WATCH: Seattle Times loses columnist over spiked women’s sports article

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(The Center Square) - The former Seattle Times sportswriter who resigned his position this week because the paper spiked his column about two female student-athletes opposed to competing against biological males, has some advice for his former employer.

“I think a disconnect between people in the newsroom and the general public, or at least the loudest voices in the newsroom," said Matt Calkins in a Thursday evening interview with The Center Square. "There's a starvation for common sense articles that we don't really run.” 

After 11 years as a sports columnist at The Seattle Times, Calkins gave his two week notice Aug 6 and worked his last day Aug 18. He said he quit because his editors refused to publish an article he wrote July 31, following an interview with two female high school athletes who have repeatedly spoken out in opposition to being forced to compete against biological males who identify as transgender athletes.

One of those athletes, Ahnaleigh Wilson, attended a Seattle Storm game last month against the Indiana Fever. Wilson and others held signs supporting WNBA player Sophie Cunningham who has been very critical of allowing boys and men to play in girls and women’s sports.

Wilson lost a state track meet to a male competitor, who identified as a girl when she was in 8^th grade, and was the first athlete in Washington to speak out publicly in opposition to having to compete against a biological male. 

The WNBA game drew national attention after Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton confronted and allegedly cussed out Wilson and another young woman over their signs supporting Cunningham. The league suspended Keaton for five home games because of the incident.

Calkins attended a rally at Key Arena the day of the game, and interviewed Wilson and later also interviewed Tumwater High School basketball player Frances Staudt, who refused to play against a biological male opponent in a game. Staudt has also been very public in support of an initiative on the November ballot in Washington that seeks to protect girls’ sports.

He wrote an article and submitted it the next day.

“I sent this to my editor on Friday July 31st. No rush to run it. It doesn't have to be in Sunday's paper or anything. And he was like, 'okay, we're going to look at it,'” said Calkins.

In the days that followed, the writer was notified the story was being run up the chain of editors.

“Then on Thursday, I got a call from my editor saying, 'well, you didn't tell us what you were doing beforehand, so we're not going to publish this.'” I didn't buy it. You wouldn't run it up the chain of command over five days…you just would have killed it on the spot, if that were the reason. I think they were just afraid of the smoke,” Calkins said.

Calkins shared that this wasn’t the first time his editors sidelined one of his columns, but when they refused to run this story, it was the final straw and he gave his two-week notice right there and then.

Calkins went public with his resignation in a Substack post on Thursday and within hours, the story blew up nationally with more interview requests than he could respond to.

“When someone comes out there and has, what I think you and I will say, a commonsense stance on it, there's a starvation for that for readers, for consumers of mainstream media, because we don't give them those columns," he said. "And part of me just wanted to give the average Joe that column that they've been waiting to read.”

The response, Calkins said, has been overwhelmingly positive, but there are critics.

“If Calkins's editors deserve any criticism, it is only for how long it took them to communicate their decision," wrote Tom Ley in an article at defector.com. "A column with a thesis as obviously wrong as the one Calkins produced should be spiked without too much consideration. If a writer brings an editor a poorly written or poorly argued column that the editor never asked for, it is the editor's duty to put it into the trash can as quickly as possible, so that the writer can find a better idea on which to spend their time.” 

Despite a few critics, Calkins said he’s been greatly encouraged by the support and is already getting job offers.

He said the Seattle Times could better serve readers by truly considering their audience.

“I think that they have kind of chosen the activist as their target audience over the average Joe," he said. "And I think a lot of the average readers have kind of been put on the back burner so that they can avoid getting the pushback from the loudest critics. And I think they should resist that.

“There's a big emphasis on diversity and you've probably heard this comparison before," he added. "There's a lot of emphasis on cosmetic diversity, but very little emphasis on thought diversity. And I feel like the Seattle Times should really focus on the second one. I think they'd be a lot better off, and I think the readers would be a lot happier, even if it pisses off some people in the newsroom."

The Center Square reached out to the Seattle Times publisher and executive editors for comment on Calkins’ resignation.

“We have no comment on this”, wrote Senior Vice President of Product, Marketing and Public Service at The Seattle Times Kati Erwert via email to The Center Square.