-Hi, everybody.
How are we doing? Yeah.
Are we ready to celebrate some photojournalism tonight?
It's such a great event
because it's about all the things that I love.
My day job, I'm responsible for approving expenses,
and mileage, and parking. But I really go there
because I love photography and photographers so much.
And so a night like tonight is really fantastic
because it's to show you some labor
that we've endeavored upon in the last year
but it's also just to take a second
to appreciate what's really going on.
And to me -- I lost my notes,
but, like, I can't tell you
how special it is to be able to do this.
It's a fading opportunity,
and The Seattle Times has such a strong tradition
of doing it well.
And that tradition has been maintained through a lot
of things that places elsewhere have not sustained through.
And so I'd like to just invite you to appreciate
that what you're going to see here tonight truly is special.
We are not entitled to it.
The people who commit themselves to this way of life
have given a total commitment to what I call
the photographic life.
Forget the notes. What is a photographic life?
It is walking through the world with a perspective
that anything can happen at any moment.
In our daily lives, we have logistics to go through.
We go from A to B.
We are going about our business and we have these blinders on.
But a photojournalist
who's sensitized to the world around them
at all times is always on the edge of possibility.
There's always some kind of a fleeting moment
that could all of a sudden,
instead of be something that was just brisked away in the wind,
it can be frozen in time forever and always just
because that person was paying attention
and a master of their craft.
That is just a wow thing of being able to really live
in a front row seat to history.
And so when you see this work tonight,
I'd like you to consider that it may be a window
into the soul of the people that are photographed at times
but it's also very much a window into the soul
of the makers themselves
and what they commit to in order to do this work.
It's a very special experience for them
and it's a special experience
for us to be able to witness what they have produced for us.
I'd like to give some acknowledgments.
First of all,
the Seattle Public Libraries,
thank you for hosting us in this wonderful space.
Thank you to all of you for attending
and sharing the values in what it is to have safe spaces
for ideas, creativity, permanence of soul,
and of the values that really connect all of us
despite what may ebb
and flow through whatever landscapes may be happening
in the tangible world around us.
I'd also like to just run down, if you will humor me,
the entire photo department of The Seattle Times.
Assistant Managing Editor Frank Mina,
Deputy Director of Photography Bettina Hansen,
Managing Photo Editor Colin Diltz,
Associate Photo Editors Travis Ness, Cara Brannan,
and Mindy Ray,
and Production Specialists Brandon Garcia and
Michelle Gutierrez.
Photo Journalists are Dean Rutz, Nick Wagner,
Jennifer Buchanan, Kevin Clark, Ivy Ceballo,
Ellen Banner, Erika Schultz, Ken Lambert, and Karen Ducey.
And Senior Video Journalist Lauren Frohne,
who's out on maternity leave right now,
is also currently being represented
by Interim Videographer Akash Pamarthy.
We also have some proud alums in the house
who also influence the work that we do
and have had a great impact on The Seattle Times.
So Fred, Danny, good to see you.
Genevieve, I see you. Ramon, thanks for being here.
You're very much part of the things that we continue to do.
These are the people that I'm humbled to work with every day
and this night, as far as I'm concerned, is really about them.
So -- [ Applause ]
With that, I'd like to show you our 2025 Pictures of the Year.
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Okay, so that last bit was from 2026.
But we're going to the Super Bowl, baby!
We got a team of photojournalists,
led by Bettina Hansen,
are going to go down to Santa Clara
and cover the heck out of this football game
that they're going to do in a little bit.
So I hope that you look to us to see that amazing coverage.
It's going to be fun.
We got a great show for you guys.
Leading off is Ellen Banner.
She has been a photojournalist in this area
for more than 35 years.
She's been 28 and 12 with The Seattle Times.
And I've known Ellen for just a little bit more than a year
or so and quickly endured herself to me
as just a tremendous person and a tremendous journalist.
I value working with her greatly,
super enjoy our conversations and her deep heart
for what she does,
and she'll be giving us a career retrospective tonight.
And it's going to be something really special.
After that, Bettina Hansen,
who's our Deputy Director of Photography
and who does most of the heavy lifting on a daily basis,
will present to us her view on
how it was that The Seattle Times covered
the 2025 December flooding events
and what perspective she carried through leading the team
through that very difficult event.
And then we'll have Ivy Ceballo talk to us
about how it is that she reaches communities
with her tender heart
and finds ways to get us to places
that we really wouldn't be able to go to for ourselves
through her unique and tender touch
and deep thoughts about how to reach intimacy
within communities.
We'll also have a presentation of a highlight reel
of our video work of the year followed up finally by a Q&A.
So when that time comes,
we'll have microphones being passed around.
Please feel free to ask some questions
of our esteemed group of presenters.
I'll moderate that for you,
and then we'll have a print giveaway at the very end.
So bear with us. It's going to be a good time.
At this time, I'd love to bring up Ellen Banner.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Thank you for coming to The Seattle Times 2026 POY show.
It's an honor to speak to all of you.
I've been a photojournalist my entire adult life.
I majored in photojournalism at Cal Poly.
Starting out, I was not a good photographer.
But I shot this self-portrait for a class
and later made this photo of my grandmother and nephew.
After my professors saw this photo,
they started believing in me.
I was hooked. I was hungry to learn more.
I grew up on a small farm in Southern California.
This is my mom.
In the background is the home where I grew up.
She didn't want to get on the tractor for this portrait,
so I just picked her up and put her up there.
She was screaming, Put me down! Put me down!
as I lifted her to the seat.
But I really wanted the photo.
Luckily, she doesn't weigh a lot.
Afterwards, she liked the picture.
And just so you know, this isn't something
I would do when photographing for The Seattle Times.
When I started, we only shot black-and-white film
and spent hours in the darkroom.
It was great to work alongside your fellow photographers
at the end of the day,
processing film and making prints.
Now we shoot digital images and can ship them to the newspaper
from our laptops, in our cars,
or even directly from our cameras.
Times have definitely changed. Early in my career,
I photographed George Bush Sr.
when he was running for president.
When I gave this photo to the news editor,
he just looked at me and said, You're a Democrat, aren't you?
Another time, early on, I was sent to a women's club.
The woman who answered the door looked surprised to see me.
I guess she'd never seen a woman photographer before.
She just stared and said,
But you're a woman.
And I said, Yes, I know. Is that a problem?
She finally let me in.
We now have five female and four male photographers at The Times.
