Welcome to this 14th-annual selection of a few of the year's most over-hyped and underreported local stories.
With the news business (especially newspapers) undergoing a not-very-slow collapse (R.I.P. Seattle Post-Intelligencer) and hard-news coverage usually the first victim of tightening budgets, there was more underreported news than ever this year.
Fear not, however. America's addiction to trivial distractions can withstand any assault from economic hardship - or from reality.
MOST OVER-HYPED STORIES
The virginal Amanda Knox - Anywhere else the murder trial of Amanda Knox was covered, reporters either played it straight, or - especially in Italian and British media - emphasized the brutal nature of her murders. Not so in Seattle, where the former University of Washington sorority party girl was relentlessly portrayed all year as an innocent caught in the jaws of a hellish Turkish, er, Italian prison system.
To put this in context, imagine if Arkansas newspapers were spinning Maurice Clemmons as a misunderstood, struggling small businessman. (This would never have happened, of course. Clemmons wasn't white, or female, or from a wealthy family.)
Light rail to Tukwila - Yes, Sound Transit opened the first segment of light rail this summer, 40 years late. Too bad it only has, like, five stops, and goes to, um, Tukwila?
Why wasn't it opened all the way to the airport? Because that won't be ready until this Saturday, Dec. 19, and Greg Nickels wanted a tangible result in time for his reelection bid earlier this year. Oops.
Apparently, the three-fourths of the city that has no use at all for the current configuration didn't get the memo. Speaking of Greg Nickels....
The snowstorm that ended Nickels' career did no such thing. Despite all the hype over how people were upset that arterials didn't get plowed in a timely way after last winter's record snowstorms - except near Nickels' West Seattle home - Nickels' reelection bid was polling poorly before the storms hit.
In fact, you can trace voter dissatisfaction with The Boss back to his 2005 reelection, when more than a third of the city backed a certifiable loon (Al Runte) over Nickels.
The mayor's surprising primary loss this year was the result of eight years of voter dissatisfaction - not one freak storm.
The unions are killing Boeing - A favorite meme in particular of The Seattle Times and its publisher Frank Blethen, who's apparently going to be bitter for the rest of his life about the 2000 newspaper strike.
By his (and other Boeing apologists, which is to say most local media) reasoning, the IAM's refusal to agree to a non-strike clause is why Boeing decided to locate a new plant in Charleston, S.C.
No. Puget Sound Boeing line workers make an average of $28 an hour; in South Carolina, it's $14 - that's why Boeing is moving the jobs. If, politically speaking, Boeing could move its 787 assembly plant to Haiti and pay $3 a month, it would.
Plus, as usual, car crashes, fires, violent crimes, big (and not-so-big) weather "events"; heartwarming stories of photogenic, plucky survivors (preferably kids) overcoming adversity; and every other staple of Chuckle-Buddy News.
MOST UNDERREPORTED STORIES
Susan Hutchison is Sarah Palin, without the experience - How does an abortion- and gay-hating creationist who's never managed anything more complicated than a teleprompter almost become the most powerful politician in one of the nation's most populous and bluest counties? By lying about her "bipartisan" leanings and having every single one of her former buddies in local media refuse to call her on it.
As late as mid-October Hutchison led in the polls. Then voters started to focus and realized - no thanks to local media - who she actually was. She lost by 20 percent.
Meet Joe Mallahan, inside player - In August, the candidate from T-Mobile could credibly claim to be an outsider storming Greg Nickels' gates. But when Nickels lost and almost all of his advisors and party and labor apparatchniks went over to Mallahan, that dynamic was completely reversed - epitomized by Mallahan's 180 on South Lake Union development.
Once again, voters figured it out despite the silence of legacy media.
The public really, really doesn't want a tunnel - Amidst the endless sea of reporting on the deal cut this year by the governor, state Legislature, Nickels and the Seattle City Council over a pricy, deep-bore tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way viaduct, one inconvenient fact was consistently omitted: Voters hate the tunnel.
When it was addressed at all, stories explained away the 70-percent vote against a tunnel two years ago by noting that the new plan used a different technology. But the main objection back then was the price, which was $3.4 billion then and is $4.2 billion now. That's, um, higher.
Hitting where it hurts - Meantime, while Seattle elites continue their love affair with big-ticket projects, the cost of basics keeps going up. Bus fares are going up - a lot. So are utility rates...in a horrible local economy. Media yawns.
Tax reform off the table - These hikes disproportionately affect lower- and middle-income people, and the dirty, little secret of our city, county and state taxes is that, similarly, they're among the nation's most regressive.
Why? Because they rely heavily on sales, property and B&O taxes, with no income tax. Instituting the latter while reducing the former would help a lot, but nobody dares mention it.
Nickels harasses the homeless - All year, City Hall kept up a relentless (and legally questionable) campaign of sweeps and property seizures against the homeless. Nothing political going on there - nope. Not with Nickels' grandstanding over guns in city parks, either.
Oklahoma City Thunder - Just kidding.
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