Many articles I have read in The Olympian lately, no matter the reporter, have lacked journalistic integrity. Many one-sided articles appear and then are challenged by letters to the editor, this is happening more and more.

What we've witnessed today, and what will likely continue with tomorrow's article, has the appearance of a blatant political attack on a progressive candidate. I predict that in the near future, I imagine sometime within the three day news cycle, we will see an editorial column penned by Mike Oakland and "approved" by the editorial board that further derides Meta for what they must consider egregious campaign expenditures. From the reaction I've read so far, with a few exceptions, people seem to feel that while she may have spent unwisely, she owned up to it, payed it back, and that we should move on.

All of this makes me wonder what Mike Oakland's motivations are in all of this. Someone suggested that perhaps he's trying to effect the nomination for Doug Mah's empty seat. I think at this point anything is possible.

I believe that something needs to be done about our dearth of real, objective news coverage in Olympia. An economic boycott is not possible and would never work, because without a viable alternative we will never convince enough people to quit reading The Olympian. Our only hope, in my mind, is to create that alternative ourselves. We don't need a dime to do it either (except the costs of keeping this site up). We do it by directly challenging The Olympian story by story. What I did today took me an hour on the phone checking facts and asking questions, that included questioning Matt Batcheldor and Mike Oakland themselves. I simply started with what was given me by the article and called the PDC, then the Olympian, and that's how I got the real story. Any of us are capable of this. It is our duty and responsibility to be informed citizens and I think we should start taking that seriously. With OlyBlog, we can help others be more informed as well, and that is powerful. Perhaps this extra focus would help get us away from the argumentative, angry atmosphere that we keep sliding toward.