The technology of photography
has changed immensely over the years,
but in so many ways, my job is the same.
We shoot features and moments in people's lives,
sometimes of someone looking at me when I'm looking at him
on a nuclear submarine in Norfolk, Virginia.
Sports, portraits,
joys, and unfortunately, sometimes people's sorrows.
Basically, a daily history of what is happening
in our communities with our cameras.
In a way, my mom had the same sort of a belief
that the woman at the women's club had.
After I had been shooting for about 20 years
and had little kids,
she asked when I was going to give up that photography thing
and go back to being a secretary
like I did when I was in college.
The hours would be so much better.
I just looked at her and stared.
That photography thing.
So glad I didn't listen to that advice.
I have seen, shared,
and learned so much in the thousands of hours
I have spent as a photojournalist.
So have my kids.
They've shared many experiences with me
that they never would have if I'd been a secretary.
I've worked for six different papers
before finally making it to The Seattle Times,
my dream job, 28 and a half years ago.
The implosion of the Kingdome
in 2000 was one of my early assignments.
We all covered it.
My position was from the Smith Tower.
After the building was down, the dust headed our way.
We covered our cameras and ran inside.
It took almost half an hour for the skies to clear.
As I'm sure you all know, that's where Lumen Field stands today.
I covered Al Gore when he was running for president.
I arrived at the press conference
and told the Secret Service I was there to shoot Al Gore.
They all went for their guns.
I immediately threw my arms into the air
and said, Photograph, photograph!
Those guys have no sense of humor.
It was great when Seattle still had a basketball team.
I covered one game
when the Sonics played the Houston Rockets.
I so hope the Sonics make their way back here someday.
Andrew Fowler reacts after placing first
in the 100-meter walk in the Special Olympics.
Covering UW sports has always been great,
although you never need to be more careful
to not drop something than
when you are shooting from the rafters
at Alaska Airlines Arena.
It's always fun to make a portrait
of a star soccer player.
I caught a hydro flipping over Lake Washington
at Stan Sayres' pits.
Luckily, the guy was okay.
And another time captured a diver going head-first
into the same lake.
Here's our beloved Ichiro after hitting a two-run home run.
Tiger Woods had a bad day at the US Open in Chambers Bay
and didn't make the cut.
Covering Marshawn Lynch in the downtown parade,
throwing Skittles to the crowd
after the Seahawks won the Super Bowl
was a lot more fun than covering Seahawks coach Pete Carroll
at a press conference
when he said goodbye after losing his job.
I try to never get emotional.
Sometimes it's hard not to be.
Hard news is another thing we cover.
After this and many other rotting poles
fell on Marginal Way East in a windstorm,
the couple inside this car sat on either side of the crossarm
that went through their roof for an hour waiting to be rescued.
They were both okay. Talk about lucky.
Can't imagine what they must have been saying to each other.
Beverly Burr believes that her eight-year-old
daughter was serial killer Ted Bundy's first victim.
He lived nearby and once said he killed her
when he was only 14 but later denied it.
He was finally executed in Florida,
never answering Beverly's letters asking for the truth.
My heart just broke for her.
She died never knowing what happened to her little girl.
A woman trying to sell her car to a teenager
who hit the gas pedal instead of the brake
at her apartment complex.
The teen was okay, but the car was uninsured.
Damn.
One man grabs chairs in a flood.
Another saves a henhouse full of chickens
in his mom's Burlington backyard one at a time.
A woman taps bubbles from a syringe
as people line up in their cars to get the COVID vaccine.
Protesters block access to Terminal 18 during a protest.
3,500 soldiers attended deployment ceremony
in the Tacoma Dome in 2004 before being sent to Iraq.
I accidentally entered the ceremony through the wrong door.
I took this photo and when security saw me,
they kicked me out. Later, organizers of the event
purchased this image from the newspaper to hang on their wall.
An Amtrak train took a turn way too fast.
On the first day,
the high-speed train ran from Seattle to Portland
and several cars crashed on I-5 and the traffic below.
Three people were killed. I shot from a bridge
where all the media was stationed
and then went through the woods to the other side.
After taking this photo,
authorities saw me and I was told very loudly to leave.
Sometimes I feel if I don't get kicked out,
I'm not working hard enough.
It's happened more times than I can count,
but every so often, I get a shot that others don't.
Steve Felix laughs while giving the vehicle of his friend,
Roger McCormick, a jump.
A woman gets a sip of water
while protesters are trying to stop construction
of a loading dock for a gravel mine on Vashon Island.
A woman gets a lift through floodwaters
and a man tries to get away from spray near Alki.
Why he was out there, I just couldn't figure out.
A little guy salutes firefighters
as they pass by in a parade
to support the four firefighters
who lost their lives in the Pang warehouse fire.
His mother told me he wanted to be a firefighter
when he grows up.
I wonder if he did.
David Moody hugs his son as they talk about close relatives,
both veterans who passed away recently
as they place flags at Washelli Evergreen Cemetery
before Veterans Day.
A protester gets help after being pepper sprayed.
Travelers wait in line at the airport.
I'm sure you can all relate.
And striking UW medical workers close down
a street as they picket.
Melissa Bishop packs up her belongings during a sweep
of the homeless camp where she was living.
Women cry when a stray bullet goes through the window
where they work and kills a coworker.
As sad as this event was, it was easier to cover
because no one knew who had shot the gun.
Perhaps someone who knew might hear the news
or see the photos and would come forward and turn in the shooter.
He was eventually caught.
Gay marriage is legalized in Washington State,
and a couple from California flew here to get married.
A woman looks at her flooded basement.
Thick haze from fires in Washington and Oregon
obscure the I-90 floating bridge.
Construction fascinates me, and I've covered a lot of it.
My former editor at the paper, the legendary Fred Nelson,
always called me infrastructure girl.
Beacon Reservoir is seismically retrofitted.
It holds 50 million gallons of water
and is Seattle's biggest single cell reservoir.
A construction worker crawls through the 21-foot-in-diameter
cutterhead as it pokes through the east side of Beacon Hill.
Light rail trains now run through this tunnel.
Another worker throws out trash as a former strip club
in New Zealand is torn down after an earthquake.
It was my favorite image from my trip there,
but the newspaper would never run it.
I bet you can guess why.
George Silcox with SDOT walks through the West Seattle bridge.
I never realized it was so big inside.
The bridge is the only
double-leaf swing bridge in the world.
