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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Today’s Seattle Times Opinion Pages

posted by on April 22 at 17:41 PM

Before the Slog lurkers at the Seattle Times jump down my virtual throat, let me say this: I like daily newspapers, I read daily newspapers, I occasionally write for daily newspapers, and I want to see daily newspapers survive. This criticism is offered constructively. Okay…

A lot of folks in Seattle subscribe to the New York Times—those little blue NYT bags are all over town every morning. The NYT, like a lot of papers, is having financial difficulties just now. But it’s the best daily paper in the country, truly our national newspaper. And for most daily paper readers—newsgeeks like me—the opinion pages are practically the whole point. They’re the reward for dutifully slogging through the national, international, and local stories. They’re what you look forward to, linger over, and savor. They should be engaging, challenging, entertaining and thought-provoking.

But the only thought that came to mind when I got to the opinion pages of today’s Seattle Times was… why bother? There are four opinion pieces in today’s Seattle Times and three of them were already published in the New York Times. The Bob Herbert column in today’s Seattle Times is three days old; the Nicholas Kristof column is two days old; the William Kristol column is a day old. (All three columns appeared on the NYT website the day before they appeared in print, so for those reading online the columns are actually four, three, and two days old, respectively.)

Anyone that subscribes to the NYT has very little incentive to check out the opinion pages of the Seattle Times. And without the incentive of lively, original, and local opinion pages, subscribers to the NYT are less likely to slog through the Seattle Times’ national, international, and local coverage. Let Postman write for the opinion pages. And why not give Goldy a column while you’re having your May-kover. And Sharkansky.

Give us something—anything—but day-old William Kristol.

RSS icon Comments

1

Oh I don't know Dan... Kristol has always been a day late... and a dollar short.

Posted by Dave Coffman | April 22, 2008 5:51 PM
2

It isn't just the opinion page -- check out the bylines on stories throughout the entire paper. Maybe two stories a day are written locally; the rest are all off wire services.

Posted by Peter F | April 22, 2008 5:52 PM
3

Thank you Dan for putting this out there, I totally agree with you. Since the Seattle Times did their re-design last month a huge portion of the paper is regurgitated from other sources. There is no value add to subscribing to the paper edition of the Seattle Times anymore and it pisses me off.

Because, frankly I don't need a hard copy that pulls together all the things that iGoogle pulls together for me already. What I need is local news and events coverage, I need to know what's going on here. I have PLENTY of other sources to find out what's going on elsewhere.

Posted by PopTart | April 22, 2008 5:54 PM
4

It's not like Bill Kristol has been wrong every time ... oh, wait, no, he has been.

But I agree that David Postman is a shining star that should be on the ST opinion/editorial pages, rather than hidden from view.

Mind you, I no longer get the NYT and get the WSJ until my subscription runs out, when I'll switch back to the only other local paper, the Seattle P-I.

Posted by Will in Seattle | April 22, 2008 5:57 PM
5

إخرث خب غخع يهسسهيثرفس شذفعشممغ قثشي فاث إٌُ سخ صاغ ذخوحمشهر؟

Posted by wilfred pupkin | April 22, 2008 6:38 PM
6

I love daily papers too, but I read even the PI online-only these days. The only exception is if I'm at a coffee shop and there's a free paper sitting in front of me.

Posted by Katelyn | April 22, 2008 7:10 PM
7

The other thing that's killing their brand is the low quality of the Sunday paper. In other cities it's the best paper of the week, in Seattle it's a pile of wasted pulp.

Posted by Poster girl | April 22, 2008 7:20 PM
8

I, for one, would loathe to see shitty-tipper-bad-parent-ass-hat Sharkansky get a column. It's bad enough he lives here and we have to see him around Greenlake wearing a skirt. You know he ego-Googles, so The Stranger has just given the Shark a hard on. Thanks - Hopefully he won't go out to eat to celebrate.

Posted by s | April 22, 2008 7:25 PM
9

I'd take Shark of Kristol.

Posted by Dan Savage | April 22, 2008 7:51 PM
10

"over"

Posted by Dan Savage | April 22, 2008 7:52 PM
11

Well, that's like saying I'll take a poke in the eye with a sharp stick over someone tweezing out each of my nose hairs. They are both unbearable. Has anyone considered that the daily newspaper is an artifact of the past that needs to just, well die?

Posted by s | April 22, 2008 8:00 PM
12

For the life of me, I can’t understand why people still read the New York Times.


How many more Republican Party lies, propaganda and scandals does that idiotic paper have to shove down the throats of its beleaguered and rapidly dwindling readership before the readers finally come to their senses?


