Seattle Times Circulation took a major profit dive as its Sunday money maker continued to lose readership. The Times' weekday circulation grew only 1,141 -- 0.5 percent -- to 220,863. Average circulation for the combined PI/Times Sunday paper, however, nose dived some 14,403 -- 3.4 percent -- to 409,231; all of this in the face of the influx of population in the King and Snohomish County Areas. Today's circulation report is the first since the publishers of the PI and the Times settled a four-year legal dispute over their joint operating agreement (JOA). The settlement included provisions requiring the Times, which handles the business side for both papers, to take new steps to boost P-I circulation. The Times has already shut down many of its bureau operations and is beginning some major layoffs because of the decline in its ad revenues.
As for the Everett Herald it was up marginally (now at about 50,000) but even so its parent company The Washington Post's circulation did a clockwise rotation down the porcelain bowl to 673,180, down 3.6 percent. Insiders expect MAJOR cuts within the Post's operations and layoffs maybe announced shortly in Washington DC AND Everett, WA.
I talked to a retired local newspaper executive and asked him why the papers are losing circulation. His response: "I think a large number of former readers cancelled their subscriptions to the local newspapers because of their continued move to the extreme left politically combined with an incessant anti-business drumbeat, both in editorial content and the stories being written by inexperienced, under paid and ill educated (his words!) reporters. Also, many of the corporations who ran help wanted ads have turned to the internet and are getting better results on the Monster board with their tech and high end job advertisements. Add to that the major decline in real estate advertising and you have a disaster financially for most of the newspapers."

I wonder why these morons don't get it?