Work is done by many on the elevated track
of the Tukwila segment of the light rail project.
People drive for the last time
on the Alaska Way Viaduct in 2019.
It was demolished
and now traffic heads underground in the SR 99 tunnel.
It took around nine months to tear it down.
A construction worker talks to the operator
of a train in a stormwater storage tunnel in Ballard.
The nearly three-mile-long tunnel will keep
sewage and stormwater out of the Lake Washington ship canal.
In addition to construction, I love to work up high.
I have flown in helicopters without doors
to prevent reflections in my images many, many times.
I've always checked my seatbelt carefully before we take off.
This time, I got to fly with the Coast Guard
over the Olympic Peninsula and was tied in.
I hung my feet outside the door.
It was so much fun.
I've been on the roof of the Space Needle many times,
this time to cover Governor Jay Inslee
when he was raising a flag to reopen Washington
towards the end of the COVID crisis.
Getting to the top of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
was also a thrill.
I was just disappointed they wouldn't let me climb it
with the construction workers.
I had to take an elevator to the top.
I did a story on a tower crane operator
during the building boom in South Lake Union.
I got to go out on the short end of the boom to make a shot
and then went back inside the cab.
The operator asked if I'd like to sit in his seat
and when I literally jumped at that opportunity,
he also let me move the boom.
Could it possibly get any better than this?
Do you understand why I love my job?
Macklemore was performing at the Gorge when I covered him.
All of the previous positions
let the photographers be near the stage
for the first three songs,
but he did not and I was really far away when I performed.
It was tough.
There was a woman near where I was standing
and I just started complaining to her.
She told me she talked to him about it.
I just stared at her.
Then she mentioned that she was his mother.
Oops!
Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos was just selling books at Amazon
when I made this photograph.
Not sure I'd be able to get him to do something like this again.
Bruce Lawrence was retiring from the Seattle Symphony
and he played for me.
After he started, all I wanted to do was sit back,
listen, and just enjoy the music.
Then I remembered I was there to make a picture.
Rats! He was incredible.
Angelica Dibella-Lira is graduating
with a bachelor's degree from the University of Puget Sound
while being an inmate
at the Washington Correction Center for Women in Purdy.
What a positive program and a thrill to cover.
President Barack Obama greets a visitor at Boeing Field.
Lily Tomlin was a total delight to cover.
She gave me a lot more time than I was originally allotted.
Most of the photos were pretty serious,
but I said something, she laughed, and I made this photo.
She asked if it was the one I would use.
I told her, yeah, it probably was.
Katie Wilson looks pleased after being sworn in
as Seattle's new mayor.
We cover a lot of press conferences.
We need to have a pilot's license
to fly a drone for the paper.
What fun it's been. This is a family at a corn maze.
A drone shot of sea lions at Shilshole
gave a different perspective than the close image
I shot of them from the dock.
They're still pretty cute.
A lot of times we go out and just find photos
that don't necessarily go along with stories.
This eagle grabbed an unlucky American coot at Seward Park.
I felt so bad for him.
After this photo ran, a reader wrote to me
and said that someone was telling the clouds
they were over Seattle
and it was just needing a bit more rain.
UW students are drumming up business for a car wash.
A boy is cooling off at Angle Lake.
And weird fog is obscuring part of the Seattle skyline.
A mama seal is hanging out with her offspring in West Seattle.
A woman heading to Hawaii for vacation is getting a spray tan.
Needless to say,
only a female photographer was invited
to cover this assignment.
Sorry guys.
You'd have to know this is in Seattle
because I made this shot in the middle of summer.
A grandfather is enjoying his time with his grandson
at Golden Gardens.
A woman is thrilled to become a US citizen
at a naturalization ceremony.
And a bullfrog at Capitol Lake in Olympia
has no idea that the lake will be drained to return
to its natural estuary state in 2027 or '28.
A bee lands on a flower.
A toddler looks at his mother's belly
where his sister is about ready to be born.
And Gwendolyn Singletary laughs
as the Baltimore consort cheers up patients
at Bailey-Boushay House when they were in town to perform.
She said if she was able, she would have gotten up to dance.
A hummingbird flies at Volunteer Park.
A woman walks through an intersection on Capitol Hill.
And another reacts to a rotting fin whale in Seahurst Park.
It really stunk.
I've covered food and drinks at restaurants.
A West Seattle visitor relaxing in front of the Seattle skyline.
And a young girl enjoying the snow.
And raindrops reflected on my windshield
when parked next to the Space Needle.
Flamingos at the Woodland Park Zoo check out a newborn.
A young breakdancer shows his stuff.
And a plane takes off from our airport
when we have a full moon.
In front of the Seattle skyline,
a cormorant appears to be conducting a symphony.
And a plane lands in the fog at SeaTac.
A family shares a meal at Shilshole.
A brewer cleans out a tank.
The sky at Cannon Beach in Oregon is simply gorgeous.
The support the Twelves have for the Seahawks
is like no other city.
I'm so looking forward to the Super Bowl this year.
The enthusiasm Sean Fitzgerald has in a wading pool
is such a testament of a child's joy.
And fireworks on the Space Needle,
when we can see them, are always incredible.
A father kisses his eight-year-old daughter,
who just received her third heart transplant
after spending seven months at Children's Hospital.
She is finally ready to go home.
A dog walker with an injured dog figures out another way
so he can get his time outside.
And a spider cuts a flower out of its web.
And then there's George,
the skateboarding dog from Bainbridge.
-Come here. Come here.
-George is a very different kind of a dog.
He's five years old and still acts like a puppy.
George has a lot of energy.
So we had to figure out something that he could do,
some type of activity to get some of that energy out of him.
So we thought, maybe we'll just get George a skateboard.
♪♪
We hear everything,
like that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
And, you just made my day, and I can't believe what I'm seeing.
And I saw that on television, on the internet,
but I didn't think it was real.
One funny comment, a teenage girl, she says, yeah,
but does he do any tricks?
♪♪
We can't even say the word skateboard in our house
with George around.
We actually have to hide the board in the trunk of the SUV.
Here, bud, do you want a drink? George, do you want a drink?
George will ride as long as we will let him ride.
He will just keep going and going.
So we actually have to stop George,
take a break, to make sure he's well hydrated.
♪♪
All dogs are talented.
They all have their special gifts.
It's just up to us to figure out what they can do best.
♪♪
-That being said, I'm retiring this year.
It's been one of the toughest decisions of my life.
