Rookie Stranger reporter Jonah Spangenthal-Lee had been pitching (agitating) me for weeks to do something on the Neubert/Tietjen story.

I sighed, “Well, what have you got? The Seattle Times is kicking ass on this story, and so maybe it’s not the best use of your time given how small our newsroom is and how much other stuff we want to cover.”

Jonah, who’d been doing a lot of reporting on the story, was frustrated by my lack of enthusiasm, but dutifully turned back to his other reporting—filing some pretty fat stories for a rookie this past month: last week’s piece on charges of racism at Seattle’s elite Bush School and his scary scoop about a female UW student who couldn’t get campus security to protect her against a troubling ex-boyfriend.

Meanwhile, one particular longtime reader/critic/fan of the Stranger news section (hey, T.G.!) kept reminding me that Jonah’s famous predecessor, Amy Jenniges, and I had done some important and early reporting on Neubert back in the day, and like, why the fuck weren’t we doing anything now?!?

So, before I left for DC last week (to visit my old parents), I changed my tune and gave Jonah the green light.

Burn on me. Jonah hit it hard and landed a sit down interview with George Patterson—the man at the center of the Neubert/Tietjen story. Patterson, of course, is the man who stars in the controversial drug bust video.

And so, while this week’s story is a bit late, Jonah has certainly added a nice addendum to the Seattle Times coverage. It’s worth checking out.

p.s. We’re still working on the video link that we promised. Hopefully we’ll get it to work.

Another highlight from this week’s news section (edited by ECB while I was gone) was apparently a very funny column by ECB, so says ECB.

Jury’s out, but the column does include this sexy tidbit:

Molly Neitzel, Clark’s campaign manager and a former Music for America organizer, resigned on May 31, reportedly in response to Clark’s the nightlife proposal. (Clark brought Neitzel on to fill in for council staffer David Yeaworth back in March, in part to help her formulate nightlife policy.) Neitzel maintains that she left to run another campaign; she acknowledges, however, that “I don’t agree with [Clark’s] position” on nightlife.