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Friday, January 9, 2009

Media / City If Green Bay Could Do It With the Packers.....

Posted by Jonathan Golob on Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 6:13 PM

.... perhaps Seattle should do the same with the PI.

In a time when the government is vastly increasing its presence in the nation's economy and corporate governance, shouldn't we—the citizens—be increasing oversight?

It's obvious the newsrooms of daily papers are an essential and key part of having a functional city and government. It's obvious that individual bloggers are going to be totally incapable of filling this void. (If these two points aren't obvious to you, I'm so very, very sorry.)

I can think of far worse things for Seattle to be first on, than the first citizen-owned, non-profit, online-only daily newspaper.

Updated: (Or, it serves me right for using a football metaphor on Slog...)
I don't want the city government of Seattle to purchase the PI, just like the packers aren't owned by the government of Green Bay. The Packers are owned by many shareholders, each only owning a few shares of the team.

All virtually all other professional sports teams in the US are either majority owned by an individual owner, or a megacorporation—somewhat like how newspapers are. Megacorporation (Hearst, with their fancy fucking new building in NYC, shutting down the PI) or individual (the Seattle Times.)

Shares in the Packers are lovingly handed down in wills. The city of Green Bay doesn't own them. The people in the city do. This is what I can vaguely imagine happening with a post-Hearst PI.

And, why isn't this just Crosscut? Because crosscut, like almost all existing online-only news sources is heavy on analysis, low on reporting. It's the newsroom—all those reporters with decades of contacts and experience on their respective beats—that deserves preserving the most. Crosscut—hell any blog you'd name that covers the NW—can't touch what even the slimmed down PI newsroom offers.

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Except the difference is people love their sports teams, and hate their daily papers.

(Do you really want to help pay Joel Connolly's salary?)

Posted by jhu on January 9, 2009 at 6:30 PM

I have proposed that Governments add more G-7s in a "Web Writer" category. Let them live off the taxpayer...but write what they want -- kind of like a PBS for text.

Posted by Public Textcasing System on January 9, 2009 at 6:44 PM

Would our new newspaper have a registration system for comments?

Posted by Knute on January 9, 2009 at 7:17 PM

Only if we could get fair, balanced reporting.... and that's so 19xx....

Posted by pibgone on January 9, 2009 at 8:22 PM

5 Comment Pulled (Spam) Comment Policy

6 Comment Pulled (Spam) Comment Policy

ooo viral!

Posted by Max Solomon @ home on January 9, 2009 at 10:04 PM

We could do with a state-owned newspaper around here. That way when Oakland police say there's no video footage of their cops murdering a black man, we -know- that's the truth.

Posted by milk on January 10, 2009 at 1:04 AM

Would this city-owned paper actually report on the riots that the current dailies say never happen, because no white people were involved?

Posted by Will in Seattle on January 10, 2009 at 3:36 AM

stfu

Posted by / on January 10, 2009 at 7:42 AM

You claim that bloggers can't fill the role of a daily paper but then you say the paper would be online only. Wouldn't that make them all bloggers?

Posted by watchout5 on January 10, 2009 at 7:48 AM

We need a 501(c)3 non-profit newspaper with an active board of directors, a strong fundraising operation and a loyal core of supporters that believe in the value of daily newspapers.

Posted by blank12357 on January 10, 2009 at 8:23 AM

The absolutely last thing the government should own is a newspaper - health insurance,yes; banks,yes; car companies,yes; newspapers, no, no, no - on or off-line.

Posted by McG on January 10, 2009 at 10:16 AM

The Pravda - Intelligencer!

Posted by Pravda! on January 10, 2009 at 10:28 AM

I admit I'm a little excited to see if the PI can pull of the web-only thing. One thing I'd like to see clarified is what the fuck nwsource dot com is. Who owns that and how is it tied to both papers? I see ads for it all over Metro. As long as the PI can publish on the web w/o the ads and advertorials of nwsource then I'm all for seeing what they can do. It would be a first, and an experiment that would surely test the waters for future papers.

Posted by i hate nwsource . com on January 10, 2009 at 10:29 AM

A government-owned paper can't be a watchdog on the government. Try again.

Posted by J.R. on January 10, 2009 at 11:03 AM

Hell F-ing Yeah...

Posted by Justin Marx on January 10, 2009 at 11:09 AM

The packers aren't owned by the government of Green Bay--that isn't what I'm suggesting. The Packers are owned by many shareholders, each only owning a few shares of the team.

All virtually all other professional sports teams in the US are either majority owned by an individual owner, or a megacorporation--somewhat like how newspapers are. Megacorporation (Hearst, with their fancy fucking new building in NYC, shutting down the PI) or individual (the Seattle Times.)

Shares in the Packers are lovingly handed down in wills. The city of Green Bay doesn't own them. The people in the city do.

And, why isn't this just Crosscut? Because crosscut, like almost all existing online-only news sources is heavy on analysis, low on reporting. It's the newsroom--all those reporters with decades of contacts and experience on their respective beats--that deserves preserving the most. Crosscut--hell any blog you'd name that covers the NW--can't touch what even the slimmed down PI offers.

Posted by Jonathan Golob on January 10, 2009 at 11:10 AM

Can Brett Favre be Editor-in-Chief? If so I'M IN!!

Posted by I'm OK, You're OK on January 10, 2009 at 11:29 AM

The Olympic Hotel was built by public "subscriptions". It used to be a fairly common way of financing stuff.

Posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay on January 10, 2009 at 11:56 AM

Maybe a stupid question, I don't know. Could the money saved by being online-only allow them to rehire all the recently laid-off writers?

Posted by jerk on January 10, 2009 at 4:47 PM

The Stranger needs to buy the P-I.

Posted by elswinger on January 11, 2009 at 12:04 AM

I think I should used my unemployment checks to buy shares in the foundering PI. We can go down -- or stay afloat -- together.

Posted by Write if you get work on February 24, 2009 at 10:59 PM