Working for The Seattle Times as a photojournalist
is not a job, it's a dream.
When my kids were little,
I often accompanied them on their field trips.
My job is a field trip every day.
The paper is a destination
I think most photojournalists in this country try to achieve.
Once you get here, you've made it in this profession.
I can't imagine where else you would rather be.
Yet there are other things to do.
I will be able to put up yard signs, sign petitions,
and express my opinions of certain politicians,
all things I could not do as a photojournalist.
I also will have more time for my family.
Still, I cannot thank Cole Porter enough for hiring me
28 and a half years ago, or The Seattle Times
and the Blethen family enough
for the extraordinary opportunities
I have had in this profession.
I seriously cannot imagine a better way
to spend my life, my career.
Thank you, Seattle. Thank you, Seattle Times.
What an incredible ride it has been.
Thank you.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Thank you, Ellen. My name is Bettina Hansen.
I'm the Deputy Director of Photography here.
And I became a mother six years ago.
My kids are six and four.
And Ellen has been such a huge support as a mother,
learning how to find my way in a job again, coming back to work.
We love you so much,
and we're so excited for you and your future.
So tonight I'm going to talk about
how our staff covered December's historic flooding event.
Tonight I'm going to present work
by photographers Erika Schultz, Nick Wagner,
Karen Ducey, Jennifer Buchanan, Ken Lambert,
Ellen Banner, Kevin Clark, and Ivy Ceballo.
Fueled by an atmospheric river
that dumped rain over the entire region,
floodwaters inundated communities in December.
Nearly 400 people needed to be rescued from rising waters
that overtopped roads and swamped apartment buildings.
Nearly 4,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and at one point,
over 100,000 people were under evacuation orders.
As journalists,
coverage of this flooding was an all-newsroom effort,
with our dramatic photography at the forefront.
Tonight I'm going to talk about
how we pulled off comprehensive coverage of one of the most
logistically challenging news events of my career.
I'm on the desk now,
but I was a photographer on staff for 10 years here.
I helped manage the photo staff, take the lead on assigning,
and make selections of images for print and online.
My experience in the field informs everything I do
and how I approached coordinating
our coverage of the flooding.
Each week, I'm the Saturday night editor,
so I often take any free time that night
to look ahead at what might be coming for the week.
In early December, one thing caught my eye --
Flood alerts from the National Weather Service.
I talked with photographer Ken Lambert
about making his way to the Snoqualmie area
the next day to get eyes on the river
and see if any preparations had started.
By Monday, folks were making sandbags
and really starting to pay attention
to eye-popping predictions coming from
the National Weather Service and the river gauges.
By Tuesday, we'd kicked the newsroom into gear
and had photographers and reporters
stationed in key areas.
We had live updates running on seattletimes.com
so that readers could get important information
in real time as images flowed into our newsroom.
Similar to a live blog, live updates provides readers
with constantly updated reporting and visuals
as a big story is unfolding.
In Snohomish County, home to many farms,
Erika Schultz photographed people evacuating
their livestock to the Evergreen Fairgrounds in Monroe.
In downtown Snohomish,
Karen Ducey photographed people gathering to gawk
at the height of the river.
And in the same area seen from the air,
it really shows
how far the Snohomish River was encroaching into the town.
Later that day,
Karen found ranchers rounding up their animals
to take them to higher ground. As we planned for the week,
the forecast for Thursday was really looking dire,
with worsening projections
and more rain on the way for the Skagit, Skykomish,
and Snohomish Rivers. On Wednesday,
we assigned Nick Wagner to towns along the Skykomish River
as residents banded together to make emergency plans
while the river raged.
Flooding is a way of life in a lot of these communities,
but the predictions for water levels were incredibly high,
even for those who had endured many prior flood events.
By midweek,
we had pulled in everyone available to cover flooding
and fanned them all over the region.
Our photo desk fielded images straight from photographers
and curated them into our live online coverage.
Across the state, 33 rivers hit flood stage,
all cresting at different times in vastly different places.
It was a lot to coordinate to get photographers in position.
Roads were closing left and right,
and there were real possibilities of our folks
in the field getting stranded. To borrow a sports term,
we could no longer be in man-to-man coverage.
We had to switch to zone.
There were too many rescues and news items to chase all at once.
We poured over maps and flood gauge predictions
to make a coverage plan for our staff,
teaming up reporters and photographers
in geographical areas to focus on.
Photo editor Colin Diltz grew up
and still lives in Snohomish County,
and his family farm is in the flood plain.
His local knowledge of the area was key to understanding
how the rivers were going to behave
and where we'd see the most significant impacts
to homes and communities.
The photographers that we had stationed in the field
earlier in the week became our experts in their areas,
and we kept them there for continuity and safety.
As a former photographer myself,
I tried to give staffers what I needed when I was in the field,
a calm, responsive presence
to help them focus on going deeper in the areas
where they embedded.
By staying in specific zones,
photographers could better assess roads and hazards,
build sources, and more importantly,
find the best spots with Wi-Fi and a restroom.
Ken Lambert was our Snoqualmie area expert
and made this stunning image of a water rescue
with a keen tip from a public information officer.
The next day, it made page one.
Karen Ducey was our Snohomish expert
and struck up a relationship with residents
of a mobile home park
who saw some of the worst flooding near Monroe.
Jennifer Buchanan nearly became stranded amid waterlogged roads
while making this image of a resident
along the South Skagit Highway. Jenny grew up in Mount Vernon
and stayed with her parents during the flooding.
As a teen, she filled sandbags on the banks of the Skagit
for the 1990 flooding, so it was heavily personal for her.
Erika Schultz reported on the impacts
to farm workers at this Skagit Valley organization
that translated flood alerts for non-English speakers
and made hotel reservations
for families to get out of the floodplain.
Ivy Ceballo found the helpers at an emergency shelter
for people and pets in Mount Vernon
as 70,000 people were under evacuation orders
in the Skagit floodplain. Throughout the flooding,
aerial photography was essential
to be able to show the scope and scale of the destruction.
Of the staff's nine photographers,
we have six drone pilots.
They launched from multiple locations
during the nearly two-week coverage period.
On Thursday,
December 11th, we anticipated the worst flooding
and planned to take advantage of a break in cloud cover
to send Nick Wagner up in a helicopter.
From the air,
we could finally get places on eyes like Carnation and Duvall
where road closures made it truly inaccessible.
