Comments

1
I think they make a pretty clear statement:

As a business, we're allowed to have opinions and use our resources to promote our opinions. Its been a long, long time since anyone could be confused about where we stand in the political spectrum. Let our free-speech dollars be heard.
2
Worth noting: the McKenna full page ad is opposite a full page WALMART ad for the new store in Bellevue at Factoria Mall. Same color scheme, similar layout.

Coincidence, or a byproduct of the mutual admiration of McKenna, Walmart, and the despicable Seattle Times?
3
People still read the Times? Hell, get a tablet and get today's news today. If you want longer articles, get a subscription on the Kindle. I pay 10.00 a month for the Guardian and get way more news than the Seattle Times (and no ads!).
4
I read the Times everyday, but I read it online, so I have not and will not see the ad.

That's the power of print.
5
There is a part of me that can certainly understand the idea of a business part of the paper, a news part, and an editorial part that all operate independently, but as I was reading Ms Mackie's statement it also sounded a lot like "No, Honey, I only cheated on you with my dick. My heart and my soul remain faithful to you."
6
Maybe it's a one-time effort to prove nobody reads their editorials anymore.
7
They're not "demonstrating the power of print advertising", they're making money however they can.
8
Who's writing/creating these ads? The STimes ad department, or the respective campaigns they are supporting?
9
@2 Maybe Walmart paid for the layout, in their quest to further deny adequate health care for their employees.
10
Ooh, look!

A dog!

*** BANG ***
11
What is a "one-time pilot project"?
12
@11. A prototype of a device which will never be produced.
13
Alan Fiasco!
14
Wait - they're couching this as an experiment?

Usually with an experiment, you isolate your hypothesis - here, that print advertising is effective - from other factors that can skew the results.

If McKenna is elected or R-74 is approved, there is no possible way they can say whether their print ads had the slightest thing to do with it, since there will also be TV ads, radio ads, debates, grassroots efforts, etc. Any sixth-grade science student could tell them that.

But the geniuses at the Times think they'll be able to use the outcome of the election in their sales pitch to advertisers as justification for the rates they charge. I guess they think advertisers are that fucking stupid.

Then again, people still buy ads in the yellow pages, so...
15
Taking them at their word has even worse implications than if they just admitted that they are going to be advertising for the candidates/issues they support.

Consider: they're basically saying they picked close races and have injected advertising for a side of each solely (or primarily) for the purpose of demonstrating the effectiveness of print advertising, and not really because the company is interested in who becomes governor / whether same-sex couples' marriages are fully recognized as such.

What a bunch of shitheads.
16
"It seems that in some way, we have proved our point—that print advertising is effective. Otherwise, you would not be hearing from the Inslee campaign."
Using that logic, then it should be ok for Times employees to, say, start fires to get people to read about rampant arsonists. Isn't "report the news, don't create the news" something taught in Journalism 101?
17
The funny thing here is that, other than myself, I bet there aren't three people who've commented in this thread or the other one who actually subscribe to the Seattle Times, Which means that you have no right to expect them to give a flying fuck about what you think.
18
@17 - They care far more about advertisers than the dwindling number of people who subscribe to their paper. That's what this stunt is about: they can't justify their ad prices with their anemic circulation.

And this is best idea they came up with! I find more laughably ridiculous than politically offensive.
19
@17, they get a state tax break, subsidy, subscribing or not we are all paying for that ad, you dumbshit.
20
The Stranger is a satirical publication which invents statements by public figures, and claims to have received them directly. If you have believed anything about this matter written in The Stranger, the joke is on you. See the recent series purported to have been received directly from Rob McKenna.

The Stranger appears to have slightly higher standards for the print version of the publication than online. So you may want to pick up a dead tree copy to double check. But if you read it only in the online edition, forget it, it's bullshit.
21
@17, "
"you have no right to expect them to give a flying fuck about what you think."

They do care about maintaining the "objective media" sham going and it won't be easy after this fiasco, but you knew that or you wouldn't have worked yourself in a tizzy over this.
22
@17 Because the only thing a subscription service is ever interested in are the people who are already subscribed, never the people who haven't subscribed.
23
@21 -- I'm pretty sure the Times has long ago given up on the "objective media" sham.

As they should.

We aren't living in the 80s anymore. No media is "objective" anymore.

That said... nothing says desperate quite like a media stunt by a media company.
24
Oh, its the business side, not the journalism side. Silly me. I thought their business was journalism.
25
I just cancelled by subscription to the Seattle Times. They tried to talk me out of it. How can I ever trust that newspaper again. Pam
26
We also cancelled our subscription.

If political speech in a democracy is dominated by media moguls and the 1%, our future is bleak.

Ben
27
We also cancelled our subscription.

If political speech becomes dominated by media moguls and the 1%, our future is bleak.

Ben

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