A P-I Editor Responds
Lots of very interesting comments have attached themselves to my post from earlier today about the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s future. They’re definitely worth a read. And below is an email I received from P-I assigning editor Scott Sunde, who’s given me permission to post his defense of the P-I on the Slog.
(For those just tuning in, this all relates to a piece I wrote for this week’s Stranger asking whether the death of the printed P-I would really be such a bad thing in the Internet age. You can read the piece here.)
And here’s Sunde’s email:
Man, am I glad that the price of The Stranger is the same as the cost of reading your opinions.Who, my friend, would write about misconduct in the Sheriff’s Office? Who would have revealed domestic spying on local peace groups? Who would have told the world the real costs of the monorail? Who would have revealed that the water school kids drink is tained with heavy metals? Would we know about asbestos dangers? Warming of Lake Washington? Declining health of Puget Sound? The injustice of the Wenatchee convictions? Your logic — and it’s a leap to call it that — is that no one gets hurt if a news-gathering operation with substantial resources dies because other outlets are flourishing. One-man bloggers who are often substituting opinion for fact?
Narrowly focused publications such are yours that avoid myriad subjects — health care, Seattle schools and so on and so on? And here’s a thought, what about the people who don’t or rarely use computers? It’s okay, I guess, that they are not informed?
Eli. Scott's an editor at the P-I, not, as you wrongly contend, a reporter. He has been for years. Try to keep up, will you?