The Times and the P-I have settled their Joint Operating Agreement dispute. Eli Sanders has the scoop over on Slog:
Under the terms of the agreement, announced this morning, the Seattle Times Company will pay $49 million to the Hearst Corporation in order to end Hearst’s right to collect a percentage of Seattle Times revenues in the event that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer closes.
Hearst will pay $25 million to the Times Co. to guarantee that the Times Co. will not try to end their Joint Operating Agreement due to lost revenue, at least until 2016.
That means two daily newspapers will continue to publish in Seattle, for now. At first glance, it also means that Hearst has lost one of its incentives to close the P-I (the guaranteed Times revenue) while the Times Co. has lost one its easy ways to slip out of the JOA (claiming the JOA needs to be ended because the Times is losing revenue under the arrangement) until 2016.
This is great news for Seattle. Slog also has the text of a letter from Frank Blethen to employees.
Is it great news? When last did either of these tree consuming food ads carry some news?
The news would only be great of one or both of these find someway to hire reporters and engage the Mayor, the UDOB, Msoft, Vulcan, etc in a dialog that os more than press releases.
Stories NOT cover4ed by the Post-Times
How the Seattle Schools manged to screw up their search
Why Vulcan can not fill its 2200 project
Does the SLU development add net tax revenure or will it raise our taxes?
How IS the UW financing the Safeco bldg?
Why are the majority of African Americans at the UW on athletic scholarships?
Should we ban “Ho Ho Ho” from Christmas greetings?
Who uses the Seattle Public Library’s downtown xtal cathedral? Is James Dobson really interested?
How come Sunny Jim can’t get serious assignments in the House?
How come the School District has less students every year while the population of Seattle is growing?
Has Belltown become a suburb for Redmond?
and so it goes. There is always Crosscut! Well maybe not always. I hear Marthe Stewart may buy it and go national, after renaming it “Cross stitch.”
Would it be terrible is Seattle had one one major paper?
Probably not.
That should read “only one major paper.”
I for one am breathing easier. Looking at the general trend in newspaper publishing, if we lost one of our locally-produced papers we’d be one step away from the acquisition of the other by the likes of Gannett or Rupert (shudder!) Murdoch. The present situation may not be everyone’s ideal, but most of the alternatives are considerably worse.
A gunman has killed 21 people on the Virginia Tech campus.
Roger Rabbit says:
A gunman has killed 21 people on the Virginia Tech campus.
Too bad you weren’t there, Rabbit!!!
@6 Too bad your parents didn’t send you to finishing school. You’re supposed to express sorrow for the victims before wishing death on another poster. This is a new low in tastelessness even for you.
Blethen blinked. It must have been the prospect of the testimony of the former Times circulation manager that they deliberately attempted to suppress the circulation of the PI. If the Times continues to lose money Hearst will win. Blethen can’t match the resources of Hearst and no one will come to his aid again after the way he screwed Gannett. He is viewed as a nut case in the industry.
Get it straight, Goldy. Bill Richards at Crosscut had the scoop.
As for the substance, ratcityreprobate @ 8 has it nailed.
“22 dead in Virginia Tech shooting
“By Sue Lindsey
“The Associated Press
“BLACKSBURG, Va. — A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech today, killing 21 people in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. The gunman was killed, but it was unclear if he was shot by police or took his own life. …
“The university reported shootings at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at … a co-ed residence hall … and continuing about two hours later at … an engineering building.
“Some but not all the dead were students. One student was killed in a dorm and the others were killed in the classroom …. The name of the gunman was not released. It was not known if he was a student.
“Up until today, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before he was gunned down by police. …
“After the shootings, students were told to stay inside away from the windows. ‘There’s just a lot of commotion. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on,’ said Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the dorm where shooting took place. Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened … one floor above her room. … ‘We’re all locked in our dorms surfing the Internet trying to figure out what’s going on,’ Kanode said.
Madison Van Duyne, a student who was interviewed by telephone on CNN, said, ‘ … Most of the students are sitting on the floors away from the windows just trying to be as safe as possible.’
“Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks by authorities but said they have not determined a link to the shootings. …”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ech16.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The Associated Press story on AOL says President Bush “believes that there is a right for people to bear arms,” according to spokesperson Dana Perino.
8, 9 We’ve never seen the handle “ratcityreprobate” on this blog before. This is obviously an insider leaking highly classified information! Sounds completely credible. Frank Blethen is as lousy a businessman as he is an editorialist. I realize newspapers are a tough business to be in; but trying to run Hearst out of business? Gimme a fucking break!!
Don’t be surprised if next week’s lede is, “Seattle Weekly acquires Seattle Times; announces Times will go to Thursday-only grocery ad publication.”
If the Times can’t make any money, how does Frank get to live in a $4 million house?
Mark the Redneck defines a “producer” as someone who inherits a $900 million business and loses money for the shareholders.
Betcha “ratcityreprobate” is Frank Blethen’s dog. The dog is leaking inside info because Frank is feeding it cheap dry food again.
Unfortunately the death toll continues to rise as authorities find more bodies from today’s campus shooting rampage, and at least 30 innocent people are known dead.
King 5 News’ noon report indicated the gunman went into a dorm looking for his girlfriend, and not finding her there, ordered students to line up and then began slaying them execution-style. There are reports of fleeing students leaping from 4th-floor windows.
Why? Why? Why?
THERE HAS BEEN A MASSACRE AT VIRGINIA TECH. AROUND 30 ARE DEAD.
I BELIEVE IN THE SECOND AMMENDMENT. I DON’T WANT TO LIVE UNDER FASCISM OR DICTATORSHIP SO I WANT TO BE ABLE TO PICK UP A GUN AND DEFEND MY FREEDOM.
HOWEVER A STRICTER BAN ON ASSAULT WEAPONS IS JUSTIFIED. THE HARSHEST PENALTIES FOR THOSE WHO TRAFFIC AND POSSESS THESE WEAPONS IS NEEDED. A CLOSING OF ALL LOOP HOLES IS NEEDED
WINGNUTS WILL SAY THAT CRIMINALS AND TERRAISTS WILL GET THESE WEAPONS ANYWAY. MAYBE SO. I SAY IF THEY’RE CAUGHT WITH AN ILLEGAL WEAPON IN THE COMMISSION OF A CRIME, LOCK ‘EM UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY FOR LIFE – NO CHANCE OF PAROLE.
I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST ANYONE WHO WANTS TO CARRY A MODEST HANDGUN FOR PERSONAL PROTECTION OR A RIFLE FOR HUNTING OR HOME DEFENSE.
I have long believed this kind of behavior comes from our entertainment culture. All you see in movies and on TV anymore is fast cars, explosions, and shooting. “Action” sells, so no one writes a script or acts anymore. Then yahoos whose brains have been super-saturated with this garbage go out into society and act-out these movie and TV fantasies. What kids see from early childhood on, is actors shooting each other on TV, but it’s okay because they’re back for next week’s episode, so it’s all pretend you see, and they grow up without a sense of the reality and finality of real-life violence. When you see some crazy asshole tearing down the street in his car, or see news reports of some nutjob shooting up a workplace or school campus, they’re simply copying what they saw in movies and on TV all their lives. I’m convinced of it.
Roger Rabbit says:
Betcha “ratcityreprobate” is Frank Blethen’s dog. The dog is leaking inside info because Frank is feeding it cheap dry food again.
Naw, I’m not even one of his neighbor’s dogs. The ones he was shooting with his pellet gun a few years ago. I might be one of the geese that he tried to shoot for pooping on his lawn.
King 5 News’ noon report indicated the gunman went into a dorm looking for his girlfriend,
SO I GUESS THIS LOSER WAS INSPIRED BY THE GRIEGO SLAYING HERE IN SEATTLE.
