
...and then again she might not. But, hey, anything might be happening. The Center for Sex Positive Culture might be spending your tax dollars throwing sex parties. They probably aren't but they might be and so long as "might be" is the standard KOMO and Ginter use to determine what news is fit for their 11 o'clock broadcast, we can use the same standard to determine what posts are fit for Slog. Personally? I don't think Marlee Ginter is [a damn fine journalist]. But we can't rule it out definitively. I mean, does anyone know where Marlee Ginter is right now?
But if someone out there does know where Marlee is right now, could you ask her to please read this? Because there's something I want to say to Marlee:
Welcome to Seattle.
According to your bio on KOMO's website, you arrived in Seattle in August of 2007. Before getting a job at KOMO you worked as a reporter and an anchor at television stations in Gainesville, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; Spartanburg, South Carolina; and Indianapolis, Indiana. Judging from your age and your resume, you've moved from place to place, never staying in one city for very long, before you finally wound up here in Seattle a little more than a year ago. So you're just another one of those rootless, itinerant teevee news reporters who comes and goes—and that's not your fault. That's how careers work in your business: a teevee news reporter starts out in a small market, moves on to slightly larger market, and gradually works her way up to a big market.
The downside—for you itinerant teevee news reporters, for us viewers in bigger markets—is that by the time one of you gets a job in a place like Seattle, a big liberal city, you've spent a great deal of time living and working in tiny towns, in churchy places, in markets where people don't have liberal views about sex or sexuality or much of anything else. Before KOMO offered you a job, Marlee, you spent most of your professional life in much smaller and more conservative cities—all but one of them in the South.
Now sex sells, even in smaller markets, and sweeps are sweeps. So teevee news reporters in smaller markets are expected to find and report stories about sex, stories that allow them to show steamy, suggestive video.
But a teevee news reporter working in a small market—where all teevee news reporters learn their craft—has to be careful to pitch her sex stories so that they play to the prejudices and hypocrisies of viewers in those smaller and more politically conservative markets. Oh, they want to watch sex stories for the same reason we all do—they're titillating—but they don't want to admit that they're watching them to be titillated. So sex stories in smaller markets are presented to the viewers only after they've been carefully wrapped in condemnation and outrage: "Look at this disgusting sex club/sex shop/sex haver—isn't this sex club/sex shop/sex-haver shocking and loathsome? Isn't this an affront to our community's values? Now let's look at this shocking thing some more, shall we? My goodness, isn't it indecent!"
In a small media market, teevee news reporters frequently file distorted, unfair, sloppily reported pieces about sex stores and sex clubs and people that get caught having sex. Why waste time with, oh, accuracy and fairness and ethics when the point of the piece isn't the sex toys being sold or the guys getting it on in the rest stops or the tax-exempt status of a sex-related social club. The point is boosting the ratings with a little titillating video and then moving on to weather and the sports. And in small markets teevee news reporters can get away with this, they can shit all over sex stores and clubs and havers with impunity, they beat the fuck out of people who are doing dirty, dirty SECKS!—because in a place like Savannah, Georgia, or Indianapolis, Indiana, it's extremely unlikely that someone, anyone, is going to come to that person's or that group's defense. Because, my goodness, they were doing the SECKS! And SECKS is dirty and shocking!
Welcome to Seattle, Marlee.
Seattle isn't Georgia or South Carolina. Seattle isn't just "the mountains and the water." And it's not just Starbucks and Microsoft and the Seahawks and the rain. Seattle is also Babeland and the Lusty Lady and “Savage Love” and amateur porn festivals and sex-positive community centers and nude bicyclists and one of the nation's biggest burlesque scenes.
When the city of Seattle passed a law crafted to put local strip clubs out of business—and throw local strippers out of work—Seattle residents voted overwhelmingly to repeal it.
People around here fall into two categories: they're either pretty progressive about sex, a.k.a. "sex-positive," or they believe that people who aren't bothering anyone else should be left the hell alone. If someone wants to open a non-profit club that offers sex education and hosts sex parties, no one around here really cares so long as the sex club is operating legally.
And the Center, which is operating legally, got on just fine for nine years before you got to town. If there was going to be an outcry about what goes on behind its closed doors—and about its non-profit status—there would've been one long before KOMO hired you.
You’re not in a red state anymore, Marlee. You're free to file sensationalistic stories about sex for KOMO. We certainly sensationalize sex here at the Stranger—but because we think sex is, or should be, sensational. What you can’t peddle here is sex-negative bullshit. And you can't lie about sex-related businesses or sex-related non-profits with impunity here. You can't beat up on sex clubs and sex shops the way teevee news reporters in small towns beat up on sex clubs and sex shops. And if you try that crap here, Marlee, you're going to get some blowback. Because there are too many people here who aren't embarrassed to be seen coming to the defense of sex clubs or sex shops or sex workers or sex havers. Make a note of it.
Finally, Marlee, I've heard through the media grapevine that you're upset about all this [damn-fine-journalist] stuff on Slog. So let's make a deal: KOMO has already yanked your story from its website—so why not officially retract the piece and issue an apology to the Center? On air would be great, but in writing would do. We'll probably yank our obnoxious YouTube videos, and pull down or re-title these posts, whatever you do. Because, hey, we've more than made our point. But I still think you need to do the right thing and apologize.
And again, Marlee, welcome to Seattle.
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