I mostly have a reputation as a foul-mouthed, partisan muckraker and agitator, and with a brand name like HorsesAss.org, why shouldn’t I? But I think it of interest to note that in the wake of Friday’s WTO ruling that EU nations illegally subsidized Boeing rival Airbus, I actually took the time to interview a US congressman, and write a thoughtful, objective analysis of the decision, whereas the Seattle Times—our region’s paper of record—relied solely on reporting and analysis from the Associated Press and Bloomberg News.
A ruling in a controversial international trade dispute that directly impacts one of our region’s most important employers, and the Times couldn’t even be bothered to assign a reporter to cover the story and attempt to get a richer local angle. Kinda pathetic.
Now, I don’t mean to pat myself on the back. It was Rep. Jay Inslee’s staff who deserves the credit for reaching out to me and offering a few minutes with the congressman—an opportunity I jumped at—but if Inslee was making himself available to foul-mouthed bloggers like me, you can be sure he was making himself available to the Seattle Times. In fact, I can’t help but wonder if Inslee only had the time to talk with me because most of the rest of our local media simply weren’t interested in putting the effort into such an admittedly wonky story?
Perhaps I was too harsh in implying some sort of bias in our local media’s refusal to cover last week’s pro-healthcare reform rally? Maybe our local media is just lazy?
In defending his efforts to achieve a local monopoly, Times publisher Frank Blethen long promised that freed from the financial drain of the JOA, his newspaper would emerge stronger and more vibrant, but most observers would agree that the Times’ local coverage has continued to shrink since the P-I ceased print publication. Here’s hoping that once this economy turns around, Blethen actually attempts to fulfill his civic promise.
I’m a huge critic of our local media, but I’d have to vote none of the above.
I think journalism, print journalism especially, has lost its luster. Why write for a news paper, when you can write a mommy blog, work for yourself and make as much or more money. I’m talking about the top couple of % of really talented writers here, not the run of the mill.
Consolidations and a focus on short term profits have hurt journalism as well. Foreign desks are being closed, there’s less in depth reporting, so again there’s fewer reasons to work for a newspaper.
Soo… What I think is going on is that you have second rate journalists with huge time pressures, no push to really think about what they’re putting out and no ability to do journalism that really matters.
It’s not that they’re lazy or biased, they’re just not very good at what they do and have corporate overlords that don’t give a crap about quality journalism.
Haven’t you implied that the seattle times is a right-wing publication?
If so, why would inslee give an interview to a right-wing paper.
The obama didn’t want to have a debate on fox because it actually had conservative opinions expressed on their show.
‘Biggest Moron In Congress’
An article at Harper’s calls Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) “the biggest moron in Congress.” Even if he isn’t, he’s a prize specimen of the first order. Broun compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler. He says the president intends to establish a totalitarian government. He thinks the University of Georgia should be abolished except for its football team because the rest of it is “a liberal bastion.” He says global warming is a “hoax” and introduced legislation to ban pornography from militar bases and declare 2010 the “Year of the Bible.” He married his cousin.
There may be hope, though. He was elected in an extremely close runoff election by only 400 votes, and benefited from name recognition — his daddy was a Democratic state senator for 38 years. And when the voters in his district realize this flummox bears no resemblance to his patrimony they may do something about it.
@ 3 Corrected for accuracy.
“Biggest Moron In Congress”
Seattles own, Jim Mcdumbshit
“if Inslee was making himself available to foul-mouthed bloggers like me, you can be sure he was making himself available to the Seattle Times”
I’m not so sure. They may have decided to reach out to you instead of The GOP Beobachter because they wanted someone to actually cover this story. Which I would find interesting.
@1 “I’m talking about the top couple of % of really talented writers here, not the run of the mill.”
That’s always been true, I.F. Stone for example.
@2 “Haven’t you implied that the seattle times is a right-wing publication?”
I’m not implying it, I’m saying it.
@4 The notion of a moron like you correcting anything for accuracy is inaccurate in itself.
For an east coast cunt that can’t find gainful employment here, that’s a mighty fine boast to make. However inaccurate it is.
@6
Hmm…
There have been plenty of talented folks in journalism, some like Alan Furst and Robert Kaplan went on to become authors others like Mike Royko staid in journalism.
The point I was trying to make is that there’s less pull for talented people to go into print journalism. Furst and Kaplan both started out as foreign reporters, but we have fewer and fewer foreign desks and someone like Royko could just start a local blog.
