Transcripts relating to mayor complete

Everyone in The Spokesman-Review newsroom knew from the beginning that the stories about Mayor Jim West would be controversial. As online publisher, my primary role in this ongoing series has been to enable the greatest degree of transparency as possible.

The more open we are about our reporting process, the more it can be trusted. That’s why we worked through the night of May 4-5, transcribing the initial, two-hour interview with Mayor West so that the entire transcript could be posted online the next day. That’s why I, personally, transcribed from a Yahoo.com e-mail account the exchanges between Mayor West and our computer consultant, known to the mayor as “Moto-Brock.” The complete transcripts have been on our Web site since May 5.

I’m mystified as to why Mayor West would tell television reporters that the transcripts we’ve posted online are in any way incomplete. We also posted all of the lengthy chat-room transcripts between the mayor and “Moto-Brock.”

Again, I’m curious to know why the mayor thinks these transcripts are incomplete. We’d like him to present evidence to the contrary, if he has any. Showing the complete transcripts is in everyone’s best interest, because it eliminates the possibility of the mayor’s actions and words being taken out of context.

The mayor’s not talking to The Spokesman-Review right now, and I can understand that. He can make accusations against the integrity of the newspaper when he’s talking to television reporters – who might not know the details of the story well enough to challenge him on the accuracy of each of his statements. As professional journalists, we know our work is scrutinized, and we are willing to quietly and respectfully accept fair criticism of our ethics and practices. But we won’t always sit quietly when statements are being made about us that we believe to be patently false.

We do this, however, with a great deal of reluctance, because it momentarily focuses attention on us. And ultimately, the reason for our unprecedented efforts at transparency is so that the story remains – as it should – about Jim West and not about us.