Ryan Blethen, son of Seattle Times Publisher Frank Blethen, is apparently being groomed to take over the family business. He was recently appointed as the fourth Blethen on the editorial board . Ryan now has his own semi-regular signed column, which I suppose is the best peek into the Seattle Times of the future. Today he writes: "Orwell wrote Bush's script"
Bush and Co.'s battle against terrorism has turned into a power grab and a war on AmericansOy. My free and friendly business advice to Ryan Blethen: By all means continue to criticize those in power. But when you own the newspaper you do not need to shout like Indymedia to get attention. Not to mention that over-the-top absolutist rhetoric makes you less persuasive, will deeply offend a portion of your readers and probably hurt your bottom line. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 17, 2006 09:55 AM | Email This
Ryan, 1984 happened in 1979-1980, so you are not breaking new ground here.
The intrusion of government was tremendous from the early 70s to 1980. Or, at least what I thought so as a young 20-something. If you are a 20-something today, my Orwellian world is your non-Orwellian world, so what you are asserting today may be correct in your life experience, but not in mine.
I think we both can agree that government has become too intrusive in our lives.
Posted by: swatter on February 17, 2006 10:17 AMI know Ryan Blethen personally, although it is unlikely that he would admit it. He is even dumber than his father, which is saying a lot.
The Seattle Times is not going down the toilet because of its "leftist" politics.
In the first place, it's a lie that its politics are leftist. The wackaloons who post on this blog will never admit that they are out there on the fringe, but that's exactly where they are.
In the second place, the fringe leftists around this town dump on the newspapers from the left, saying that the papers are just right wing tools. The newspapers don't pay attention to any of you, and never will.
They're going down the toilet because the Blethens are a bunch of incompetents who have driven good employees, including managers, away, and only the toadies survive.
They are out for themselves and themselves only. If they thought it might benefit them to go totally right-wing, that's exactly what they would do. I tell you all this with some authority, having worked there for just short of 33 years.
Of course, that will not happen any time soon, because this is not that kind of town, for which I give thanks every day.
So keep coughing up your rhetorical hairballs at the newspapers. It has no effect on what they do. But if you don't buy them, and continue not to buy them, that does, absolutely, have an effect.
Posted by: Ivan on February 17, 2006 10:32 AMIn the first place, it's a lie that its politics are leftist.
Wow! You must be really smart, Ivan.
Now where do I know you from, big guy? You didn't use to hang out at the B&I store in Tacoma, did you?
Posted by: huckleberry on February 17, 2006 11:31 AM"American democracy has buckled under the weight of Americans voting scared, a weak press diluted because of consolidation by mega-public companies, and no real political alternative."
I don't know about scared, but in KC they like voting so much that many voters vote twice or more in each election.
And since the Times hasn't been involved in any "mega-public" consolidations, what's their excuse for the mega-weak reporting they've done (or failed to do) on the rotten mess Sims and Logan have caused at KC Elections?
Posted by: ewaggin on February 17, 2006 12:04 PMYou are saying this to the one person involved in that strike who made out likea bandit from it. It is I who took Frank Blethen to the cleaners, not the other way around.
Sadly, one of the terms of my settlement was a nondisclosure agreement. But I know I took Frank to the cleaners, and Frank knows it, and what you think is of no consequence.
Posted by: Ivan on February 17, 2006 12:11 PMAs for the original topic of this post, it would be nice to have some fellow reporters underground working from within to change the failed climate of today's media.
Posted by: Reporterward on February 17, 2006 12:40 PMThrere is always a place at the Seattle Times for good little conservatives who kiss up to management and do only what they are told. If you can't get hired there, you just must not be skilled enough, because you certainly fit their profile.
Take it up with them, not with me. I don't do their hiring for them. Don't blame "the market" for your lack of "professsional" advancement. Nobody likes a scab, you know.
As for our being "greedy," don't let the facts get in your way, bucko. All we wanted was to keep up with the cost of living. I guess that's some leftist, radical notion.
It was also Orwell who said:
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Posted by: JCM on February 17, 2006 01:38 PMBecause of the evolution in technology, Baby Blethen will be as relevant as Pinchy Sulzberger, and they'll both be about as relevant to the 3rd millenium as the long lost scions of The Plantagenets and of The Valois.
Who knows? Someone might even right books about them also. "The Last Blethens" or "The Last Sulzbergers."
