March 16, 2008
Some Advice For The Seattle Times
Don't imitate the Los Angeles Times.
Not if you want to stay in business, anyway.
Perhaps those who run the Seattle Times will understand this point better if I give them an
example. At the end of 2005, the Los Angeles Times dropped editorial cartoonist
Michael Ramirez. That was a mistake.
The Seattle Times probably could not afford to hire Ramirez away from the Investor's Business
Daily, but they could run his cartoons from time to time. For instance, many of us would be
pleasantly surprised if they were to run his
March 17th cartoon. (You may want to
save a personal copy of that cartoon, just in case the Seattle Times doesn't take my advice.)
(At one time, the Seattle Times was using so much material from the Los Angeles Times that I began to
wonder if the paper should change its name to "Los Angeles Times: Northern Edition". I don't
know if that is still true, since I don't read the Seattle Times as often as I once did.)
Posted by Jim Miller at March 16, 2008
05:47 PM | Email This
1. I think there are a couple of things going on:
1. People don't trust newspapers anymore as the most accurate source of news.
2. People now have multiple choices for sources of information
3. There is a generational change in the habits and attention span of the young. Many simply do not like to read and have very short attention spans, so newspapers are not their preferred information portal.
I think all print publications will be having a hard time unless they have a lot of pictures.
2. The newspapers face a double whammy with younger people going for new media, and older people like me turned off by underhanded reporting.
Newspaper buying is a habit that is built over years, and can be overturned with only a few episodes of shoddy journalism.
3. I honestly believe the Blethan family wants to kill the Seattle Times. From that hit piece on UW football back in January to Ryan Blethan, they are doing their very best to piss off or insult the intelligence of their readers.
Thank goodness for the internet so I never have to buy the Times or P-I.
4. Mike Fancher is Editor at Large of The Seattle Times and one who tries to give the paper an air of respectability. Fact is the Times has gone so far to the left since the 1970's that it has in fact lost percentage readership in the population around Puget Sound. In other words each year brings a lower percentage of people who suscribe to the Times than the year before. The Times has done well during this last few years because of the real estate boom in the area. But now with real estate advertising down and things a near disaster with the Sunday Want Ad Section, which used to be the gravy train the paper lived on; THINGS ARE NOT SO GOOD AT THE TIMES.
The folks at the now defunct King County Journal were warned repeatedly by business men and women on the Eastside over the years to halt its slide to the political far left and it ignored those warnings! Now it is history. The Times has a long way to go to be in the 'dust bin', but let's face it: PRINTING INK ON PAPER AND DISTRIBUTING THE RESULTS TO HOMES AROUND WESTERN WASHINGTON IS OBSOLETE! Hey, it contributes to 'global warming'. I use the paper to get grocery coupons, to LIGHT THE FIRE IN MY RUSSIAN Fireplace and to sometimes pick up the poo one of my pets leaves on the floor!
5. The "newsroom" of America's dailies have become such echo chambers for the left that writers and editors truly believe they are printing balanced stories, editorials and cartoons. They are so out of touch they attribute loss of subscribers to the multitude of news sources rather than the stench of their product. As russell garrard states @ 2, I was one who habitually sprung for the P-I and then the Times for over 35 years.....as of now, I haven't purchased either for nearly 10 years. They will die, subscriber by subscriber.
6. Good cartoon. Also love the March 14th carton showing Eliot Spitzer standing in front of a bunch of microphones only a few feet high, so he could...er...speak with the part of his body he's been thinking with (clue: not his brain) for the last several years.
7. Has anyone noticed the lack of reporting the Obama/Wright fiasco in the Seattle Times? Once again this was all over the News channels on Sunday. The Seattle Times has had one report on this in Saturdays paper (does anyone read Saturdays paper?) If this is'nt "news supression", what is? Or, maybe their in a news "radio silence"!
8. Has anyone noticed the lack of reporting the Obama/Wright fiasco in the Seattle Times? Once again this was all over the News channels on Sunday. The Seattle Times has had one report on this in Saturdays paper (does anyone read Saturdays paper?) If this is'nt "news supression", what is? Or, maybe their in a news "radio silence"!
9. Has anyone noticed the lack of reporting the Obama/Wright fiasco in the Seattle Times? Once again this was all over the News channels on Sunday. The Seattle Times has had one report on this in Saturdays paper (does anyone read Saturdays paper?) If this is'nt "news supression", what is? Or, maybe their in a news "radio silence"!
10. I gave up on the Times around 10 years ago. A few days after I cancelled my daily and Sunday subscription, I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal and suddenly realized what a
good paper can offer a reader. Been reading it ever since. Love it.
Be that as it may, the reason I stopped the Times is that I found that they were editing out whole chunks of important information in wire stories. View changing information no less. I took this as the Times censoring to sway opinion and/or protect liberal orthodoxy and didn't like that at all. So pfffftt to them.
The "writings" of Ryan Blethen that I have seen only affirm that I have made the correct decision in not subscribing to the Times. Like I wrote Ryan one time after reading a particularly foolish article: "I'd call you a moron but I don't wish to insult morons generally." He did write back but from his response it was obvious that he didn't get it. Yeesh.
11. I usually avoid phone solicitations upon reading their caller ID, but I love to answer when the Times calls and tell them why I do not re-subscribe (a reason utterly left out of the linked editorandpublisher article) - specifically it's leftward slide. I guess their business model is to 'preach to the choir', considering the socialist nature of Seattle. They don't realize that there is some conservative base here, evident by the void filled by KVI, KTTH and KKOL.
I used to laugh uncontrollably when they would follow-up with "...then, how about the P-I?". Not anymore, they're probably about equally biased these days.
12. I recall when Dick Cheney had his hunting accident, I wanted to write a letter to the editor regarding coverage, so I rounded up all the Seattle Times articles. There were 13 articles over about 2 weeks, several of them front page. No detail or ramification went unexplored by the Times, regarding what was nothing more than a recreational accident. It was little more newsworthy than a Bush bicycle accident or Kerry ski mishap.
Contrast that to the Times' coverage of Wright--one report in the Sat. edition, if the above poster is correct.
13. Vice-President shooting a fellow hunter in the head.
No different than someone falling off their bike or crashing on a ski slope?
Really?
14. Sure. You forgot to mention that it was an accidental shooting. Maybe even a better example would be a boating or swimming accident, since far more people die each year (especially around here) by recreation-related drownings than from accidental shootings.
I say it was worth a one day, 200 word story, maybe with a follow up on the victim's condition after a day or two. Unless, that is, you're one of the loons who thought it was a deliberate 'hit' and not an accident.
What is the logic behind making it such a big story just because the implement is a gun, versus, skis, a bicycle, or a boat, which are also perfectly capable of resulting in serious injury or death?
15. Clips of President Ford tripping down the steps from Air Force One still make their rounds.
What Presidents, and occasionally what Vice-Presidents do, makes news.
Accident - yes (bet he doesn't have any hunting buddies anymore) it was news, interesting news, and lasting news.
