Results tagged “newspaper”

"out of paper" by Kurt Schlosser, from the Seattlest Flickr pool

On the same day the Seattle Weekly was prognosticating about the Seattle Times' survival odds, and the Times was filling us in on the P-I's, sometime-Seattlester Seth Kolloen sent us this enigmatic screenshot. Are they trying to tell us something from inside the Fairview compound?

Everyone says the Post-Intelligencer is going "all electronic," but that's manifestly untrue. If there were a secret plan to turn the venerable Hearst paper into a digital flagship, don't you think, maybe, they'd be printing banner headlines every goddamn day saying "It's in the P-I...and it's still going to be in the P-I, online"? They've got 30-odd days to convert their 200,000 or so remaining print readers into online readers, and every day they don't scream "Read it online" is a day lost. No, the only conclusion is that Hearst just don't know what they're doing. Seattlepi.com serves about 4 million unique visitors and 45 million page views each month. But those are electrons, not dead trees. Don Smith, who carries the bizarre title "Interactivity Director," must be tearing his hair out. Doomed.

Gregoire's planned announcement on budget cuts may be delayed by a check-in for jury duty. But she'll make 'em eventually. They don't call her Judge Hatchett for nothing. Meanwhile, in the Dept. of Duh, some Seattle Times staffers are now openly griping about managers' pay, including the salary of the big man Frank Blethen.

Crosscut's Bill Richards has the story on Hearst's signal of disinterest: "Hearst Corp. said today that it won’t make a final $1 million payment to the Times’ majority owners, the Blethen family, for the right to bid first for the Blethens’ 50.5 percent stake in the company." Hearst also said that if they turn P-I into a pixel-only publication, they would do so outside the warm bosom of the JOA. But they haven't decided yet. "What's the big rush? Stop pestering us!" Meanwhile, the Seattle Times is in "survival mode," reports the Stranger--they're asking the unions for 12 percent payroll cuts. This is grim news indeed for Stranger staffers who were hoping to sell out and snag a cushy MSM job one day.

NICK LICATA'S AFTERNOON DELIGHT: The City Council's Nick Licata wants to save the P-I this afternoon. KOMO puts it bluntly [UPDATE: and wrongly, says Licata's office--Licata wants simply to discuss newspapers formed as an L3C (low-profit, limited liability corporation).]: "Licata's plan: convince the city to intervene by putting up its own money to keep in print the oldest newspaper in town." He's convened a Superfriends panel--Roger Simpson and Douglas Underwood, Professors of Communication from the University of Washington; attorney Anne Bremner, Co-Chair of the Committee for a Two Newspaper Town; Beth Hester, programming manager for Seattle Channel; Liz Brown of the PacNW Newspaper Guild; David Brewster, publisher of Crosscut; and Jennifer Towery, President of the Peoria Newspaper’s Guild--to help him. Unfortunately he's made one huge mistake--most people are at work at 2 p.m. If you're near a TV, tune in to Seattle Channel 21, or you can watch the live webcast.

Probably the first question P-I staffers need to ask themselves is, How badly do they want it?

For many Seattle residents, the Death With Dignity Initiative (I-1000) gets a heartfelt, fairly immediate vote of approval. P-I columnist Joel Connelly is not so sure. Today's paper includes Connelly's long-ish rant about I-1000 supporters' misguiding ads on the radio, and he awards the initiative his "Sheer Gall Award" for its advertisements' "anti-Catholic" "landslide of distortions." We suggest you read his fact-checks and decide for yourself.

"Reading-the-funnies" by Greg Phipps (El Gregein)