For those of you interested in the challenges of local/regional reporting, and the life story (thus far) of a remarkable journalist, you can hear the exclusive interview with Karen Dorn Steele on KYRS:

The interview with the Center for Justice's Communications Director, Tim Connor, was published on the Center for Justice's website, http://cforjustice.org, under the heading "Outside Looking Back," on July 4th, 2009.

As many of you know, Karen achieved regional and national prominence with her environmental and investigative reporting at the Spokesman-Review, the Cowles family-owned newspaper in Spokane, Washington. She and her long-time colleague (and investigative reporting partner) Bill Morlin accepted early buy-out offers from the paper this spring.

In addition to talking about her decision to leave the paper and her philosophical differences with the paper's publishers (William H. Cowles III, and his successor, Stacey Cowles), Dorn Steele discusses, among other subjects:

*The challenges of her award-winning investigations of the massive Hanford nuclear complex in south central Washington.

*The difficulties with investigating police violence in Spokane.

*The early clash (1983) she and former editor Curt Pierson had with Publisher William H. Cowles III, over the spiking and altering of a Dorn-Steele exposé of Washington Water Power Co. (now Avista), a regional utility with close ties to the Cowles family. In the interview, Dorn-Steele says the decision to alter the story was due to the late-Publisher's efforts to protect the value of the utility company's stock.

*Her response to numerous public attacks on her reporting by powerful corporate and government officials.

*Her decision to focus on regional stories outside the Cowles family's immediate sphere of influence following the 1983 episode with the Washington Water Power Co. exposé.

*Her and her colleagues' dismay over the paper's handling of the River Park Square scandal, including the involvement of the newspaper's First Amendment attorney, Duane Swinton, as defender and spokesperson for River Park Square.