Slog Comments
Reporters at The Seattle Times "Dismayed" Over Ad Buy, Working on Letter of Protest to Publisher Frank Blethen
1
Eat shit, Frank Blethen. I'm one of the last print subscribers you've got, and I've got a renewal notice sitting on the kitchen table as I type this. It's going into the recycle bin.
5
Interesting development. Here we have The Stranger, which is completely slanted, excoriating The Seattle Times for being slanted. You know, the whole idea of an "objective" press is a commercial convention born in the 20th century. Well, guess what? The entire definition of "the press" has been pretty much eviscerated, so this is what it comes down to.
The Seattle Times is going where the money is. What's left of their subscriber base is older and more conservative, so they've decided to reflect them. Maybe The Stranger should publish daily.
The Seattle Times is going where the money is. What's left of their subscriber base is older and more conservative, so they've decided to reflect them. Maybe The Stranger should publish daily.
7
Will every ad include a note telling readers that it was paid for by the Times? Sort of the flipside of the "special advertising section" disclaimer that accompanies advertorial pieces?
Also, @ 4 & 5, what 6 said.
Also, @ 4 & 5, what 6 said.
9
I think it's kinda-sorta amusing to see such umbrage being taken by people who haven't paid for a Seattle Times subscription for years. If you get it for free over the Internet, why the fuck should they care what you think of them, anyway?
10
#5
I was all ready to say the same!
Normally these "newspapers" are little more than newsletters for the party and ruling class they support. Their "articles" are little more than notices of what, when and where is going to happen regardless of popular opinion. ("We're building a stadium. It's decided. Everyone says yes. Everyone else, there's the doorknob.")
The hilarity is that libs all of sudden take umbrage when the cannon get turned around.
I was all ready to say the same!
Normally these "newspapers" are little more than newsletters for the party and ruling class they support. Their "articles" are little more than notices of what, when and where is going to happen regardless of popular opinion. ("We're building a stadium. It's decided. Everyone says yes. Everyone else, there's the doorknob.")
The hilarity is that libs all of sudden take umbrage when the cannon get turned around.
11
This is such a great story! Blethen really screwed the pooch on this. And then probably shot it too.
12
By the way, the same problems that afflict the Seattle Times afflict the Stranger. You see, all the money is in paper and ink. All of it. Internet-only publications cannot pay their bills. The Stranger's back is to exactly the same wall as the Seattle Times's back.
13
If you doubt me, look at Publicola. They couldn't make it online, and still can't. At the moment, they are being subsidized by Seattle Met, which pays more than 100% of its bills from single-copy sales of their paper magazine. By the way, where is it written that only "objective" journalism is journalism?
14
Remember: The only purpose of editorial content in a newspaper is to lend credibility to the advertising, and then only with the readers of the ads. If you're reading the Seattle Times online, you're not reading the ads and they're not making jack shit from it. I honestly don't know why newspapers even bother to be on the Internet. It's a financial black hole that will never pay off.
15
The Stranger doesn't claim to be a "newspaper of record," although frankly, the field has been wide open for some time...
16
@14 depends.
You can sell the tracking info on where you go on a news website to advertisers, actually.
You can sell the tracking info on where you go on a news website to advertisers, actually.
17
MR G, I love you. I've now been obsessively following SLOG long enough for a new regular to appear - and it's you! Keep up the good work.
This is how I felt when pitchforkmedia.org changed it's name to pitchfork.com.........
This is how I felt when pitchforkmedia.org changed it's name to pitchfork.com.........
18
@5 -- Difference is, the Seattle Times pretends to be an unbiased "traditional" news source. The Stranger's bias is clear.
@Eli -- Don't you dare let Joni get away with spinning this on Weekday.
@Eli -- Don't you dare let Joni get away with spinning this on Weekday.
19
Nice try, #17.
#16, the tracking revenues are a piss in the ocean compared to ad space in a print publication.
#16, the tracking revenues are a piss in the ocean compared to ad space in a print publication.
20
#15, please provide evidence that the Seattle Times claims to be a "newspaper of record," and then tell us exactly what that is.
21
Am I the only one that feels Mister G has gotten incredibly bitter and defensive in the last 24 hours? I mean, your posts are usually annoying, but I don't think I've seen you post 3-4 times on nearly. every. story. until now.
Did someone at The Stranger kill your dog or something?
Your half-assed points have been shot down in every single post about the Seattle Times and yet you persist.
This is actually a very interesting story. I don't know why you feel the need to defend them, but I'm more interested to hear what the ST's own staff has to say (which apparently shows how bad this move is)
As far as the story goes:
If this gets enough negative press I wonder how they'd react...would they print a retraction? That doesn't seem doable in the circumstances...I guess it would just be an apology?
Did someone at The Stranger kill your dog or something?
Your half-assed points have been shot down in every single post about the Seattle Times and yet you persist.
This is actually a very interesting story. I don't know why you feel the need to defend them, but I'm more interested to hear what the ST's own staff has to say (which apparently shows how bad this move is)
As far as the story goes:
If this gets enough negative press I wonder how they'd react...would they print a retraction? That doesn't seem doable in the circumstances...I guess it would just be an apology?
