With paper and Web, TNT knits community into a whole

The day Marvin Parkko’s left front wheel came off his logging truck is the day the fight to build a second Tacoma Narrows bridge finally got traction.

That mechanical failure and the tragic chain-reaction accident it sparked in 2000 changed the tenor of the debate over a new bridge. More people started talking about how it could get built, rather than why it shouldn’t.

Two years after Parkko’s truck crossed the centerline of the old bridge, dignitaries gathered in Tacoma to break ground on a second span, the longest suspension bridge to be built in the United States in nearly 40 years.

Looking back, it seems so straightforward. A problem presented itself, a region rallied to fix it. But anyone who lived through the fight to fix the chokepoint at the Narrows knows better. By the time that March 8, 2000, accident claimed the life of a father with two young children, the proposal to build a second Narrows bridge had followed a long and tortured path – and it had many more obstacles yet to clear.

The News Tribune was there every step of the way, reporting the problems, investigating solutions and encouraging action. Over two decades, it provided a steady diet of news coverage and editorial advocacy that fed the region’s resolve to build a second bridge.

A full decade before the 2000 pileup, the newspaper’s editorial board was working to frame the debate: “From Tacoma to the Peninsula, Highway 16 can seem more like an obstacle course than a freeway. … There’s only one genuine remedy – a second Narrows bridge alongside the first.”

A good newspaper is a conduit, connecting people with information, ideas and, most importantly, each other. It’s where readers learn what’s happening down the block, across town and halfway around the world – and what they can do about it.

A newspaper gives current issues historical context and present-day legs; it’s one of society’s greatest recruiting tools for civic life. Newspapers provide the common ground where like minds can forge alliances and opponents can have it out, where a community can marshal its forces to do better and to do good.

The News Tribune and its predecessors have helped foster connections for the last 125 years. But perhaps none has been as spectacular as the literal and figurative bridge the newspaper helped build – not once or twice, but thrice – to the Gig Harbor Peninsula.

The Tacoma News Tribune and the Tacoma Ledger were both there in the 1920s and 1930s to provide publicity and support to civic groups’ dreams of bridging the Narrows. The News Tribune was there again to cover the collapse of Galloping Gertie in 1940, the search for answers to her demise and the rise of a replacement span.

And when that bridge eventually proved inadequate to handle the growing traffic streaming across it daily, this newspaper said so and told readers who and what stood in the way of clearing the bottleneck.

News coverage gave voice to thousands of frustrated commuters as well as Peninsula residents who feared that they would end up paying the freight in more ways than one. It kept the issue front and center for the politicians charged with deciding the bridge’s fate.

It’s not the first time – nor the last – that these pages have acted as the public square for civic discussion.

News stories and editorials stimulate conversation and create a common vocabulary for citizens. They allow elected officials to talk to the public and vice versa. They are a stage for calls to action.

In 1991, the Emergency Food Network that supplies most of the food for Pierce County’s food banks was hurting. Unemployment, rising cost of living and steady growth in the ranks of the working poor had depleted the network’s reserves. Its warehouse was down to a handful of cases of canned tuna, peanut butter and applesauce.

Executive director David Ottey called The News Tribune. On May 25, a photo of Ottey looking forlornly at the network’s last scraps of food appeared on The News Tribune’s front page with information about how the community could help.

Ottey still has the clipping in his office. He’s quite fond of it and with good reason – it was the last time the Emergency Food Network’s shelves were ever bare.

That’s the power of responsible journalism – the ability to mobilize people, to create community. The News Tribune doesn’t claim credit for accomplishing great things. It is most proud of helping its South Sound community achieve them.

When gangs set up shop on the Hilltop in the late 1980s, civic leaders decided that law enforcement and government officials alone could not fight the scourge of violence and drugs. Neighborhoods themselves needed to fight back.

The News Tribune, through news coverage, advertising space and editorial support, helped convince 2,500 people to fill the Foss High School gym on Jan. 26, 1989, to find out what they could do to make their neighborhoods safer places. It was the beginning of a hugely successful effort to take back Tacoma streets.

This newspaper stayed on the beat, explaining the gravity of the problem facing the city and building a sense of hope that ordinary citizens could do something about it.

By 1993, Tacoma was making real strides on its gang problem, but the city continued to be wracked by violence. The News Tribune dedicated itself to putting a face on the problem. In one of the first newspaper analyses of computerized police records, The News Tribune examined violent crime from a number of perspectives.

The result was an exhaustive “Beyond Violence” series that presented an unflinching look at crime in Tacoma, revealing that the city had the highest rates of murder, rape, robbery and assault on the West Coast outside Los Angeles and Oakland. The stories connected neighborhood criminality to the greater community’s wellbeing. They empowered Tacoma residents to act collectively.

Crime fighters have a hard time convincing neighbors to remain vigilant without the exposure that news coverage provides. Four years ago, Safe Streets started hearing that gangs were re-emerging on Tacoma’s East Side. But the group couldn’t mobilize the public until The News Tribune spotlighted the problem in a 2006 series.

The connections this newspaper creates go far beyond news columns. Advertisements link businesses with consumers and consumers with deals. Shoppers trying to navigate after-Thanksgiving sales would face a heck of a time if they couldn’t first mine the paper to plot their excursions.

Community forums sponsored by The News Tribune also create community ties, providing citizens unfettered access to experts who can answer their questions and public officials who need to hear what’s on their minds. A more recent addition – blogs – engages people with similar interests and fosters virtual community.

The most powerful message a newspaper can convey is that people are not alone, that it is within their power to build and shape their community together. This newspaper has consistently provided the place where citizens could connect to go about the business of building a better future. It’s part of our calling.

This editorial was written on behalf of The News Tribune’s editorial board. Members include Cheryl Dell, publisher; David Zeeck, executive editor; David Seago, editorial page editor; Patrick O’Callahan, chief editorial writer, and Cheryl Tucker and Kim Bradford, editorial writers.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This year marks the 125th anniversary of the first daily publication of The Ledger and The News Tribune’s other original parent newspaper, The Daily News. We are using the occasion to explain The News Tribune’s core values to our readers. The first Sunday of each month, we’ll devote part of this page to one of those values. This fourth installment addresses connections.