From the helicopter,
Nick shot photos of a swollen Snoqualmie Falls on his camera
and filmed video of it on his phone.
♪♪
He texted the video to our video editor, Akash Pamarthy,
who posted it on live updates and social media
where it got 3 million views.
Nick's images showed us the sheer scale of the landscape
and the raw power of the currents.
On Friday,
Ellen Banner headed out to the Gages Slough in Burlington
where residents were evacuating creatures great and small.
Families like Monica Mendez's woke up
to find water rushing in the lower levels of their houses.
Karen Ducey found dad Mario Rincon holding
his two-year-old son, Daniel,
outside their home in Burlington which was surrounded by water.
At the end of the first week,
some of the rivers started to recede
and residents returned to consider the damage.
Kevin Clark found businesses in Sultan cleaning up the mess.
Jenny Buchanan found people in Skagit County
making light of a bad situation.
Apologies to public health for this image.
Don't try this at home.
I mean, when the water comes to you,
why not jet ski in your front yard?
Many residents breathed a sigh of relief
that some of the worst had passed.
But in the following week, the threat moved south.
On Monday,
the Green River in Tukwila
breached a packed earth levee in an industrial area.
Phones lit up with a flash flood warning from the county,
putting residents on high alert and snarling roads.
Ellen Banner and Erika Schultz
took the lead on South King County flooding,
fanning out in Pacific, Auburn,
and Kent as industrial zones and homes alike
were inundated with water.
Ellen found these neighbors who heard about stranded dogs
on Facebook and came to the rescue in Pacific.
Erika found residents like Trevor Sturt in Auburn
who surveyed the damage
and helped his neighbors clear up the wreckage.
For many folks,
like his neighbor, Michael Aubrey,
the worry about permanent damage to their homes was overwhelming.
Residents in Pacific
continue to deal with the long-term damage from flooding
and have yet to receive any type
of federal funding for the cleanup.
Currently, there's no long-term fix for the failure
that caused it in the first place.
And as we continue to cover this story,
photographer Erika Schultz is working
with the Climate Lab team
to keep following the families impacted by this flooding
as they rebuild their lives.
Look for those stories soon. Thanks to everyone
who contributed to this important story.
[ Applause ]
The next presenter I have the honor
of introducing is Ivy Ceballo. Ivy came to the Seattle Times
two years ago after building an impressive portfolio
at the Tampa Bay Times in her home state of Florida.
Ivy's photographic voice is imbued with her love for light,
color, and an almost telepathic connection
with the people that she meets.
She's also, like me, one of the biggest Bad Bunny fans around.
Give it up for Ivy.
[ Applause ]
-Thanks so much, Bettina.
We're really lucky on staff to know
that you have our backs when we're out on the field.
Yeah.
Good evening.
I am grateful to be here with you all tonight sharing
and learning from my colleagues together in this public space.
Sorry about that. Good evening.
I'm grateful to be here with you all tonight sharing
and learning from my colleagues together in this public space.
Thank you for supporting our work.
Local journalism matters now more than ever,
and it means so much to us
that people care about the stories we help convey visually.
Moving to Seattle to join the Times almost two years ago
wasn't the first time I left the palm trees and sunshine
of my home state of Florida to wander westward.
If you're on the internet,
this January,
you've seen people flood social media with photographs
from a decade ago.
Bear with me
as we follow the trend
through my extremely nonlinear photography journey.
I bought my first DSLR camera when I was 18
and impressionable.
But it wasn't until transferring out of military college
in Vermont, living in Brazil,
moving back to Florida where I worked at a zoo
while going to journalism school,
landing a summer internship opportunity in Salt Lake City
that turned into a job with the Deseret News
when I actually could picture myself doing this full time.
I went back to school for photojournalism
at Western Kentucky University
and started building my photography portfolio.
Since photographing this scene then and throughout my career,
I've learned three insights
that help me portray intimate storytelling.
The importance of being present,
building trust with whom I photograph,
and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.
I'm still working on being ready for the weather on assignment,
among so many other things.
When I was still a student in 2016,
I got to shadow a Tampa Bay Times reporter
for a journalism class
at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg on a day
that a then-presidential candidate was scheduled
to have a rally in Tampa.
I brought my first camera with me
and saw a photojournalist at work for the first time.
I remember finding myself in the middle
of a heated exchange between the groups
with my first DSLR camera next to someone
who would later become my dear coworker and mentor
with his professional cameras
as the groups confronted one another.
Dirk Shadd was moving around the scene like a pro,
and when we got circled in,
he cautiously warned me, plan your exit.
Dirk is on the left here.
The young woman in the photograph, Liz Acevedo,
shouted to the crowd,
if the American dream is to be racist, then I don't want it.
I got goosebumps,
and her words still ring when I remember that scene.
It was a marking experience for me as a student
who was still figuring out
where I was headed as an aspiring documentarian.
Last year in West Seattle,
I saw a familiar scene along Alki Avenue
as protesters reacted to Seattle police officers making
two arrests during a protest
against Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations.
I think what makes this image powerful
is the expression on the young woman's face.
I want to make photographs that people can hear, feel.
Those are the kind of pictures
that evoke emotion for me when I see them.
Being present on assignment,
whether that is a news story or a sports feature,
involves tapping into a combination
of anticipatory spidey senses
that I believe all photographers have, and good luck.
While waiting for the Seattle Mariners ALDS game five
to end already because we were coming up on our deadline,
I scanned the crowd and spotted someone
who appeared to be a diehard Mariners fan.
I didn't see his My Oh My banner
before I saw him bury his head in his hand
and start crying tears of joy after the 15th inning walk-off
that sent his Mariners to the ALCS.
Too often, we find ourselves at memorial ceremonies
that can be difficult to photograph.
Being present during these events
and aware of respecting those
who are grieving their loved ones
becomes the main priority for us as journalists.
When we need to document these services,
the anniversary of 13-year-old Jayda Woods-Johnson being shot
and killed at Alderwood Mall
was held at Mukilteo Lighthouse Park,
where her family and friends,
many starting high school soon, remembered her life.
When I saw Jada's friends encourage each other
to jump in the water,
I knew I wanted to photograph a silhouette
to help illustrate the mood of this moment.
The girls were so full of life
but also living with the reality
that their friend's life was taken abruptly,
stopped too soon.
Nine-year-old Kira,
whose mother said Jayda was their neighbor and friend,
ate ice cream nearby
while wearing the color red and bracelets in Jada's memory.
