SEATTLE — This story was originally posted to MyNorthwest.com
In the early 1970s, Joel Connelly had recently earned a graduate degree from the University of Washington and was sure he would stay there for doctoral studies. Then one summer, he took a replacement job as a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of the city’s two daily newspapers.
He quickly realized he could do things as a reporter that he never could as a college professor.
Connelly got a tip that Larrabee State Park in his hometown of Bellingham was likely to be in a land exchange with the Department of Natural Resources, which, he was told, would log the bejesus out of it. Connelly reported it, and Bellingham residents were outraged. Within 48 hours, the deal was axed — and the area that would have been cleared remains untouched today.
“Joel Connelly was our state’s premier political analyst,” Governor Bob Ferguson wrote Wednesday night. “He had a real gift for weaving our state’s political history into his stories. I had the good fortune of getting to know Joel well, and I’m saddened by his death. Our state is poorer for it.”
Connelly died Wednesday following years of health complications. He was 78.
5 decades of covering Seattle politics, from mayors to presidents
Connelly retired from the online P-I in 2020, but never stopped reporting. He said his recent work for Post Alley was some of his most invigorating. And wasn’t that exactly Joel, friends said, that even on the day he died, he posted a column that morning?
His first P-I byline appeared in January 1970, when Connelly was a University of Washington political science graduate student writing a freelance article. Connelly, whose mother was a renowned journalist, started at the P-I full-time in 1973, covering the uphill re-election race of then-Mayor Wes Uhlman. He has covered every Seattle mayoral race since, either for the P-I or other publications. Connelly covered politics, education, worked in the Washington D.C. bureau, covered conventions and campaigns — even the Mariners occasionally.
The first time that presidential candidate Barack Obama was interviewed by the Seattle media, it was at Joel’s request. He was still a long shot for the presidency when that interview happened without handlers in 2007, but Connelly predicted, “Obama’s fortunes are going in the opposite direction.”
Dan DeLong, the photographer for that Obama article, recalled a moment when Bill Clinton was in town and picked Connelly out of a crowd by name. That instance was one of many between them. When Hillary Clinton was in Seattle, they would trade memories, too.
“That was Joel, DeLong said. “Everybody seemed to know him.”
And loved him, too.
He made us a better-informed community for decades, former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels wrote. Pulitzer-winning reporter Eric Nalder said Connelly could recreate scenes and quotes from events big and small.
“He was an insistent, supportive mentor to me from the beginning of my writing career,” former Stranger news editor Dominic Holden wrote. “Even though we fought for sport and seemed to disagree about everything, except the important stuff.”
Colleagues recall photographic memory, dedication to truth
Friends recalled how Connelly seemed to have a photographic memory, and the recall that could write it on deadline. Artificial intelligence may be able to fetch Joel’s work, fellow P-I columnist Art Thiel said, but it can’t weave together the story or our region with the context of our social conscience like Connelly could.
Once in 2007, when a P-I co-worker asked him about a parks department leader he’d written about in the 1970s, Connelly recalled the date, section, page, and specific paragraphs of a feature story that would have helpful info.
“Joel Connelly dying is like Seattle’s version of the Smithsonian closing for good,” friend and former Seattle Weekly Editor in Chief Mike Seely said. “He enjoyed the fantastically full life that he sought and deserved. I loved him and will miss him immensely. He was nothing short of a civil treasure.”
When the P-I’s print edition closed in March 2009, staff were offered two weeks’ pay for each year they’d worked there. For Connelly, a respected and well-paid columnist, that amounted to a hearty six-figure deposit.
But he skipped the severance and instead took a job with the online P-I — at a fraction of his original salary. There’s still a drive in me, “particularly to try to save places, keep us from being Californicated,” he told friends. That is worth more than money.
“There has to be a certain serendipity that you try to put yourself in the place where news is going to happen,” Connelly once said. “What you hear with your own ears is sometimes a lot more revealing than what you see on the screen.”
A proud Notre Dame graduate, Connelly cheered on his co-workers’ successes and built genuine rapport with reporters more than half his age. While many from his generation feared or complained about social media, Connelly embraced it.
“If he had a scoop, which he often did, he would come in with a huge grin on his face,” said Sarah Rupp, who was Connelly’s managing editor at the online P-I. “It was an absolute joy for him.”
Connelly wasn’t afraid to take jabs, which he did in columns and on social media, regardless of party affiliation. Sometimes, when people would punch back, he’d smile and say, “One sentence comes with a thousand words in response.”
“He had strong views, but he never presumed that those who agreed with him were better than people who didn’t,” friend and former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Carlson wrote Wednesday. “Joel is what journalism needs and is rapidly losing — someone who deeply understands the beat he is covering, who shows genuine interest and curiosity in the people involved in it, and makes what they do interesting to others.”
Life beyond bylines: Christmas parties, Mariners hopes, and Chuckanut drives
Connelly shared a home in Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood with life partner Michelle “Mickie” Pailthorp, who died in 2002. To hear him talk about Mickie, you could tell how much he loved her. And their Christmas parties were must-attend events — a who’s who of public officials, candidates, political journalists, and other Seattleites in their orbit.
When Mayor Ed Murray beat incumbent Mike McGinn in 2013, some staffers from each side first met at Joel’s Christmas party. Senator Maria Cantwell was a frequent guest, and Connelly would thank her for specific votes protecting the environment.
When Connelly moved to the Horizon House, a senior-living facility on First Hill, he and longtime U.S. Representative Jim McDermott planned political events, drawing mayoral candidates and other big names.
Even as his body was failing, Connelly had a long to-do list — and he found ways to adapt. Photos on the walls of his Horizon House room reminded him of his favorite national parks. When he couldn’t drive, he rallied friends for a favorite trip down Chuckanut Drive. And he still held out hope for finally seeing a Mariners World Series win.
“We are sorry that he wasn’t able to accomplish his other goal, hoping to witness the Trump regime’s demise,” stepchildren Melissa, Aaron, and Bellamy Pailthorp wrote in a post announcing his passing. They also said plans are in the works for a celebration of life and a memorial service.
While Connelly was known for his political reporting, it was his sincerity that showed through. When he arrived in the 1970s, he had a kindness that made people feel close to him — even if they didn’t know him well, friend and former co-worker Joleen Burgess said. When you’d read his columns, it still feels like you’re teammates working together, recalled photographer Jordan Stead, a colleague from the online P-I days.
That was true for Joel, too.
“I cherish the job that I do,” he once said, “but I also cherish the people I’m doing it with.”
©2026 Cox Media Group
