I know I’m the last person who the Seattle Times would want to consult on how to save their dying paper. But despite myself, I feel a certain affinity for newspapers. I still read the dead tree version of New York Times, and although I make fun of the Seattle Times stupid ed page, I’m glad they’re around.
While I often have real problems with their editorial stance, and I don’t understand why they still have stale columns from national writers, I do think they are an important piece of what gets reported in Western Washington. So let’s start there. The Seattle Times shouldn’t run syndicated columns who we’ve seen the day before in their own paper, and who we can read for free online. I don’t know that it saves them much money, but it makes them more of a local paper.
So what to replace those columns with? Some days, I say dissenting opinions. Especially on candidate endorsements where Ryan Blethen says it’s important to have a conversation, there should be editorials in favor of each candidate (and let us know who wrote what). There would still be an endorsement, but the Times would acknowledge that there’s another side.
But mostly, just use the freed up newspaper space for more, you know, news. I’d say don’t run any opinion some days. Nobody cares what the paper thinks on any given issue except for people who already had an opinion about that issue, and nobody under 60 cares what Bruce Ramsey or Joni Balter think about anything. Make a couple days a week opinion free days, and give the space now for Ed and Op-Ed to in-depth reports on upcoming races, or investigative pieces, or important issues. Imagine picking up the Times in the 5 weeks leading up to an election and reading great pieces on each city council race. Imagine a full 2 pages given to an important issue. Imagine knowing every Saturday that there will be a well researched, well edited, well written long form piece instead of another vapid editorial.
And speaking of well written, give your writers license to write. The staid, boring style of reporting is often not worth reading. Of course as a fowl mouthed blogger that partly means swearing when it’s relevant: sometimes people say “Shit” in congressional hearings. And they say “Fuck” on the Gotti tapes. They don’t say “S***” or “F***” and when I read that sort of nonsense in their pages, or too clever by half word play that makes me have no idea what was said, it makes me not care if the Times goes under: while I know they’ll never swear as much as me, not having blanket censorship makes it a better read.
Because more than anything, I want a good read. I want to smile at a turn of phrase in the news coverage. I want to be wowed by the transition between ideas in the opinion pieces, and I want passion in the sports section.
But really, I’d settle for not complete shit in the sports section. I seriously can’t think off the top of my head of any Seattle Times sports writers. As much as I wonder if Art Thiel is fucking insane when I read him, or assume George Vecsey is writing with a quill pen when I read him, he’s so old fashioned, they are fun to read.
So those are my suggestions that I know will never actually be implemented. They’d make the paper more fun to read, and maybe save it in the end.
I agree that the syndicated columns in the SeaTimes are worthless and their local columnists are almost as bad. But they could surely get some decent local columnists. I don’t expect the level of op-ed writing in, say, the NY Times, but there are plenty of pretty good writers in the Stranger, the Weekly, and blogs (including this one but also SoundPolitics and others). Even if the SeaTimes enforced its style standards, I’m sure those writers could do better than the pathetic crowd the Sea Times has employed as far back as I can remember.
“nobody under 60 cares what Bruce Ramsey or Joni Balter think about anything”
I’m over 60 and don’t care what they think about anything, so that makes them a pair of big fat zeros.
Read this,
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....l/19504774
and then try to tell me Arizona isn’t a racist state run by a gang of rightwing racist fucks.
I know I’m the last person who the Seattle Times would want to consult on how to save their dying pape
—-
Probably, since your gig is working for free for a publication which can’t afford to pay anyone other than Goldy, and which depends upon donations for its survival even then. Put another way, the marketplace isn’t exactly stampeding to a publication that does receive your blessing. So much for your judgement.
@3
Meanwhile, I see Rabbit still hasn’t progressed beyond AOL, speaking of getting a little old on the vine (AOL, not Rabbit, that is).
The Internet has made the national columnists valueless. Anybody can observe the reporting/hard work of others and comment on it.
Crosscut asked online for suggestions for the weekend.
Their problem is that they are satuarated with opinion/columns and entirely too light on news reporting. Seattle Times has less of this problem of worthless columns, but they still have too many.
