Blogs Nov 19, 2012 at 6:00 am

Comments

1
Did you check out their spread on big ideas in transportation?
They had one bold idea, one person saying we should adequately fund maintenance, and a Kemper stooge saying literally "stop the war on cars."
2
"[i]How can anyone take that paper seriously?[/i]"

No one can. It is essentially like Fox News, reverberating the talking points for the people in the bubble.

That's the state of journalism. All news sources have a bias and readers choose the news source with the bias that appeals to them.
3
1) Seattle is the major city in this region.

2) The Seattle Times is the best-known daily broadsheet in this region. When people look for the Paper of Record for a city, they usually look for the name of that city in the title followed by "Times", "Post", "Globe", "Tribune", "Chronicle". I've never been to LA in my life, but when I think of LA, I think of the LA Times. Same with Seattle.

Therefore,

If you are not from here, and know nothing about this place but want some insight into something that has happened here or is about to happen here, you will most likely look to the ST.
4
I miss the P-I. The wrong paper won! Thank God for the Stranger!
5
Based on the Seattle Times' declining circulation numbers, eight to ten percent of their readers are concluding each year that cancelling their subscription makes sense. In due course it will be gone.

If the Times goes to three days a week before it fails the Stranger should step up and compete head on to push them out.
6
Sounds a little overwrought on your part. Get over it and move forward.
7
@6 We keep telling white southerners that about the Civil War, but it doesn't seem to help
8
Goldy,
My wife and I are addicted to the ritual of going outside and picking up a paper in the morning, then reading it over coffee. Our kids have also picked up the equally anachronistic ritual of the daily sports pages. We have made many attempts over the years to quit, but always backslide.

Today I am really on the edge again. The Times PR for the Republican spin on "fiscal cliff" disguised as front page news this morning set me off. We are going to have another one of these family conversations tonight.
9
#8 As someone who successfully rewired my brain to rid myself of the useless habit that was the Seattle Times, I just know you can do it, too. I could not spend one more minute or dime to support a newspaper that was printing propaganda so antithetical to what I know to be true.

Maybe we all should start our own self-help group of reformed ST subscribers? On second thought ...
10
I dropped the Times twice. First time when they endorsed Bush in 2000 and I moved to the PI. Then after the PI folded and needing my newsprint fix I went back. I dropped it again when they did that political ad bullshit this year. But I am jonesing, this internet news crap is just not the same. And as much as I enjoy the Stranger and the Slog, it still seems more entertainment the News.
11
I had a Mon-Fri subscription to the Times for maybe a year after the P-I folded. I can't speak to the weekend editions but I cancelled the weekday because, far as I could tell, it was nothing but garbage they picked up from the AP wire plus some obnoxious editorials.
12
@10 There is no news anymore. It is all entertainment.

I highly recommend that you read (or re-read) Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman. Not only does it call bullshit on the "News" but it calls bullshit on the whole idea of news.

Think of this: have you ever read a story in the paper about a fire in an apartment started by a kerosene heater or an indoor barbeque that kills two sisters and a number of their children, with about eight total dead. The story rips your heart out. And then you notice that the story is from Detroit and your feelings about it shift just a little bit.

You start to wonder "Why are they telling us about this? All it does is bum me out. What, if anything, are we supposed to do about this? What action can I take in response to it?" Then, if you think a bit more you'll start to realize that there are surely hundreds of comparable tragedies taking place all over the world every day. Why are some of them regarded as newsworthy while others are not?

My brother once visited from LA while our papers were full of stories about a man shot dead in the C.D. "Was this guy famous?" my brother asked. No, I told him, It was just a drug deal gone bad. "Then why is it all over the paper for three days?" A guy was murdered, I told him. "So what?" he said "There are so many murders each day in L.A. that the newspaper can't report them all. It would be all they wrote about.

Think of this: A ferry sinks in the Philappines and nearly 300 people drown. It appears as a single paragraph on page A22 with no follow up. One of the people is an American and the story doubles in size and moves to page A4 but still no follow up. One of the people has a distant connection to Seattle and the story appears on page A2 and there is a follow up story the next day about the Seattle connection. If one of the people is from Seattle the story appears on the front page and it runs for twelve column inches and there is a longer story about the person in the local section for the next two days. We all know and accept this. It's not that some lives are more valuable than tothers, it's that we're more interested in local stories, stories about people we know, stories that actually come closer to our lives.

Watch the news. Read the paper. And with each story ask yourself: "What am I supposed to do about that?" Typically the answer is nothing. The story was presented for its entertainment value, not to inform or educate you at all.

And even the stories that do inform or educate are a cultured set of stories that create a distorted world view. People think that violent crime is worsening when actually it is on the decline. People fear crime from strangers when actually the bulk of crime is committed by people known to the victim. The myth of a dangerous world serves the interests of those who are selling protection.

The real job of the newspaper is to gather eyeballs for the advertisers. They do that by appealing to the lowest common denominator.
13
I get some headlines, skip the editorials and then do the crossword puzzle. My kid loves to make a big deal of going outside to get it for me every morning. Sunday I get my Merle on. I take with me when I have to poop. All for 2 bucks a week.

And hopefully one day the ST will publish an editorial so bad that Goldy's head will explode a la Scanners. Fingers crossed!
15
Dammit, Goldy, you made me go and read a Seattle Times editorial! (And you're the second person to do that today!!!!!)

I don't see any Orwellian language there. And after all, it's an editorial, not a news article, and it discusses statewide implementation of a statewide ballot measure - not local voter opinion.

If anything is "Orwellian", maybe it's a claim that "losing is winning" - on account of who sponsored it, or how much they spent, or who voted for/against it in which media market.
16
Meh...it's how the political process works. Marriage equality supporters vastly outspent opponents. Does that make our victory any less legitimate? Mitt Romney won 47% of the vote. Does that give the President any less of a mandate?

Your side lost on charter schools. Yeah, maybe it was an unfair fight. But then, that makes a lot of positive results illegitimate too. Baby. Bathwater.

Please wait...

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