WHAT A TERRIBLE DAY THIS IS…
Yossarian @ 6
What a remarkable comment. If in your twisted world your post counts as humor, then you need help. Given today’s news, anyone who would make such a comment is beyond shameful. Go hide under your rock, you inhuman bastard.
@18 Slow down, my friend. We don’t know yet what kind of weapon(s) was used, or where the shooter got it (them).
On the philosophical plane, if you believe in arming civilians against the possibility of dictatorship in our own country, then you can’t limit them to single-shot target rifles or hunting rifles with 3-round magazines.
What is an “assault weapon” anyway? Any rifle with a 30-round clip? You can make 30-round clips for deer rifles. When Congress quote – banned – unquote so-called quote – assault weapons – unquote a few years ago, what they actually outlawed was bayonet lugs and high capacity magazines. So what? Who cares if a rifle has a bayonet lug or not? So you take a hacksaw to your AK-47 and saw off the bayonet lug to make it legal — so what? How does that protect the public from incidents like today’s?
I don’t believe we can protect ourselves from such incidents until we change the culture. We have a huge entertainment industry that teaches kids via movies, TV shows, and video games that violence is an acceptable way to resolve social conflicts or personal frustrations. Therefore we shouldn’t be surprised that people with issues go out into society and shoot strangers to get attention.
How do we fix this? Easy. Sue the bastards who sell this poison for profit. For decades, the entertainment industry has been immune from civil liability for the harm that its product causes. It’s time to end that protection and let juries hold them responsible to the victims and families who are shattered by the real-life violence their products encourage. Anyone who claims our entertainment culture has nothing to do with people’s behavior is just plain lying. It has everything to do with it. That’s where this behavior comes from. That’s where people learn it. It doesn’t come from anywhere else. You can’t saturate an entire society with entertainment consisting almost solely of violent depictions and not have an impact on social behavior. This is the next frontier, after tobacco, of tort litigation. Turn loose the lawyers and let the lawsuits roll!
@22 I actually feel somewhat flattered that when a sick, twisted, wingnut cretin gets in a killing mood, I’m the first liberal he wants dead. It shows I’m getting to them. Good!!! I want to be their nemesis, their arch enemy; I want to be the little rabbit who brings down the vast rightwing conspiracy in a cloud of dust.
@20 I might buy that if you explain how the goose is privy to what goes on in the executive suite.
“Turn loose the lawyers and let the lawsuits roll!”
Will they also stop gang related killings?
ROGER – CHARLES WHITMAN AND LEE HARVEY OSWALD WERE TRAINED IN THE MARINES.
I DON’T BUY THE ENTERTAINMENT CULTURE ARGUMENT. I KNOW FAMILIES WHO STRICTLY REGULATE THE VIOLENT CONTENT OF THE ENTERTAINMENT IN THEIR HOUSE AND THEIR KIDS MAKE TOY WEAPONS OUT OF CARDBOARD ANYWAY. THE KIDS KNOW IT’S FANTASY.
TURNING TO VIOLENCE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS STARTS IN THE HOME AND THE SCHOOLYARD. BULLIES START PRACTICING IT WITH SHOVES AND PUNCHES.
IF THE COUNTRY TURNS TO DICTATORSHIP, THE FIRST PLACE TO GO IS TO A STATE MILITIA THAT WILL HAVE THE NEEDED WEAPONS AND IF IT’S NOT YOUR STATE THEN THE NEIGHBORING STATE.
What’s with these psychos who can’t take “no” from a girl? You expect this behavior from the Taliban. Did they all have fathers who taught them women are chattel property? Betcha this asshole was a Young Republican.
On a much more grim note, the Washington Post reports that the death toll is up to 32, making this the worst mass shooting in US history.
Later on, we can join our standard left/right arguments about whether it would have been better to keep this nutcase from owning a weapon, or encouraging the students to carry their own guns to school, but for now, sympathy and prayers for the survivors and the families of the victims are much more appropriate.
