The election night suspense in the newsroom is over: The pizza came from Domino’s.
Last week I wrote about our relatively elaborate plan for covering Tuesday’s primary election, including the tradition of feeding pizza to the reporters and editors who have to work late. I’m glad to say that the plan worked pretty well. That’s good, since general election ballots will be mailed by Oct. 18, which means you are likely to have yours in your hand 10 weeks from today. Our goal is to inform you about everything before that ballot arrives.
On the news side, our goal will be to write at least one story about every contested local race and every local ballot measure. We’ll continue to emphasize the important 3rd Congressional District race between Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican Joe Kent, a story already getting national attention.
We’ll look mostly for coverage of statewide races and initiatives from other news organizations like The Seattle Times and the nonprofit news site Washington State Standard. But if, say, either of the gubernatorial candidates campaigns in Clark County, we are likely to cover it.
On the opinion side, we’ll weigh in with editorials urging voters to support certain candidates for office, both locally and statewide. We’ll seek interviews with all of the candidates before we write about them. The same thing holds true for ballot measures.
Will we endorse a presidential candidate? We didn’t in 2020, figuring that we had no special access or insight. That disappointed many readers, so for 2024 we are rethinking our position. And, as a couple of editorial board members put it, this election seems more consequential than most.
Thanks, Doc
After we partnered with newspapers.com to digitize our microfilmed newspapers, Publisher Ben Campbell printed and framed a variety of historical Columbian front pages. He hung them on all the blank beige walls around the building. When I need a break, I like to walk around and look at them.
Many front pages have stories bearing the byline of Don Chandler. I was sorry to learn this week that Chandler died July 29 at age 83.
Don retired in July 2000 after spending more than 36 years in our newsroom, working on thousands of stories as a reporter, copy editor and editor.
Don was in his early 20s when he joined The Columbian in November 1963, within days of the John F. Kennedy assassination. He had recently been discharged from the Army, where he edited the Fort Lewis Ranger base newspaper.
One of his first Columbian stories was covering the opening of a new $429,000 gymnasium at the Washington State School for the Blind. Apparently, the school had never had a dedicated space for physical education, or as Chandler put it, “thus, the school, in a space age society with similar needs, had to go with horse and buggy accommodations.” Many of his stories show the same entertaining flair for writing.
Gregg Herrington, our longtime city editor, said that Don once covered two major beats that no longer exist: farming and the Miss Washington Pageant. As Gregg wrote, “Don was fond of reminiscing about that annual summer assignment, which included writing profiles of every contestant, covering the public appearances of the ‘Bevy of Beauties,’ rehearsals and the pageant itself in the 1,400-seat auditorium at the former Fort Vancouver High School.”
By the time I joined The Columbian, Don was the editor of both the Sports and Life sections and was known as Doc, for his initials, Donald O. Chandler. Doc had high standards, but he was patient with his staff, and they respected him. We didn’t work together for very long, but I respected him too.
Thanks, Doc, and as they used to write at the end of newspaper stories, -30-.
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