Yet Another Reason Why Newspapers Are Dying

The Seattle Times announced Wednesday that 36 year old Ryan Blethen, the son of current Times publisher Frank Blethen, would become head of its editorial page editor.

Look, I realize that the Times is a family run enterprise, but if you want to tell me that Ryan Blethen was the best potential candidate for that post in a time when papers have either been laying employees off or closing entirely then I have a bridge I want to sell you.

So you can look forward to three things: the continuation of the erosion of the Times subscriber base; endorsements of airheaded congresstwat and Bush buddy Dave Reichert solely because Reichert wants to repeal the estate tax; and further questions as to the journalistic heft of the Times, which already features too much AP (undercover wingnuts) content while it lets go more and more of its own reportorial staff despite being the only paper in a town of half a million.

Blethen tried to dialog with the Times reader base a couple of weeks ago in a patronizing gesture that resulted in him getting scorched from sea to shining sea. Yet, even after seeing just how passionately disaffected readers are with the paper, Blethen basically stonewalled them, not responding to any of their complaints, proving that he has a typical view of normal folks held by the wannabe aristocrats in corporate America, that you can't take the whinings of the populace seriously because they just too stupid to understand.

Of course, like GM, Ford and Chrysler, this is emblematic of just how resistant to change the circus of douchebags that corporate America is, including firms that run newspapers. So nepotism it is and if you don't like it, fuck off.

With that attitude, while I am very uncomfortable with newspapers disappearing since I more or less grew up reading them everyday and they have been such an important part of lubricating our democracy, it is understandable that a part or all of us would would like to see the backside of these arrogant shits. If they aren't honest with their customers and don't act ethically, there is no moral reason we should continue to support them. Too bad, then, that newspaper managers are too elitist and insular to realize the building resentment against them that will result in no one missing them when they finally take their suicidally induced economic dirt nap.

Arianna Does a Turn on the Governmental Catwalk

One of the more annoying aspects of Huffington Post is Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington using it as a vehicle for promoting herself. She testified the other day before a Senate subcommittee about the future of journalism. This raises a whole host of questions:

1. What is the government doing wasting time on the state of a profession? That is for the folks in that field to decide, not the government, especially as how government and media are supposedly adversarial (okay, I'll wait while you finish laughing).

This is a far different issue from net neutrality, which the government does have rightful input on because it is of grave public concern.

2. What can the Senators who hear this testimony do about it? Nothing. I don't want a government bailout of newspapers. The newspapers shouldn't want that, either for a whole host of reasons, one of which is that it would effectively put newspapers and the government in bed together. That is not healthy for the state of objective journalism.

3. If certain media outlets decide to require subscriptions for access to their content, well, that is their business. I think the subscription approach is hopelessly wrongheaded for a mass market product like the news because it inherently shrinks the available audience for that product, but the companies take the risk. The marketplace will speak. Don't intervene in it.

4. Is any of this testimony stuff we haven't been hearing the last two years? No.

Consequently, this hearing won't change squat and is little more than a kind of lowbrow kabuki theater.

But hey, Arianna never met a tv camera she didn't like.