Speaking of the Taliban, or specifically, where did the Taliban come from, the answer is: The Taliban is almost entirely composed of the war orphans left behind by the Soviet-Afghan War. These youths, lacking families, banded together in militias for sustenance and mutual support. They were ripe for recruitment into radical movements; and were exceptionally brutal because they grew up without the female influences of mothers and sisters, and without socialization or social integration. The story is the same in Africa, where most of the population is under the age of 21, and everywhere else. War creates orphans; and these orphans are the scourge of the modern world.
Roger @25 See this.
Copyright © 2007 by Crosscut
A potential bombshell is buried in 3.5 million pages of documents and testimony collected for a winner-take-all arbitration between Seattle’s two daily newspapers. In a deposition, a former Seattle Times Co. executive claims that Times officials in the mid-1990s secretly violated their joint operating agreement (JOA) with Hearst Corp., owner of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, using unfairly lopsided circulation spending to keep the Seattle Times’ circulation lead over the P-I. Times executives then tricked Hearst into giving up their paper’s exclusivity in the morning, the former executive claims. Since the joint operation began 1983, the P-I had been the morning paper and the bigger Times had the less-desirable afternoon publishing cycle. Today, of course, both are morning papers and the P-I is in a circulation death spiral.
The 122-page deposition by former Seattle Times Co. Vice President Stephen Sparks was given under oath to federal and state antitrust investigators in 2004. Sparks headed circulation for both the Times and the P-I under the JOA from 1993 to 1997. Speaking with Hearst attorneys under oath last November, he repeated the allegations. A copy of Sparks’s earlier federal deposition was obtained by Crosscut.
Rgoer said,
“This is a new low in tastelessness even for you.”
Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle!
@26 No. More law enforcement would have an impact. Bush pulled the 100,000 additional cops that Clinton put on the streets off the streets, and homicide rates soared. Bush also pulled 2,400 FBI off domestic crime for terrorism duty and didn’t replace them. To get more law enforcement, you have to vote Republicans out of office.
@26 Jack, I don’t understand why conservatives aren’t calling for Bush’s head. He has stood everything they supposedly stand for on its head. Why do Republicans continue to support him? Are they all gullible fools?
PETE MCCLOSKEY LEAVES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!
McCloskeys have been Republicans in California since 1859, the year before Lincoln’s election. My great grandfather, John Henry McCloskey, orphaned in the great Irish potato famine of 1843, came to California in 1853 as a boy of 16, and joined the party just before the Civil War.
….
What finally turned me to despair, however, was listening to the reports, or watching on C-Span, a whole series of congressional oversight hearings on C-Span, held by old friends and colleagues like Pat Leahy, Henry Waxman, Norm Dicks, Nick Rahall, Danny Akaka and others, trying to learn the truth on the misdeeds and incompetence of the Bush Administration. Time after time I saw Republican Members of the House and Senate. speak out in scorn or derision about these exercises of Congress oversight responsibility being “witch-hunts” or partisan attempts to distort the actions of people like the head of the General Service Administration and the top political appointees in the Justice and Interior Departments. Disagreement turned into disgust.
I finally concluded that it was a fraud for me to remain a member of this modern Republican Party, that there were only a few like Chuck Hegel, Jack Warner, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins I could respect.
Two of the best, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, and Jim Leach of Iowa, after years of battling for balance and sanity, were defeated last November, and it seems that every Republican presidential candidate is now vying for the support of the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells rather than talking about a return to the values of the party I joined nearly 59 years ago. My favorite spokesmen have beome Senators Jim Webb and Barack Obama.
And so it was, that while at the Woodland courthouse the other day, passing by the registrar’s office, I filled out the form to re-register as a Democrat.
READ THE WHOLE THING!
WITH THE HELP OF COUNTLESS TRUE PATRIOTS, WE ARE TAKING OUT COUNTRY BACK!!!
Repeated because it can’t be said too often right now:
Later on, we can join our standard left/right arguments about whether it would have been better to keep this nutcase from owning a weapon, or encouraging the students to carry their own guns to school, but for now, sympathy and prayers for the survivors and the families of the victims are much more appropriate.
