News Nov 14, 2012 at 4:00 am

The Math Says Yes!

AvgeekJoe/Flickr

Comments

1
I do not think that the experiment cost Rob McKenna the election. I do not understand the fixation on The Seattle Times. Its editorials are wrong-headed, preferring political lightweights and social conservatives (Mike McGavick, Susan Hutchinson, John Koster). It is baffling to me how anyone could take the endorsements seriously. The editorial staff must know that they write crap, the subscription staff must be told daily that the crap editorials are what keeps some away from paying for delivery, yet they persist.

The headline would be more correct if it were "Did The Seattle Times get burned on its experiment?"

I did note that in polls most respondents between the ages of 18 - 30 preferred McKenna to Inslee. The Stranger never picked up on this or offered theories for this peculiarity.
2
And just this morning I noticed they've upped the price of that rag to a DOLLAR. A dollar for a crossword puzzle and Cisco Morris once a week? I don't think so.
3
It's funny that The Stranger has been using the slogan "Seattle's Only Newspaper" for a while now. Given the Seattle Times' using it's own funds to advertise for a candidate at all, it can hardly be called a newspaper. Turns out The Stranger is Seattle's Only Newspaper.
4
@ 2

NOT FAIR! It isn't easy to keep reloading a broken copy of Spellcheck on your 486 every three days.
5
I feel guilty every time I've purchased a newsstand copy of The Seattle Times--including today's 11/14/12 edition! At least I didn't take out a subscription! What the heck--I only read the comics, horoscopes, and do the puzzles---and brave the Opinion Page on occasion. The blatant ads for McKenna were atrocious!

Seriously, what was The Seattle Times thinking when enacting this doomed to crash "pilot"? Were the Blethens profit lusting? Did all those Pulitzer Prizes go to someone's head?

KUDOS, Stranger, for indeed being Seattle's Only Newspaper!
6
I've been a Seattle Times subscriber for over 25 years, I've even worked for the company while in college. I have always been forgiving of their editorial opinions and their lame gubernatorial recommendations. However their advertising for McKenna in their own paper crossed a journalistic line. I value newspapers and the service they provide to public information and discourse, but it pains me to say I am unsubscribing. The Blethens took it too far. It stunk and they knew it.
7
@6: I wonder how many others disgruntled by the The Seattle Times will follow suit in canceling their subscriptions? Hopefully the 100 staffers brave enough to protest the Blethens' hideous political act of greed didn't lose their jobs.
8
The Stranger has gotten it wrong from the beginning. Seattle Times never said they were trying to sway the election, they said were showing the effectiveness of a political ad in their paper.

They're trying to win money from advertisers not votes.
9
@8 is right. The Times execs framed this as a strategy intended to attract advertisers (though no one explained why a newspaper that abandons any pretext of neutrality would impress advertisers)
10
@8: They can "frame" it any way they want. The bottom line is, the people who run the paper were doing all they could to get McKenna into office. But, of course they can't just come out and say that. Duh.
11
@8 & 9: I agree more with @10 Eckstein. Regardless of the publisher's actual intentions, however blatant or subtle as a newspaper, the biased public endorsement of Rob McKenna was a stupid move.

Okay. The election's over and I'm shutting up now.

Please wait...

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