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News & ArtsFriday, May 25, 2012
City Why Mayor McGinn's Wife Canceled Her Family's Seattle Times Subscription
Posted by Eli Sanders on Fri, May 25, 2012 at 6:00 AM
A week ago, Seattle Times Executive Editor David Boardman wrote on Twitter:
Somehow I missed this when it happened. But when I learned about it yesterday, I called the mayor's office to see what was up.
Aaron Pickus, spokesman for Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, stressed that the mayor's office still has multiple subscriptions to the Seattle Times and that McGinn himself definitely reads the paper—including Seattle Times clippings and links that Pickus spends a lot of his day sending around to the mayor and his staff. But Pickus confirmed that the McGinn household indeed canceled its subscription to the paper more than a year ago, after the publication of this story. Then he put me on the phone with McGinn's wife, Peg Lynch, so I could hear exactly why.
“I don’t want to make a big deal about this," Lynch told me. "We didn’t do it. I just did it myself. I kind of run the household stuff. But for me, my bike getting stolen, and the coverage of that, was just kind of the last straw."
The February 24, 2011 Seattle Times story that became the last straw—about McGinn borrowing his wife's bike, him leaving it unlocked, and that bike then disappearing at City Hall—was, according to Lynch, full of "bullying, cruel remarks," culled from e-mails from anonymous Seattle Times readers, including one reader who likened the mayor to Homer Simpson.
“It was kind of like a mean-spirited attack on Michael," Lynch said. "They just went from talking about a thief, which was kind of the point of the article, to kind of trashing Michael again in a personal way. There was no policy there that was being discussed, that I could see.”
Lynch said she'd grown tired of Seattle Times news articles that read like editorials against her husband, and saw the bike story as yet another example. "My kids read the paper," she said, adding that she'd begun hiding it from them when things appeared that were, to her, an example of the Seattle Times deciding to "jump on him one more time."
"Generally, I think the Times just kind of doesn’t like Mike," Lynch said. "I don’t think that’s a secret.”
For a long time, she'd been talking about canceling the subscription. So, one day in early 2011, after the publication of the bike-theft article, she picked up the phone. “I just said I didn’t really enjoy reading it anymore, and I think I left it very general like that," Lynch told me. "I’m not trying to pick a fight with anybody. I just did not appreciate the product anymore.”
To clarify something she'd said earlier, I asked Lynch whether she believes the Seattle Times is bullying her husband.
“Don’t you?” she responded. “I just couldn’t read that stuff anymore.”
I asked: What would you recommend they do differently?
“I would actually suggest that they read the Seattle Public Schools' anti-bullying policy,” Lynch replied. "If Mr. Boardman wants to talk to me about it, I’d be happy to talk to him about it. I really would.”
Boardman declined to respond to Lynch's statements, but noted: "I learned of the cancellation not from any customer data The Times has, but when I heard the mayor chuckling about it on talk radio."
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Beyond the amusing detail that it takes Pickus "a lot of his day" to email Times links around the office, it's super the mayor comes home from school a family who understand the proper paradigm: he's a schoolchild harassed by youthful bullies.
It gets better. Once you've left the mayor's office behind, it gets better. Not much longer to hold on at City Hall. Courage.
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“opposition to a car-honoring tunnel” oh, puhlease.
The inclusion of reader e-mails was an idiotic touch. Was Lynn so desperate to fill space? Lazy? Or is she just mean-spirited?
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What kind of city daily newspaper advocates putting their major league sports team in a different city?
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What next, Frank and Ryan Blethen take a cue from Seattle Pride and demand an honor tax from politicians directly?
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so good for her.
What kind of people cancel their Seattle Times subscription?
People with an Internet connection.
People with a smartphone.
People who read that OpEd or News story when it was originally published in the New York Times two days ago.
People who think the biggest daily in the state shouldn't rely on the AP for stories on the Governors race.
People who think the largest daily in the state should send a reporter to every press event held by candidates for governor that occur in their own damn city, a few short miles from said daily's headquarters.
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I was raised on The Times, back when it was an evening paper. But I switched to the P.I. when I was old enough to know better. Then I canceled my subscription after they drove the P.I out of business. The Times can suck it.
P.s. to Goldy: What's new with you applying to be on their editorial board?
As for all the "Seattle Times" is biased morons, so what? What do you think this rag is? At The Stranger, if you're not cutting off your cock and replacing it with a cunt you don't exist.
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how, precisely is mcginn "fucking" us?
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Fuckin' pussy. Dish it but you can't take it, huh?
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Both hate America, but in different ways.
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And what a stupid remark. Local media criticizing a sitting politician (even if it is the asinine Seattle Times) is not "bullying." Not in any way, shape or form. To make that claim is to denigrate and belittle the experiences of the real victims of bullying in our community. Shameful, really.
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What difference does it make if she thinks it's bullying? He's a politician; he's obligated to suck it up. She's a private citizen and can get pissed off about it all she wants.
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Fuck the Times. Ugh.
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If you tell them often enough that you think their shit rag is shit, their editorial board is a bunch of fucking idiots, the Blethen family can't run a business to save their worthless lives, and you'd like to see the entire goddamn mess go bankrupt and quit publishing (with a few more salty words thrown in for good measure), they quit calling you. The trick is to not deviate from the script each time they call you.
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This kind of making fun of how politicians look seems to run through the Seattle Times. It's pretty disgusting really. Every week, Joni Balter from the Seattle Times gets on KUOW and talks it up on Weekday. Like clockwork, she does her best to talk about Dennis Kucinich and make fun of him for being so short and weird looking. Look in the mirror Joni! I don't think I've EVER heard her talk about a single policy issue that Kucinich supported. Not once. She's just so outraged that he's a liberal and obviously all liberals are evil muthas. Nor does she mention that Kucinich voted NOT to attack Iraq, a policy that would have saved this country over $1 TRILLION and hundreds of thousands of lives not to mention the billions we're going to spend on health care for veterans for the rest of their lives.
Those people at the Seattle Times should be celebrating the 'free market' and how the 'creative destruction' of their newspaper will lead to more relevant businesses like facejoke, err, facecrook, errr.. facebook.
Probably only a matter of time until the Seattle Times cuts the daily completely like they did in New Orleans.
New Orleans newspaper cuts print edition to three days a week
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/2…
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