Kira loved Jada, her mom told me.
The contrast between a child eating ice cream
and what her accessories symbolized in honor
of their friend who died from gun violence struck me
when I photographed this detail image
during the memorial service.
I asked Kira what was on the other side of her bracelet,
and she said the abbreviation for LLJ
stood for Long Live Jada.
Times reporter Lauren Girgis
and I went to an emotional sentencing in the murder case
where a community activist, 23-year-old Elijah Lewis,
was killed and his nine-year-old nephew injured by Patrick Cooney
in a road rage encounter on their way
to celebrate Lewis' nephew's birthday.
Lauren quoted Elijah's sister and the boy's mother,
Quincy Dunham,
whose profound words directed at Cooney
pierced my heart during the sentencing.
He was our promise, a promise of change, of hope,
of a future that would have reshaped the very fabric
of this city,
and you extinguished that light without a shred of humanity.
I watched Elijah's family and community
members process this difficult sentencing that ultimately
wouldn't bring another young black man back home.
I think this image shows the heartache and collective grief
that community members experience
in the courtroom that day. I stood back
and used a telephoto lens to make this image.
I got to visit the final day of a summer camp
by Girls Braids Club
where students completed a free braiding course
at the REC Auburn Teen Center.
Eleven-year-old Aria is looking to her mom
after being named Most Improved Braider.
The founder, Chinny Durueke,
reminded the girls that braiding helped her pay for
college and postgraduate schooling.
She started the club to empower young girls in their hair care
to alleviate financial stress for their parents
by helping the girls gain the confidence to do their own hair
and give them the foundations of a profitable skill.
Building trust is such an important part of our jobs,
especially when we're covering sensitive topics.
Times immigration reporter Nina Shapiro
and I worked on a story about a community
of migrants living at a former hotel
that Thrive International turned into
permanent transitional housing.
The families are seeking asylum in the US
while the president and his administration
carry out their mass deportation agenda.
I didn't know Bopi the seahorse could fly,
I remember telling Blanca's daughter in Spanish.
I am drawn to stories that shed light on systemic issues
and celebrate cultural diversity.
I appreciated the conversations with my editors and colleagues
as we navigated this assignment during this difficult time.
It's important to have the luxury of time
to connect with folks
and build trust as a stranger coming
into their lives with a camera.
I think about if someone were to ask me
if they could come into my home and photograph me,
how would I feel about that and want to be treated?
This photo is from my first semester
as a photojournalism student.
I visited an organization in Kentucky
serving families resettling in the US
and they connected me with this family from Myanmar
who was willing to share their experience.
We met prior to this at the center with an interpreter
who spoke their native language.
But on the day we planned for a home visit,
the interpreter could not be there in person
so they helped us communicate briefly on the phone
when I arrived and then we did our best.
The photo holds a special place in my heart
because I remember thinking after I left this
is what I want to do the rest of my life.
During the visit I played hide and seek with Sam,
the three-year-old laying on the couch,
and his mom who laughed when he found me hiding
behind their shower curtain.
Afterwards they let me photograph what a day
in their life looked like
and showed me a precious photo album,
one of the few personal belongings
they had brought with them from back home.
The photo reminds me to try
and maintain an approach of childlike wonder
and have fun when we get to be in situations like this.
I think what makes us capable of making intimate photographs
is often being comfortable being uncomfortable.
I met this family with Nina again
and our colleague data reporter Manuel Villa my first year here.
Nina wrote about the journeys of several asylum-seeking families
who had gone from finding refuge at churches
or being outside to temporarily living at this hotel
with the support of Thrive International
before the organization could purchase a permanent
transitional housing site.
I saw the mirror in the room across from
where my colleagues were interviewing the couple.
At first I photographed mom in the reflection
as she was tending to their daughter in her arms
and I was waiting for a moment where
the small family would appear in the reflection together.
The young parents faced each other
when he took this call from a service provider
during a break in our interview
and that's when I made this picture.
I hope readers can feel their sense of worry and uncertainty
about the future.
They risked their lives in hopes to provide a better life
for the baby they were expecting
when they fled hardships in Venezuela.
Pop-up market Aqui Mercado pressed on
in creating a safe space for the LGBTQ+
and Latino community to gather over the summer
on Pier 62 along the waterfront
despite the looming ice fears in the region
and across the country.
Local artist Edgar Martinez of Line Marker screen printing
helps a visitor screenprint a poster of the event.
The name Aqui sends a clear message
that the community is here in Spanish.
In these tough times,
being here makes me feel
like I can still come together as a community,
Alyssa Castillo said about the welcoming atmosphere helping
her feel a sense of belonging and visibility.
It's a form of protesting, celebrating through it all.
Husbands Daniel and Ismael Calderon
who organized the event and are co-owners
of Capitol Hill's Bonito Cafe y Mercadito,
a coffee shop born from the small pop-up market
that started in 2024,
said they counted thousands of visitors in attendance.
An ensemble of musicians played Mexican regional music
as the sun set that evening and dancers let go to the music.
Seattle's Teen Summer Musical celebrated
a 25th anniversary milestone last year.
Here, 14-year-old Soraya,
who played one of the crows in The Wiz,
an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz,
shares a moment with her little sister Royal
and their mother during a community barbecue
at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute
before the show's premiere.
Times arts and culture writer Gemma Wilson wrote
that the show's production,
managed by the co-founders of local theater company
Acts on Stage and City Partners,
actually pay the young creatives a stipend as part
of the arts summer program
with a 76-person cast of kids ages 9 to 18.
The non-profit Acts on Stage
is dedicated to increasing access and opportunity
to artists of color and activists of faith.
When we prioritize holding space for our neighbors,
an effort to learn about
and begin to understand their human experience
a little better, listen to one another,
become genuinely interested in their day-to-day life,
and what is important to them regardless of age or ability,
race, ethnicity, sexual orientation,
and gender identity,
we become better caretakers of our stories.
At some point along the way,
it clicked that what I value most about this special gig
is the connection we can make with the people
we get to meet when cameras are down at my side or put away.
In the day-to-day,
when trying to meet a deadline for a photo package
or go to the next assignment
because we get used to the fast-moving news cycle,
that can be easy to forget. Working on this piece about Port
of Seattle Commissioner Hamdi Mohamed
with my colleague Times reporter Dan Beekman,
who covers politics and communities,
reminded me of that. We listened to Director Mohamed
as she shared how she was balancing her responsibilities,
the federal government's
immigration enforcement agenda
as a Somali-American city leader.