22
Wow, who the fuck is "Mister G" and why does he have all this free time to be blathering all over Slog alla sudden?
Please, Mr. G: If you can't restrain yourself to one post per Slog item per day go back to some other part of the internets that will tolerate you. Like Reddit.
Please, Mr. G: If you can't restrain yourself to one post per Slog item per day go back to some other part of the internets that will tolerate you. Like Reddit.
24
#21, I actually think it's a bad move for them. But for the Stranger to condemn it is hypocritical. Of course, the average "progressive" in Seattle is every last bit as hypocritical as, say, Mitt Romney, so I guess it's gotten to the point that you people don't even notice what you are. And then there's the Stranger's commenters, most of whom are too cheap, too poor or both to pay for a newspaper of any kind, yet somehow feel entitled to pontificate about what a business they don't patronize does.
25
@24, Hey troll, you have already been told that the Stranger didn't claim to be non-partisan unlike the Seattle Times. So, get lost and try to go spew your hate on a conservative blog as you do here and see whether you can. Alternatively, you can always try medicine for your condition.
27
@26, playing tough guy on your keyboard? You don't even have the courage to acknowledge that the Stranger doesn't pretend to be "objective" unlike the corporate whores you defend at every opportunity.
29
#27 Since when does the editor and editorial board of the Times or any newspaper claim to be objective? They write opinions . They make endorsements. It's not the newsroom. Dumbass
30
@29, As if the editorial slant of news coverage was different from that of the opinion page. I have a bridge for sale etc
31
Re Mr. G, it's always the classy folks who try to insult others by comparing them to women. (See @23, 26, 28.)
32
#31, males can be whores. Besides, it's more than a little laughable to be given "class" lessons at The Stranger.
34
I assume no one here actually pays Seattle Times a penny of their hard-earned mullah. F the SEA Times.
35
@30 how would you know? i'm sure you don't even read the times. but feel free to provide some examples
36
uh oh.....
WASHINGTON DC (AP) — Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped 46,000 last week to 388,000, the highest in four months.
WASHINGTON DC (AP) — Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped 46,000 last week to 388,000, the highest in four months.
37
@20, they make this claim in every issue, by printing those agate type legal notices in the back -- foreclosures, court notices, and so on. The law says those notices have to be printed in a newspaper of record, and lo! There they are. Notice also that The Stranger doesn't print them.
38
@35, In other words, you make the extraordinary claim that the content of the paper doesn't by and large reflect the bias of the owner yet I should be the one providing evidence? It's not usually the way it works.
39
#38, you are not a customer of the Seattle Times, so please tell us why they should give a fuck what you think about them.
40
#37, two things to say about that. First off, this year the city of Seattle announced that many of their legal notices would no longer be printed in any newspaper but rather would be published on the Internet. Secondly, if a "newspaper of record" is simply one that prints legal notices, then please tell us exactly what obligation it has to kow-tow to a bunch of hipsters who aren't even customers anyway?
As someone who actually pays for the Seattle Times, I don't think it was a good idea for them to run those ads. But I have some standing to hold that opinion, because I'm their customer. You are just a whining freeloader. Who gives a shit what you think? Really, who does? And why should they?
As someone who actually pays for the Seattle Times, I don't think it was a good idea for them to run those ads. But I have some standing to hold that opinion, because I'm their customer. You are just a whining freeloader. Who gives a shit what you think? Really, who does? And why should they?
41
@40, what the fuck are you going on about? Until yesterday, I was a customer as well. I canceled my subscription -- which I think sends a significantly more powerful message than the fat load of nothing you bring to the discussion. Any discussion.
As for the other thing, you asked a question and I answered it. Words have meanings, whether you understand them or not. Mostly not, in your particular case. The Times is, in fact, a newspaper of record. "Many" does not mean "all", and the City of Seattle is far from the only governmental entity that publishes legal notices, as five seconds of looking at the paper will prove. You're a customer but you haven't read it. Basically, all you are is a bunch of knee-jerking synapses; you're about as valuable a commenter here as a frog leg in seventh-grade science.
Go away, punk. You annoy me.
As for the other thing, you asked a question and I answered it. Words have meanings, whether you understand them or not. Mostly not, in your particular case. The Times is, in fact, a newspaper of record. "Many" does not mean "all", and the City of Seattle is far from the only governmental entity that publishes legal notices, as five seconds of looking at the paper will prove. You're a customer but you haven't read it. Basically, all you are is a bunch of knee-jerking synapses; you're about as valuable a commenter here as a frog leg in seventh-grade science.
Go away, punk. You annoy me.
42
#42, like I say, publishing legal notices confers no obligation on the Seattle Times to conform to your completely hypocritical non-standards for what constitutes acceptable "journalism." I don't for a microsecond believe that you were a Seattle Times customer, by the way. This city's "progressives" are happy to do exactly what the Mittster loves to do: tell whatever lie seems to work at a particular moment.
By the way, if you're going to insist on sucking my dick, could you at least keep your teeth off of it? Thanks.
By the way, if you're going to insist on sucking my dick, could you at least keep your teeth off of it? Thanks.
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