2021 Bunting Award

The Washington Coalition for Open Government is presenting its 2021 Bunting Award to the staff of The Seattle Times for aggressively reporting on the city of Seattle’s mishandling of public records and for holding public officials to account – to the point of suing City Hall.

During the tumultuous street protests of 2020, the Seattle Police Department abandoned its East Precinct and allowed the formation of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone. Times reporters were among the journalists and others who filed dozens of public records requests for documents that would more fully explain the city’s actions. Among their requests, Times reporters asked for text messages between public officials, including Mayor Jenny Durkan.

In May 2021, an investigation prompted by a whistleblower complaint disclosed that months of the mayor’s text messages were missing and her office had mishandled public records and requests for disclosure.

Over the next eight weeks The Times published an additional five news stories, an editorial and a column on the city’s flawed public records operation. The news stories broke new ground, while the opinion pieces provided interpretation and meaning.

After repeatedly running into roadblocks getting public records from the city, The Times sued Seattle. The newspaper’s objectives were to get the records and to force officials to explain their actions. Also, the possibility of court-imposed penalties might prod the city into taking the state Public Records Act more seriously.

City Hall then countersued The Times, a controversial move that it later reversed. Afterward, City Attorney Pete Holmes deemed the countersuit a “mistake.” Days later he lost his bid for a fourth term in the city’s primary election.

The Bunting Award recognizes journalists and media outlets for work that uses or advances Washington state’s open government laws, or educates citizens about them. The award honors the memory of the late Ken Bunting, an executive editor and associate publisher with The Seattle Post-Intelligencer who helped found WashCOG in 2002.

Times staffers will receive the reward at the annual Sunshine Breakfast event, recently rescheduled to March 18, 2022.

Here is the relevant coverage that earned Times reporters and editors the 2021 Bunting Award:

• Not just the mayor: Text messages of Seattle police and fire chiefs from June 2020 also missing

• Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan had phone set to keep texts only 30 days, her office says

• The saga of ‘#bosslady’s’ missing texts could end up a costly one for Seattle

• No one is taking responsibility for loss of Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s text messages

• Seattle Times sues city of Seattle over Mayor Jenny Durkan’s missing text messages during protests

• Durkan administration rejected requests to pay for improving Seattle’s handling, archiving of officials’ texts

• Seattle erred in not investing in text message retention plan