-21, 2003)
A series of articles detailing how departures from professional appraisal standards, and misrepresentation of appraisal results, led to Cowles family real estate companies harvesting $25 million over fair market value (for land and structures) in the River Park Square garage transaction. The newspaper and Cowles-owned TV station KHQ ignored the explosive details contained in this reporting, including the strenuous objections to the appraisal method by the city's real estate manager.

The Seattle Times was the only other news organization in the Pacific Northwest to win a Sigma Delta Chi Award this year. It won the Public Service in Online Journalism category for an investigation of coaches who prey on female athletes. Other 2003 Sigma Delta Chi winners announced today include The Los Angeles Times, U.S News & World Report, and the Toledo Blade.

Camas won its first Sigma Delta Chi award in 2001 for Tim Connor's "Secret Deal" series. Connor shared a second Sigma Delta Chi award that year with Tom Grant and Adele Steiger for the KXLY-TV series entitled Public Funds/Private Profits that incorporated the "Secret Deal" findings published by Camas.