Friday Barf Link

Matt Welch | May 15, 2009

You may have heard already that Washington Governor Chris Gregoire recently gave the embattled newspapers in her state a 40 percent tax break (or, as seattlepi.com's Dan Chase aptly put it, "Gov. Gregoire unlevels the playing field against job-creating new media companies"). But you probably didn't see longtime MSM gossip columnist Lloyd Grove declare himself ready to give that woman a Pulitzer!

As she becomes the first governor in the nation to funnel taxpayer money into her state's ailing newspaper industry this week, Washington state's Chris Gregoire is being hailed as a crusader for the survival of the press. In an exclusive interview, she talks about why the folding of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's print edition affected her so profoundly, her own brief stint as a journalist—and why she won't get a free pass from the reporters whose careers she's helping to save.

There are no ink stains on Chris Gregoire's power suits, but maybe she deserves a Pulitzer Prize for excellence in journalism anyway. With the stroke of her pen this week, the 62-year-old governor of Washington has done more to save her state's struggling newspaper business than two dozen genius publishers—and she just might have started a national trend.