Thanks John.
EXCUSE ME, OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!
The details now emerging of today’s campus shooting indicate the gunman was armed with two handguns, including a 9-mm semiauto pistol, and chained the doors of a classroom shut so no one could escape, then began systematically killing everyone in the room. Most of the deaths occurred in that one classroom. Why the students didn’t rush him, I don’t know. Maybe they tried.
That, of course, is what you have to do in such a situation. You overwhelm superior firepower with numerical superiority. If 20 or 30 people rush the shooter, some of them will get through the fire and reach him, and several people piling onto a lone individual are certain to take him down. Then you break his arms or whatever you have to do to get the gun(s) away from him, then you stomp him and whatever you have to do to subdue him, and then you refrain from killing him so he’ll have to face justice in a court of law and do a dozen years on death row or a lifetime in solitary.
Obviously this rampage was premeditated and well planned.
@31 I’m curious how they expect an arbitrator to read 3.5 million pages of evidence.
@31 ratcityreprobate, by the minute you are looking more and more like a lawyer who knows someone involved with the case.
@32 I don’t think so, Y’o. I’ve never stooped to using a tragedy as the occasion to publicly wish death upon you or any other named individual. This comment is nothing but more of your wingnut la-la-land “liberals do-it-too” bullshit. No, we don’t. You assholes are in a (low) class by yourselves.
@35 “Lifelong Republican, Marine veteran and former congressman Pete McCloskey has left the GOP and registered with the Democratic Party. McCloskey says he is disgusted with the ‘succession of ethical scandals, congressmen taking bribes and abuse of power by both the Republican House leadership and the highest appointees of the White House.’ ‘A pox on (Republicans) and their values,’ he wrote.
“As a Republican, McCloskey served in the House of Representatives from a San Mateo County congressional district from 1967- to 1983. He was a brief presidential hopeful … in 1972.”
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Perhaps McCloskey’s example will trigger more defections by moderate, responsible Republicans from the perversion of traditional Republican beliefs and values that the neocon-dominated GOP has become. Today’s Republican Party is essentially a Trotskyite party, reflecting the Trotskyite roots of the neocon movement and the early communist orientation of many the movement’s leaders. As I’ve commented many times on this blog, neocons are ex-bolsheviks who decided fascism pays better than communism. They have always been totalitarians, and still are.
Moderate Republicans flooding into the Democratic Party is a good thing, both for them and for the Democratic Party. They will help pull our party to the middle and their presence will act to subdue the fringe elements that afflict our party. While they may not agree with prevailing Democratic thinking on some issues, joining forces with Democrats for the time being will not only help them retrieve their party from the Stalinists who have hijacked the GOP, but will also help them regain their political bearings.
What a shame on the mass murders today at Virginia Tech. The last place you want to worry about the safety of your kids is at school.
I’m not sure what causes people to go off like this. I doubt banning guns would solve the problem and I don’t think it’s “Hollywood” either. I’m certain there’s no easy solution to such a complex societal problem.
35, 43 Look for McCloskey to be the next target of a “swift-boating” campaign.
WAS IT A TERRORIST ATTACK?
No one in the media is suggesting that yet, but I’m wondering.
A press conference is underway, which is being carried live by the networks. The most striking fact coming out of the press conference is that the police either cannot, or will not, describe the shooter’s age, ethnicity, or nationality.
Here’s what we know:
1. Today’s attack was preceded by bomb threats on Friday.
2. The campus is in immediate proximity to the Marine base and FBI training academy at Quantico.
3. The shooter was young.
4. The shooter had no ID on his person and has not been identified.
5. The shooting was not spontaneous; the shooter had made preparations, and the shooting appears to have been planned.
Here’s what we don’t know:
1. Whether the shootings at the dormitory and classroom were related, and/or committed by the same individual.
2. Whether there was more than one shooter.
3. Whether the shooter(s) had any help from other individuals.
4. The motive.
The information we have, and the gaps in the information to this point, certainly leave open the possibility this was a terrorist attack, it seems to me.
