…I guess it’s safe to store this e-mail exchange here, safe from the prying eyes of Seattle blog readers.

We got this e-mail from Philip Dawdy, the Seattle Weekly staff writer who covers the batshitcrazy beat:

Josh:

I enjoyed reading the monorail coverage this week. It’s about time you guys were honest about how fucked up the financing is on this plan.

But in the midst of your sudden spasm of honesty you guys claim to have broken the 11 billion cost on slog—not once, but twice in the same issue. Do I have that right?

Given that slog is not on your main webpage or in a place of prominence where anyone would look, you guys ought to get off your high horses—or maybe just get off your highs—and retract that claim that it’s your news somehow. It was Hadley’s news in the p-I that the public encountered first.

Besides, every reporter I’ve talked to today is laughing their ass off at that claim. As well as the Cronkite reference.

Honestly yours,

philip

—
Philip Dawdy
Staff Writer
Seattle Weekly

Honestly! Get off our highs? That’s not going to happen. We like our meds around here, and we intend to keep taking them. They’ve improved our quality of life, Philip, and it helps us get through long, tiring days writing Slog entries that no one is going to read.

Anyway, Erica C. Barnett sent this note back to Philip…

shouldn’t you be working on your resumé instead of spending your day on the phone with other reporters?

sincerely,
erica

…which wasn’t very nice of her. Philip’s paper is in trouble, rumored to be for sale, and I thought Erica’s comments were unnecessarily rude, which is why I’m hiding them away here, on Slog, which no one reads.

Philip’s e-mail was addressed to Josh, and Josh responded as well…

Philip,

Honestly, I’m excited about the Slog, and I do see it as a place to break news. I’ll post something on there about Paige Miller or Casey Corr and my phone starts ringing off the hook and the e-mails start flying in.

Erica got a hold of the monorail news on Tuesday and was savvy enough to post a writeup and a link to the financial documents re: the $11 billion. We were the first publication to make those documents widely public that way. I was psyched about that, and I’m proud we got it up first.

Ironically, I was e-mailing with a reporter yesterday right when your e-mail arrived, and he was complimenting me on our coverage. Then, when I headed down to the SMP meeting last night, I ran into two more reporters… including one from the P-I, and they were both complimentary about the coverage. No one, including the P-I reporter, challenged me about our claim to have broken the news on our Blog. And certainly, the P-I deserves big props for getting the story on their front page the next morning before the Times.

I know the Weekly isn’t big on breaking news (except about bread, I guess) but you should put blogs on your radar screen. Blogs are breaking a lot of news these days.
—
Josh Feit
News Editor
The Stranger

Josh wrote a reasoned response, but he’s a reasonable guy. But we wouldn’t want that to get out there, now would we? We built this paper up on the rep/rap that we’re a bunch of bomb-throwing lunatics, and if word got out that we were actually reasonable people, well, that wouldn’t be good for our bidness. So I’m putting it here on Slog, which no one readsor so Philip Dawdy says. But, hey, I’m going to defer to Philip on this point. Having worked at the Weekly for so long, Philip has some expertise on writing for publications that no one ever reads.