Her family built their lives here after arriving as refugees.
She told us her mother started carrying her US passport
in her purse this year,
although a long-time naturalized US citizen.
When we interviewed her,
I could relate as a daughter of immigrant parents,
who was also born in my parents' native land.
I carry her stories and her values in the way
that I do my work, Mohamed said of her mother,
who fled civil wars in Somalia to Kenya
with their children
before immigrating to the United States.
Being human is so important.
Being able to see that we have more in common
than what meets the eye.
Exercising our humanity right now feels urgent,
as we look to the future
and think about where we are headed 10 years from now.
Thank you to the members of our community
who welcomed us in their spaces,
entrusted us to share their stories,
and document a full range of human experience this past year.
Thank you to our readers for supporting our journalism
and to my colleagues for their dedication.
[ Applause ]
-Thank you, Ivy. Amazing. This incredible stuff.
All three of you, thank you so much for sharing.
Before we go to our Q&A,
I'd like to share with you
that each of our photojournalists on staff
contribute to our video report.
There's all kinds of ways that that happens,
everywhere from somebody grabbing their cell phone
out of a helicopter to somebody actually going
and enterprising out their own story
that they end up collaborating with.
So I'd like to show you a little bit of a sampling of that work.
♪♪
-The continent is in motion, literally.
The ridges are rising. The valleys are deepening.
Nothing is permanent. Including us.
-If you can get a good Honeycrisp,
it is a stellar piece of fruit. This collection of music,
even physically, still exists, is a miracle.
These records are a time capsule.
They're our stories,
they are our history, and they're really a portal
to be able to open up conversations.
♪♪
-I woke up and looked at the cameras and went,
well, this is not good.
-Because of so many years being here,
I thought we were going to be fine.
I didn't think you would need to evacuate.
♪♪
-And Akash Pamarthy for being our
lead video producer on staff.
That's the content portion of our program.
Thank you so much for being witness to all of that.
And at this time,
I would love to invite our presenters up
for a little Q&A panel.
There should be microphones floating around.
If y'all wouldn't mind coming up and having a seat,
then we'd love to answer questions
that you may have for us.
We've got about 15 minutes.
-Hi.
These pictures are so gloriously full color and high resolution,
which are attributes that neither print nor web has.
Is that a factor at all
when you're taking the photo
or when you're deciding which photos to run?
-Is this thing on? Yeah.
Yeah, so the question was about resolution.
Do we consider the resolution of the image
when we're making the color, when we're making the photo?
I mean, a lot of times,
speaking as a former photographer, color,
light, moment,
all of those things draw you to make an image.
And now that I'm an editor,
a lot of those things kind of inform how we play the image.
So, you know, as a photographer,
you're always thinking about, you know,
how can I make the best out of what's in front of me.
And then as an editor, you kind of think,
how can I present what I have in the best way possible.
So sometimes as a photographer,
you try to shoot for the place that the story will go,
whether that's page one
or whether that's a magazine spread.
I'm trying to get a lot of visual variety and a lot
of details to kind of make a lot of images work together.
But, yeah, now that I'm an editor,
I get to see a great picture and think, like Fred Nelson,
you know, how am I going to get this on page one
and start working the room?
I hope that answers your question.
-Yes, sir.
-Looking at your selection of the best photos,
there was only one monochrome out of all of those.
Is the age of monochrome photography
over in the print media?
Does it just not sell papers?
-So the question was about black and white photography,
monochrome photography.
Is the age of monochrome dead?
-I really love black and white.
I just think in black and white the picture is
totally dependent on the composition and the light.
And in color,
sometimes it doesn't have to be as good of a picture
just because the color is pretty.
So I think sometimes the best stuff is black and white.
But everything we shoot is now color.
When I started, everything we shot was black and white.
I think people tend to like color more
because it's prettier.
-It is interesting that that particular photo
that you mentioned is very studied.
It did stand out.
That was an image that was part of a set
that was done as a photo story by Erika Schultz.
And, interestingly,
she had an interest in wanting to do something photographically
that would be creative, challenging,
something that might refresh her perspective from the way
that she does her normal job.
And so she was searching for approaches
that might be able to refresh that,
and she had considered actually doing film.
And there were a couple of reasons
why didn't end up doing film,
but the idea was look at this set of pictures
as something that you as a photographer
can dive into your own creativity,
kind of stretch into areas that help.
She's such a growth-minded person
to be able to look for ways
to continue to experience things from a different perspective.
So the entire set was a beautiful set of black
and white imagery of women who skateboard.
It's called Skate Like a Girl.
It's a really great set.
So when I was expanding our set here,
I wanted to pick one of those images
to be represented in here.
Hey, Joelle.
-Hello. I have a question for everyone.
Do you have a dream assignment or story
that you haven't worked on yet?
I know Ellen, you're retiring, and Bettina, you're on the desk,
but I'm curious if there's anything
that you still want to be able to photograph,
a dream assignment.
-I want to get on the roof of Lumen Field.
-We'll strap you in up there.
Sure, freelance it.
-I would love to just explore the region a bit more.
I, yeah, would like to explore the region,
go out to the coast again possibly.
One of my favorite assignments
when I first got here was hanging out with a group
that went razor clam hunting on the coast,
and we got to hang out with them for a little bit
and see what that was like. So just seeing,
learning more about the culture in the Pacific Northwest
and what people enjoy doing. Yeah.
-I would love to pick up a film camera again.
That's something I've been really wanting to do
and did a couple of film projects here as a photographer.
I would just love to get in the darkroom again.
-I recently got a Graflex Speed Graphic
and I've never used a camera like that and I've
never actually developed my own film in the darkroom.
So it's kind of on my bucket list of things.
There's a great photographic center northwest in town.
I'd like to take some classes
and maybe do something with that.
-Sometimes I think it's hard to --
that's why it's great to have great editors.
Because sometimes you'll take a bunch of pictures
and one was really hard to get
and it's just like you finally got it.
And so you start thinking that's the best one
because you know all the effort that went into get it.
And so you can't see it with fresh eyes [indistinct] no so.
After all that work, I go,
but you don't know what I went through to get it.
But there's sometimes when there's just --
my husband, he's a great photographer too,
but he would say don't shoot a minute, shoot a moment.
And so it's just like just catching something that happens
and then it's gone.
And it's just like that. That is just...
And when you look at your shoot, it's like yeah, that's the one.
