By Wilson Criscione and Daisy Zavala Magaña
This report was produced in a collaboration between InvestigateWest and RANGE and republished by permission.
When The Spokesman-Review announced plans to transfer Spokane’s 143-year-old, family-owned newspaper to a nonprofit founded by Executive Editor Rob Curley, it took over the front page.
“The People’s Paper,” read the April 16, 2025, headline, saying ownership would transfer “to you, the community.”
Key to the plan was Curley, the folksy self-proclaimed “journalism nerd” who burst into Spokane a decade ago, declaring a love for Gonzaga University basketball rivaled only by his love for Disney. The transition to Comma Community Journalism Lab was cast in media industry publications not only as a way to save Spokane’s daily newspaper, but as part of a growing movement to resurrect dying papers by making them less dependent on ads and corporate ownership and more on philanthropy and community partnerships. As proof of concept, the paper had already added several so-called “community-funded” journalists to its staff.
Note: I’ve followed Rob Curley’s career for years and met him at the Orange County Register in 2015 while researching my book “The Return of the Moguls.” I shared excerpts about Curley from “Moguls” in August, after he was placed on administrative leave as executive editor of The Spokesman-Review. — DK
But in The Spokesman-Review newsroom this summer, that hopeful vision ran into persistent concerns about Curley’s leadership. More than a dozen current and former employees, along with contemporaneous records reviewed by InvestigateWest and RANGE, reveal how the newsroom had raised concerns about Curley’s management for years, culminating in his suspension from the paper on Aug. 7 and a vote of no confidence from the union, the Spokane Editorial Society. He is currently on leave as the paper conducts an internal investigation.