Publicola survey, and my answer was not too far away from your answer, Carl. My suggestion to them was that they should do what some sport reports do when they are not on the beat, they write a regular column. Publicola, should report news (a struggle for them right now, their scoops clean the cat box).
News on the local net is almost zero on the weekend, many of us, like them, are not working 7 days a week. M-F report news, lots of it, F- write columns on what you reported on and what anybody else reported on that given subject. Turn light F-S-S into a time when people have more time to real longer form and know that there is an emphasis on that writer’s opinion (not sure how they can control themselves during the week, that is their biggest problem).
News content really is what all of this depends on, Monday through Friday.
A digest by reporters Friday, Saturday, Sunday (written up on Thursday and Friday).
I think this is a good weekly cycle, and I think the advertising should be a faint echo of the Sunday newspaper, long form writing coupons, and a comic.
Printed or not, there is a news cycle that is on a similar lifecycle as the people that produce it.
As far as the Times goes, they are dead wood in many ways. They cornered the market a few years ago on columnist which turned out to be the least valuable part of “newspapers”.
I know what I think of all of the news I consume, I need the news part, not the bullshit Nicol Broeder writes.
I don’t know if a printed metro daily is viable for even the Seattle Times, but there is money to be made delivering ads on Sunday. Cut the columnists, have more reporting, and allow the reports to write columns for the weekend.
Lee’s weekend roundup here.
Joe Copeland’s week in review at Crosscut.com
Erica C. Barnett reposting something for people to chew on (not gonna cut it, Publicola).
The Onion Weekender
Seattle Times, Ryan Blather and the Sunday insert.
Sunday tv talking head shows.
Ezra Klein’s wonkbook daily is about as much daily national opinion as I really need, other than Paul Krugman’s nyt column.
Some of this I have feeding my personal blog.
Leonard Pitts is not valueless and he’s the only reason to read the Seattle Times, and only once a week.
From looking at the sports section of the Times, you would think that the only sports in tis area involve the U.W., Mariners, and Seahawks. Hardly a blip now and then about the many other sports at the high school and among Div. II and Div. III colleges.
Even U.W. sports other than football and basketball are covered very sparsly until they get to the point where they are only a few games away from a national championship. Anybody hear much of U.W. track & field or golfers this spring? How about U.P.S. or S.P.U., or W.W.U.?
Perhaps more importantly, for an area which promotes itself as a haven for outdoor recreation enthusiasts, you don’t see that much about the adult baseball and softball leagues, sailing regattas, mountain bike competitions, cross-country skiing events, master’s rowing competitions, etc. About the only time we learn of the careers of some of these athletes is every four years, when we are somehow suprised to find that one of our own is an Olympic contender, who has quite a few years of competition already under their belt.
In my old hometown, there were no professional sports and no major university. But every high school event would have the names of the participants listed and their standings. I still have a few clippings in a box somewhere. It gave you a reason to read the paper every day.
How about using less space on national news and more space on local news and other similar pieces? We can easily access national news from the internet… there’s no reason for AP wire stories to take up half the paper.
Shit fuck. Fuck shit.
And put Dan Savage in the Times.
I kept a subscription to the local rag (the P-I) because when I read the NY Times I couldn’t get local sports, although I couldn’t care less about HS sporting events even though I graduated from a dismal excuse of a local HS.
But now I get sports online and cut the papers loose. The Times is still calling and when I get a chance (back from vacay) I am going to give them a piece of my mind and insist that they remove us from their list.
Goldy’s right in a way. That is, the local rags could be doing a LOT more to stay both relevant and alive. I am betting on The Stranger staying in business longer than the Times.
# 10: Yep, Blethen & Co. seem to be stuck with the idea that we should pay to read hard copies of AP wire stories that are simply re-printed in the Seattle Times, regardless of their original source. There are thousands of ways for us to access the same stories online now, often in their original context. The strategy of cutting back on local coverage (too expensive!) in order to focus on wire stories is a prescription for failure.
The one thing the Times can do, which most blogs can’t, is pay reporters to put efforts into going out in the field to collect local stories. If they can’t do that, then what unique content do they bring? Certainly not the editorials….