Seattle Times Sports Columnist Quits After Paper Refused to Print His Column

A sports columnist in Seattle quit his job this month after his newspaper refused to publish one of his columns. Matt Calkins, 44, had worked at The Seattle Times for 11 years. He said editors would not print a column he wrote about transgender athletes competing in women's sports. He announced his resignation on a website called Substack, where writers share newsletters with readers.

In his Substack post, Calkins explained why he decided to leave. He said he wrote the column in late July and turned it in to his editors. At first, his editors told him there would be a delay. Then they said senior editors needed to discuss it. Finally, an editor told him the column would not be published at all.

The editors said the reason was that Calkins had not talked to them before writing the column. But Calkins felt the real problem was the topic itself. He argued in his column that a person can support a ban on transgender athletes in women's sports without being transphobic — meaning without hating or disrespecting transgender people. After hearing the column was rejected, Calkins told his editor he would resign and then posted the column himself on Substack.

This was not the first time Calkins felt his editors had blocked his work. He said they had also turned down other columns that shared views different from those held by most people in the newsroom. One column questioned a lawsuit by the U.S. women's soccer team about equal pay, and another was about so-called 'cancel culture' in sports. Editors did publish one of his opinion pieces — one that criticized a decision to fly a political flag at a Seattle Sounders soccer game.

Calkins described the editing process at The Seattle Times as less flexible than at other newspapers where he had worked. He said that at other papers, editors would work with him to improve a column and find a way to publish it. He felt that kind of teamwork did not happen enough at The Seattle Times. A spokeswoman for the paper said it had no comment on his resignation.

His decision to speak out turned what might have been a private workplace disagreement into a national news story. Many people are already debating whether traditional news outlets show political bias — meaning they favor one political side over another. Calkins said he chose to go public because he believed readers deserved to know the truth. "I felt like I owed something to the public to say why I'm leaving," he said.