Posted by: Cartman on February 17, 2006 01:54 PMBecause of the evolution in technology, Baby Blethen will be as relevant as Pinchy Sulzberger, and they'll both be about as relevant to the 3rd millenium as the long lost scions of The Plantagenets and of The Valois.
Who knows? Someone might even right books about them also. "The Last Blethens" or "The Last Sulzbergers."
Posted by: Cartman on February 17, 2006 01:54 PMHey, what kind of conservative are you anyway? Don't you know that it's *their* fault if they're not making the big bucks? And if you're a *real* conservative, what do you care about anyone else anyway?
Columnists making six figures (I defy you to name one) did not drive our strike. It was circulation drivers who were getting screwed left and right.
They have accepted a wage freeze now because the company has cried poor and are still getting screwed.
Don't pretend that you are "laying the facts" on me. If people aren't making what they think they should, let them form a union and bargain collectively, or quit whining.
Why in the world do you think unionized journalists are making more than nonunion ones anyway? How stupid can you be? Did you think you were making it better somehow when you, as you say, crossed our picket line?
Posted by: Ivan on February 17, 2006 01:57 PMHe is one of the hardest-working journalists in this or any other state. He is anything but a slacker. He got to where he is by skill and hard work. Sorry you're jealous.
I know who some of the overpaid slackers are, and yes, there are some, just like in any other field, but Art isn't one of them.
Here's a little hint for you: Most of them are managers.
Posted by: Ivan on February 17, 2006 02:16 PMGetting on to a real topic. I know a lot of folks here look at the Times, PI and other local newspapers and see that the stories are written by a clutch of biased liberal hacks. Fact. Why would anyone in their right minds buy slanted, poorly written, (poorly copy edited), rags that don't even cover local news events and that are filled with wire stories which you can get for free anywhere online?
The answer is nobody would, which is why you see both papers hemorrhaging circulation and ad sales.
I kind of have the naive belief that local institutions like the PI and the Times should be saved, even from themselves and they can even be fixed. Besides, where else can get Mallard Fillmore, Tank McNamara and bizarre Art Theil analogies for such a cheap price?
The tactic that is popularly espoused is to just stop buying the paper and let them collapse on their own arrogance.
Personally I feel that a strategy of engagement is the best solution. Rather than shaking your finger at them, try to offer a positive alternative. If there were more dissenting views on the editorial page, if they'd present the news in an unbiased manner and if they had more local news stories then they might get back in the black.
(Most importantly tell the Blethen family that there's a toady conservative reporter out there who'd like to turn their paper around and get them making money again!!!)
Posted by: Reporterward on February 17, 2006 03:19 PMI'd hardly call a 33-year career with the same employer "failed." I probably worked there more years than you have been alive, and probably have forgotten more about journalism than you'll ever know.
And I chose to leave, rather than beat their butts in four separate actions. They would have had to prevail in all four of them to keep me from going back there, after they broke the law and the contract trying to keep me out.
You might say I "retired undefeated," and they are paying me not to work there now, for the rest of my life.
You know why, punk? Because I had a UNION! And when a company breaks the law and violates its contracts, the UNION gets justice.
Or maybe youre just a little corporate absolutist p*ssant, and you think anything goes when you're hustling a buck.
Posted by: Ivan on February 17, 2006 03:33 PMBlethan really has some gall complaining about media takeovers. How long has the Times kept that poor dead stinking zombie, the P-I, above ground?
The P-I should have gone to the Big Printing Press in the Sky decades ago but the Times keeps pumping cash into that rotting carcass because it wants to keep the competition out of Seattle. Alas for the Times the fresh young upstarts like the Seattle Weekly and the Stranger are nipping at the gray old lady's butt.
Typical of the MSM, the craven capitulation of the Seattle Times to the Islamic mobs in the Cartoon War has accelerated it's decline. The Stranger, which printed the cartoons along with a strong article in support of them, received nationwide acclaim.
The Seattle Times is stagnating, outdated and in denial about it.
Posted by: Bill K. on February 17, 2006 11:04 PMName it. The airlines, newspapers, steel mills, our public educations system.... They're all in a world of hurt.
If it's a union job, I guess it attracts whiney malcontents that don't understand business and care about their paychecks but not their jobs.
the PI should already be dead. The Seattle Times is slowly bleeding out. I keep this in mind whenever I see any of the editorial work these geniuses foist on the public.