Perhaps not, time will tell, but there’s something about this situation that, in Mrs. Rabbit’s words, “doesn’t feel right,” in the sense that something doesn’t compute and it maybe there’s significance in the school’s proximity to the aforementioned government facilities.
It is also now clear the White House was notified immediately, but it’s not clear whether the federal government deployed an anti-terrorism response.
At least 32 people plus a shooter are dead. No figure yet on injuries but initial reports indicate there are dozens of injured. These would not necessarily be gunshot victims as many students in the dorm jumped out of windows to escape.
The security situation in Baghdad is getting worse not better and doesn’t look like it will improve between now and the upcoming primary season.
This spells disaster for the Republicans who will NOT win back the House, who will be in the minority in the Senate and most likely will not have control over the White House.
With the Dems in control it will become plainly obvious again that our polices are best for America when things improve here at home and abroad.
It’s been a shitty 6 1/2 years with another year and a half to go, but it’s a small price to pay knowing my kids and grandchildren won’t be living under Republican leadership.
Every cloud has its silver lining, our silver lining is the fact that George W. Bush’s incompetence single handedly dismantled the Republican Party.
Roger Rabbit says:
@26 No. More law enforcement would have an impact. Bush pulled the 100,000 additional cops that Clinton put on the streets off the streets, and homicide rates soared. Bush also pulled 2,400 FBI off domestic crime for terrorism duty and didn’t replace them. To get more law enforcement, you have to vote Republicans out of office.
How predictable. Bush bash took less than 4 hours. Leader of the extremists? Roger Rabbit
Rabbit, how about a prayer for the families and friends of the innocents killed today?
re 50: Stop the victim schtick, wuss.
A word from Frank Blethen on behalf of the Seattle Times:
“BUY THIS NEWSPAPER OR I’LL SHOOT THIS DOG!”
A word from Ryan Blethen on behalf of the Seattle Times:
“BUY THIS FUCKING NEWSPAPER OR MY DAD WILL SHOOT THIS DOG!”
ummm, Roger…
You semi-flamingly suggest:
As “evidence” for this outlandish claim, you say:
Well, I don’t know your definition of “immediate proximity”, but mine doesn’t include a distance of 227 miles and travel time of 4 hours.
But maybe it’s just me who doesn’t see that as “nearby”.
Dammit, Roger, don’t go off the subject when you’ve got an actual posting to put your comment in.
My comment immediately above, and the RR comment it refers to, belong in Goldy’s post on the VPI tragedy.
@ 35: YOS LIB BRO says:
PETE MCCLOSKEY LEAVES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!
Thanx Yos, that was quite enlightening. Many of my oldest friends are Republican (we’ve learned NOT to discuss politics). But I’ve never been able to figure out how decent people, such as I know them to be, could/would be willing to follow this cesspool of an administration; plus even be willing to vote for the 2nd go round! I think many Democrats (as well as Republicans) are beginning to understand the terror that by impeaching shrub, we could find ourselves with worse! President Cheney. God help the world altogether, were that to happen.
The PETE MCCLOSKEY letter helps me to figure out some of the rationale. Thx!
@54 That’s close enough for government work.
@55 I want to remind you and everyone else complaining about my alleged off-topic posts that navigating the human world when your eyes are only 10 inches off the ground isn’t as easy as you assume.
The P-I’s survival doesn’t seem to be going over too well with Stefan.
Aren’t ya’ll pissed your idol Darcy Burner didn’t get a chance to pad her 1 paragraph resume w/ experience bringing these 2 together
oh yeah, you’ll fire back her involvement, however brief was pivotal
Of all the major presidential contenders, Mitt Romney is the only one who doesn’t mention the tragedy on his campaign site:
http://www.barackobama.com
http://www.hillaryclinton.com
johnedwards.com
http://www.joinrudy2008.com
mccain.senate.gov
http://www.mittromney.com