Maybe they didn’t cover the pro-Obamacare rally, because a pro-Obamacare rally in downtown hippie Seattle isn’t news.
@11
Seattle has also held a regional chapter of the KKK, a pro-Hilter organization called the Silver Shirts, a couple of anti-asian leagues, the headquarters of the folk in charge of Japanese internment and too many bars full of homophobic and raciest commercial fisherman* to count.
Seattle’s liberalism is loud because it isn’t very deep.
*I grew up in a commercial fishing family & in a commercial fishing town I know what I’m talking about.**
** I’m not making an all or nothing statement. Some of the coolest people I’ve known were commercial fisherman and if there was a fishery left I’d be one right now.
@12 So why isn’t there a fishery left now? Because of too much government regulation?
I can’t count the number of fisherman that when they weren’t catching subsudized fish were complaining about the Govn’mt.
Over fishing is only part of the issue, clear cutting forests and sprawl development still need to be dealt with better.
Well would you look at that, people convicted of terrorism and they did it without curtailing civil rights and so on…
@15:
You mean they didn’t torture them and then have the courts throw out the evidence because they failed to read/follow their own rules (i.e. – the constitution if it were our country)?
They can not cover neighborhoods, so they offload/unload to local blogs.
Not sure why you would expect they would cover a decade old story that could mean billions of dollars to the local economy.
Had another daily newspaper covered it they might have tried to compete, but why bother, if you do not have to.
Somebody can do it better/faster/cheaper without the dumbshit investments, and crappy collecting of half-assed columnists, covering more and delivering it.
ST is topheavy with columnists too busy jerking each other off to report actual news.
@16
Amazing, isn’t it.
@6…RR…
Ah, good old I.F. Stone, a Soviet agent.
Nice to know that you compare Goldy favorably to someone on the payroll of a country whose aim it was to destry the United States.
From the Commentary article:
The question is then begged, based upon your obvious fawning adoration of Soviet spy Stone: Goldy, what foreign government has you on its payroll to foster disruption in the country in order to make your employer’s take-over of it easy?
That’s what Rabbit implies anyway…
The Piper
Speaking of torture
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....lebrodeur/
they have to pay Nicole first, then those pesky reporters
The Seattle Times, and many other local papers, are indeed in a self induced death spiral. To save money they keep CUTTING services, instead of providing BETTER services. They end up just reprinting AP stories as you say. What’s the point in that? I can get AP stories on my Palm Pre, iPhone or laptop. Why would I buy the Seattle Times to read those? I get a ‘local’ paper to get mostly local news, especially investigative journalism. I expect the local papers to be watch dogs on local government.
These papers keep cutting back, offering LESS of interests to folks like me, then realizing their subscriptions are falling, cutting even more. The logical extreme of their action will end up with them printing 20 blank pages and wondering why no one buys their paper and blaming the kids and their internets. It doesn’t occur to them and the “paper” isn’t a physical printed item. It’s the reporters and stories I followed. I don’t care if they’re on newspaper or my iPhone. These companies don’t get that. They INSIST I have to buy a dead tree to get their news. Yes, they have web sites, but they’re treated as junk add-ons to the ‘real’ paper.
This is why I know get most of my real news from blogs (always with a grain of salt until I can cross check claims). Hell micro local blogs are even better. The WONDERFUL West Seattle Blog lets me know exactly what’s happening in my community, to a degree that the Seattle Times NEVER did. Why didn’t the Times buy up or team up with these neighborhood blogs…expand their coverage, use them as a AAA league for finding new full time reporters. The possibilities are endless, but the newspapers just don’t see it.
Hey Piper, your history is only as good as the discredited old “communist-spy” slurs you are regurgitating. Read some real history. Stone was an American communist, and he was also among the very first to discredit the Soviets when they signed Nazi-Soviet pact and he was never, ever a spy. But hey, just slur him with typical right wing association attacks and you don’t have to answer the real issues.
As to the Times, they are making me a believer in on line news sources- and I hate relying on on-line sources and not having a real newspaper. Now that their editorial blindness together with their costcutting has extended to where they have no journalistic services left to offer, and has reduced the paper to a small town conservative fishwrapper, its hard to consider them relevant. Except they still have a bigger scope of subscribers and readership than any other propaganda piece in the NW. That makes them dangerous when they are this bad.
The ST is just an ad delivery mechanism. They throw in enough content to keep their readership.