The view here for some years has been that newspaper endorsements tend not to be very decisive in most political races, with the possible and periodic exception of down-ballot races where few people know the candidates. Seattle's Crosscut site adds a new twist this: When two competing news sites endorse, which carries more weight? The question here concerns the city's newspaper behemoth, the Times, and the scrappy indie weekly, the Stranger. "The Stranger has positioned itself on the left, appealing to the young urbanists who live on Capitol Hill and Ballard and never missing an opportunity to insult the Seattle Times. The Times, meanwhile, continues to hold its ground as the voice of moderates — “socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” according to the editor of the Seattle Times editorial page Kate Riley. From the outside, it looks like something of an arms race between the two — with the papers both buying advertising space for elections-related Google searches." There's an argument that, when factoring in online analytics, the Stranger's endorsement, which is apt to be more emphatically stated and aimed at the gut, may actually be the more significant of the two. Read and see. - rs (photo/Jon S)
Posts tagged as “Seattle Times”
In the window, in the Blue House/Stapilus |
What you see here is the Blue House, a former residential building located a block or so from the Washington statehouse. It is where what remains of the statehouse press corps has its offices, a non-extravagant but functional place for the reporters. (And, from time to time, Bob the Cat.)
Directing your attention to the windows to the right of the doorway, you'll be looking at the Olympia office of the Seattle Times. Now look to the center window, and you'll see a patch of red. That is an old newspaper dispenser formerly used - and still painted for - the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has quit printing its paper editions. The P-I's slogan long was, "It's in the P-I."
Can't be helped: Now, it appears, the P-I is in the Times.
You have to wonder what Seattle Times columnist, as opposed to Seattle Council member, Jean Godden would have written about this:
"A Seattle Times reporter was denied entrance to a budget briefing on Thursday afternoon. Tom Von Bronkhorst, a legislative aide to Councilmember Jean Godden, physically dragged the reporter away from it by the strap of her bag."
We're not so totally one-sided on the matter of public meetings as to argue that there are, from time to time, legitimate reasons for shutting the doors. But there are no very damn many, and they certainly don't include the fashioning of budgets - which are financial documents describing how the public's money is going to be spent for, one hopes, the public good.
Leave aside the matter of law, that shutting out the public from a budget session is almost certainly illegal. As well: How is it possibly defensible as a matter of public ethics? Maybe council member Godden could offer some enlightenment . . .
ANOTHER VIEW The Slog has a very different take on what was going on - primarily, that the meeting was informal and concerned budget cuts, not budget setting. Still doesn't especially convince us away from the main point.
A sad day we knew was coming soon: Tomorrow marks the end of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as a print publication. After tomorrow, it becomes web-only. One intriguing point: It will be "outside the JOA" - outside the agreement with the Seattle Times, with which its current website is linked. So this will be something new.
What will the web version be like? How will it differ from, say, Crosscut or Publicola? The early indications were not at all clear. The paper itself said "The so-called 'community platform' will feature breaking news, columns from prominent Seattle residents, community databases, photo galleries, 150 citizen bloggers and links to other journalistic outlets." That might have been one thing with a newsroom the size of the print P-I's; what it will be with 20 or so will emerge in the days ahead.
The transition goes on.
Post-Intelligencer flag |
UPDATE The bad rumors have turned real. This just in: "The Seattle P-I is being put up for sale, and if after 60 days it has not sold, it will either be turned into a Web-only publication or discontinued entirely. 'One thing is clear: at the end of the sale process, we do not see ourselves publishing in print,' said Steven Swartz, president of the Hearst Corp.'s newspaper division. Swartz addressed the P-I's newsroom at about noon Friday, flanked by P-I editor and publisher Roger Oglesby and Lincoln Millstein, Hearst's senior vice president for digital media."
UPDATE 2 The corporate letter on the situation.
Last night, when KING-TV reported that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was about to be put up for sale - as necessary legal prologue to closing it in a month or so - our reaction was caution. The story apparently had a single unnamed source, and everyone quoted by name, at the P-I and the Times, said they knew nothing of a planned sale.
That doesn't mean the report wasn't credible - metro papers all over the country are in this kind of position, and if a sale/closure isn't being mapped out now, it's probably not far off.
Midday today, the story is looking more likely because of the response, when finally elicited, from the publisher (Roger Oglesby) of the P-I: "There's nothing I can tell you now. I will call you later today."
Uh oh.
The Northwest hasn't lost many daily papers in the last few years: after, of course, a long stretch when the numerous multi-paper cities slid to one apiece. (The last lost was the east-King County paper based at Bellevue, a couple of years back.) The loss of the P-I means the last city in the Northwest with two general-interest daily newspapers will have just one. (more…)