The Seattle Times is a Family-Owned Newspaper… and apparently the family owns its employees’ Instant Messages too. Via Seattlest:

The Seattle Times, the Pacific Northwest region’s most widely read newspaper, is deploying IMlogic IM Manager(TM) to gain visibility into staff instant messaging (IM) use, ensure compliance with internal and external use policies and prevent cyber threats from entering its network. With IMlogic IM Manager, the daily newspaper will securely manage reporters’ confidential IM interviews with sources and the new media group’s conversations about managing and supporting content online in real-time.

The Seattle Times Company found itself at a crossroads earlier this year as IM use continued to grow. IT managers worried about infrastructure exposure to cyber threats and whether staff was complying with the same usage policies already established for e-mail.

Now all the Seattle Times has left to tackle is the notes-passed-in-homeroom problem, the graffiti-in-bathroom-stalls problem, and the employees-who-don’t-love-Big-Brother problem.