Conscious Choice Seattle: Stories with Legs

July 2005 | From the Editor

Stories with Legs

By Bob Condor

Editors daydream about the great stories. We look for writers who can hit a nerve, find the groove, know what readers are thinking.

One of the top qualities of a story generation is finding topics that have what is informally called, “legs.” It basically means the story keeps on moving even after you publish it.

That’s a good thing. It means Evergreen Monthly is in the conversation, adding to it, helping shape opinions. Equally important, it means we take the EM ego out of it, welcoming readers and community members (local, national, global, you name it) to pick up the momentum from the story.

I like to explain we publish authoritative stories and columns without being know-it-alls. It reminds me of a favorite quote from the legendary college basketball coach, John Wooden, of all people. “It’s what you learn after you know it all that really counts,” said Wooden. I had that quote on my bulletin board for years.

I just took a short break and tacked up a new copy of it.

Two recent Evergreen Monthly stories have displayed some seriously toned legs in the last few weeks.

Here’s a sampling:

“Kinder, Gentler, Better” (EM, May) featured the pioneering work of Dr. Ben Chue, medical director at the Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center. Mainstream physicians at local big-name hospitals once dismissed Chue, but his “fractionated” approach to chemotherapy has won over fellow doctors—and saved lives of patients.

The latest development is a published peer-reviewed study showing that early-stage cancer patients would benefit from taking a drug called Herceptin while undergoing chemotherapy. Results showed it decreased recurrence rate by 50 percent.

“That’s huge,” said Chue during a recent phone conversation with EM.

Before these findings, Herceptin was conventionally used only with advanced-stage cancer patients to prolong survival for whatever life they had left. Many doctors refused to even let patients try Herceptin unless their disease was considered incurable.

For his part, Chue determined six to seven years ago that maybe the drug would fit for some early-stage patients. He has used it with great success for about 20 patients. It is possible for physicians to use medications in this way because the drug has been approved for cancer treatment by the Food and Drug Administration.

“I just kept thinking about how it increased survival time for incurable patients,” says Chue. “I refused to believe it couldn’t help some patients at earlier stages.”

Our cover story in June reported on the arrival of progressive talk radio to Seattle via KPTK 1090-AM, along with the already-in-place liberal-leaning offerings from local public radio stations and community radio outlets.

Regular EM contributor, Joe Follansbee, forecast the challenges ahead for progressive radio and its related cousins. Unfortunately for our ears—and minds—he was accurate. In mid-June, the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations panel approved a spending bill that would cut the budget for public television and radio nearly in half. The cuts in financing went significantly beyond those requested by the White House “

The vote came as public stations and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) engaged in a heated debate about editorial control in programming. In other disturbing news, D.C. insiders insist the top candiate to take over CPB is Patricia de Stacy Harrison, who, uh-oh, is a high-ranking official at the State Department and former co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

“It is clear the G.O.P. agenda is to control public broadcasting or to defund it,” says Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin. “House Republicans have gutted funding for public broadcasting stations across the country.”

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