-Something about the best picture you've ever taken,
what does that feel like?
-I just think a picture that...I love capturing moments,
and when you can just feel,
connect to what the person is going through in the image
or can read an image quickly,
those are the ones that speak to me the most.
-What do you do with the great images that you have
that don't necessarily fit the story that you're creating?
If you have two or three great photos,
like what do you do with the two that you don't use?
-Put it on the personal work section of your website.
I think, you know, one of the things that, you know,
one of the great things about photojournalism
is that we approach our work with a great sense of purpose.
A lot of times our images are kind of used to tell stories
that also, you know, have to be told in text as well
and the image kind of has to match the entire package
and you have to really edit to that.
So sometimes you'll be out on assignment
and you'll make just --
and, you know, you're presented with a gift.
The photo gods present you with a gift.
I always like to talk about the photo gods.
It might not always fit the narrative,
but I think a great photographer and a great editor --
Alan Berner would always do this.
Fred would always do this, I think.
You know, you can find a home for anything.
A lot of times we talk about finding homes for things.
I'm going to find a home for that.
That's kind of recognizing you found something amazing
and we're going to create a frame for that.
How can we get that in front of readers?
-There's questions for Bettina Hansen.
I'm curious to know
how your transition from being a stills photographer
into an editor went
and were there any realizations along the way
once you started spending more time behind the desk?
-Well, I hate to hog the microphone,
but I will answer that.
Yeah, so I was a photographer for 15 years
and, you know, deeply loved my career.
And I had my first kid born three months
before the pandemic hit
and then was still breastfeeding and then had to go out
and shoot, you know,
people being tear gassed and things getting lit on fire
during the George Floyd protests.
And I think at that point I kind of realized,
well, maybe I should get a desk job, you know.
So when I had my second kid, Fred retired and called him up
and I said I want to be an editor.
And I kind of had this idea in my mind
of what it was going to be like to be an editor.
And I think as a photographer
I very much kind of had a adversarial relationship
with editors at times
where I kind of thought I know everything
and I know kind of what is going to be best
for the paper and my images.
Now I think as an editor
I realize I discounted a lot of editors' work.
And I actually had a phone call with Angie Gottschalk,
our former director of photography,
today before I came here and I just told her,
you know, I'm sorry I didn't recognize how hard this job is.
I never should have taken you for granted.
Because it's just a great kind of dance that we do.
You know,
when you're a photographer you get to be out there
and you're in the helicopter and you're in the thing
and you're meeting these amazing people
and you're kind of having these great interactions.
And then when you're an editor you kind of realize,
oh, okay, like if I kind of get into it
with the other editor over there I have to make nice with them
because I have to talk to them tomorrow.
I can't just walk out and ever be gone.
So I think, you know, I really miss shooting
but I also --
now my role is to create success for everybody else
and to be able to work with photographers like Ivy
and work with Ellen
and work with people that I just deeply love and care about
and can just kind of create the environments
for them to be successful.
I think that is just even more fulfilling
than seeing my byline on A1.
-Earlier you mentioned -- oh, sorry, there was claps.
-Probably one more.
-Earlier you mentioned that somebody gave you advice, Ivy,
about having an exit plan, right,
and going along the lines about safety
and...with everything
that's been going on these last couple weeks
and just the state of the world in general,
where do each of you or have you drawn that line where --
let's just say were you boots on the ground in Minnesota?
Where is your line for where that exit plan enters?
-Thanks for the question.
I think we all go into breaking news assignments
and lately the protests with safety gear,
and we keep our distance and think about just --
we're always trying to be self-aware,
right, of where we're standing.
We tend to not go by ourselves and have like a team
where it's maybe --
where it's usually like a photographer and a reporter
so we have each other's backs
and sometimes even more than one photographer.
And we're always in communication with our editors
so they always know, like, what's happening on the scene
and aware of -- yeah, just aware of what's going on.
And we just make sure --
safety comes first, right?
We also, we need to tell the story,
but we have the capability with the lenses
that we have to keep our distance.
Yeah, I hope that answers the question, sorry.
-And you have us being like just stand back,
don't get sprayed. Just stand back.
Buddy system.
-Yes.
-I think there's also kind of a general rule of thumb
that says from a desk perspective
if a person doesn't feel safe,
then the most important thing is that they're going to dictate
where their comfort level is and communicate to us.
We don't tell them what their safety level is.
They tell us what their safety level is
and we support that as best we can in all those different ways.
And, admittedly, you know,
the last six months have been a little bit more nerve wracking
than some because sometimes you --
it might even be naive to think
that there's any kind of a rhythm
that you would be able to have
when it regards sending people out into these situations,
but I think we've even seen some more unpredictability lately.
And so that sensitivity goes up, and I think that for us,
really there's not a picture that's worth it
for us to have somebody be put in harm's way
that we would regret later,
so try to put that at the forefront.
Got one quick one and then we got a giveaway to do.
Do we have the prints by chance, can we see them?
-Could I do one more? Sorry.
I am wondering in a time -- hand it to my mother --
where photojournalism and journalistic integrity
and non-corporate backed media is more important now than ever
and authenticity in the photos that you take
and the stories that you report on
are so important to the national discussion with AI
and everything that we're seeing pop up
that is influencing folks' opinions on like what we can
and cannot believe.
I'm just, like, wondering, what is, like,
your hope for people who are looking to enter this field
and what are you hoping people can understand
about the importance of local journalism
and the work that you do
in like a public discourse type of situation?
I know that that was like a very loaded question but...
-Yeah, I mean, I think that -- so the question was about,
you know, like our purpose as journalists in just an age
where AI and misinformation is rampant.
And I think, you know, it's more crucial than ever.
We are having constantly evolving trainings,
particularly on the desk, and Colin Diltz, our photo editor,
has been really good at just identifying
and training and testing out AI detection tools.
I know a lot of people --
photographers might not even really realize that,
but we are really worried about,
you know, incorporating AI photographs
into our news report.
And so we are just constantly on high alert for photographs
that don't show real things,
and so I think it really just shows
that there is such a hunger for having boots on the ground,
for having people with real deep local experience.
And the great thing about working at The Seattle Times
is that it's 100% owned by the Blethen family.
There's no outside influences.
It's truly people who care about documenting history,
about making sure that it's right,
and, you know,
to be working at a place
that serves the public with such a deep sense
of mission and sense of purpose is really an incredible feeling.
[ Applause ]