Wasn’t Bill Kristol’s coronation on the Op-Ed page the final “fuck you?”


Like the majority of the US media, they treat their readers like fools; it's insulting.

Posted by Original Andrew | April 22, 2008 8:36 PM
13

NYT is stuck with Kristol for a brief, face-saving time, until they can unceremoniously dump him. (At the rate he's going--Passover greetings!--psst, Bill, maybe you should take over for finger-on-the-pulse-of-the-nation Charlie Gibson over there--about two more weeks. And a retraction in his debut column! It really doesn't get better than that.) But the Seattle Times actually chooses to print Kristol. And don't forget, they gave Michelle Malkin her start in life. And they had Goldberg, and they still run Krauthammer, whose brain has slowly, but is now rapidly, turning to jello after his New Republic days. Well, I've read the Seattle Times for over 30 years and it's sad. They never made the transition from thoughtful afternoon commentary on the day to feisty morning paper. They lost the JOA stalemate with Hearst. They're really just hanging on because the next generation of Blathers, I mean Blethens, has nothing better to do.

Posted by local | April 22, 2008 9:07 PM
14

Word, Dan. Why do they reprint the same old, bad shit that was in the NYT? Hell, I'd rather see a daily column by Tim Eyman over Kristol. (I'd probably write in more often!)

Posted by Greg | April 22, 2008 10:01 PM
15

You should read a quality paper like the Wall Street Journal.

Opinion's? Who gives a damn about opinions, everybody and their mother has an opinion about something. I read the paper for stories and information, not so some hired intellectual can go off on the nonsense of the day. That's what the letters page is for.

Posted by Cato | April 22, 2008 10:08 PM
16

Coming from the guy that's given us a consistently batshit crazy neo-Michelle Malkinite of the left in Erica Barnett, I don't think your the one to criticize another paper's editorial content.

That said, point one Savage.

The Times needs to clean house something fierce. Too bad their union didn't have the guts to allow it (sooner) and management is too much of a pussy to get rid of the dead weight on their end.

Posted by I'm a Nuclear Bomb | April 22, 2008 10:30 PM
17

C'mon, no Times staff or bosses responding here? Or maybe in the morning? We gotta hear something from you guys

Posted by Perfect Reader | April 23, 2008 12:02 AM
18

Even if Kristol was producing jewels on a regular basis, Dan's point is solid.

Posted by jayhoytt | April 23, 2008 12:05 AM
19

@6 and @7 win.

Actually, I tend to read the PI and Times in print only when I'm at the coffee shop or local diner or bakery and someone else bought it ... so very good points.

Posted by Will in Seattle | April 23, 2008 12:24 AM
20

This is all part of a larger, growing trend. The daily paper is less about news and more about advertising revenue. Like the problem with the PI, I live in Toronto and one of the main national papers, the Globe and Mail, has been inserting an increasingly amount of "People Magazine" content lately.

Sure, that stuff is entertaining, though certainly not newsworthy. The number of wire feed stories has increased dramatically while the domestic news content has waned.

The trend overall is away from news reporting and over to profit driven advertising display. The movie Lions for Lambs touched on this recently...how the media is selling out.

The shift in media is a big problem. I am not sure what comes next.

Posted by kenny | April 23, 2008 5:34 AM
21

Completely agree. I actually canceled my subscription. For about the past month I kept having deja vu when reading the Seattle Times Saturday and Sunday editions. I realized that I'd already read practically every article the day or so before online. When ST made the announcement several months ago that they would be including more NYT content, I thought it would strengthen their news coverage. Unfortunately they didn't clarify that they'd just be reprinting stale articles. If they can't figure out how to make their print editions something more than a rehashing of old news, they really are in trouble.

Posted by rb | April 23, 2008 9:16 AM
22

Larry Stone rules!

Posted by DOUG. | April 23, 2008 9:39 AM
23

@14, Dude are you psychic? Or do you work at the Seattle Times? There's an editorial by Tim Eyman in today's paper.

Posted by PopTart | April 23, 2008 9:44 AM
24

All those staff writers and they run wire copy that most of us have already read. No wonder they're tanking.

Posted by Barbara | April 23, 2008 10:05 AM
25

@23: Weird. Although maybe not so weird, because Eyman has a column in the Times whenever he's trying to get some new, asinine initiative on the ballot.

However, there was also a good, local editorial in yesterday's paper:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004364209_domke22.html

Posted by Greg | April 23, 2008 12:40 PM
26

And you know that joke: Who's the best author at the Seattle Times? Some guy named Associated Press.

Posted by Greg | April 23, 2008 12:42 PM

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