However, if we wanted to ask a question that was more to the point, just exactly why is it so bad to be a Muslim? The evidence is pretty clear that Obama, like a great number of Americans, is a Christian who goes to church on special occasions and when they feel the need. That is the same as a lot of people in this country, and it’s not necessarily bad. Likewise, why is it any better or worse to be a Christian or a Muslim or a follower of some other faith?

My question, one that no one in the media seems to be able to address right now, is just what is so wrong about being a Muslim? Some people are Christians, some are Muslim, some are Buddhists, some are Sikhs or Pagans or Jews or followers of any one of a number of other spiritual systems. The question: Since when did it become an insult to call someone a Muslim? Until we address that, we are just arguing over mindless accusations that detractors of the president seem to want to make to .

Until we can accept one another for who we are, without “hating” someone else merely because of their race or religion, then we are fairly well doomed as a society. And until we can speak of one another (as individuals in a country) without the racial or religious labels, we are truly showing our ignorance. I look at the media reports and see misinformation on both sides of this issue.

Some of these folks are seeing Christians and Muslims as an “either/or” situation. I may offend a few with this description, but not deliberately. Let me explain:

• Both Christians and Muslims believe that one God/Creator made the Earth.
• Both believe that one should worship the Creator on a regular basis.
• Both believe that regular prayer is a benefit to one’s life.
• Both believe in the words of a holy book, that in each case was written by wise men inspired by God, and at a basic level tell similar stories.
• Both holy books tell us how the world was created, how to worship and please God, and how to lead good and ethical lives.
• Both books are full of wisdom to live by.
• Both books have certain passages that could have very bad meanings, depending upon how they are interpreted.  In other words, if taken strictly and literally, and out of context, they both in places direct us to do things that are inappropriate by today’s standards.
• Both books, while for the most part directing us to do good and not to hurt others, have sections that say we might need to fight or kill people to preserve ourselves and our respective religions. In both cases, only those who already have a mind toward violence actually interpret those sections as a call to violence.
• Both religions have regular religious practice, a yearn for peace, a call to be charitable toward others, a call to be charitable toward their church, and a call to take care of ones self and others as their main focus.
• Both have lists of rules one would follow to lead a good and wholesome life.

There are a number of ways that the religions differ, of course. But if you look at those things, you will find that they are in the realm of “method of practice” than in actual dogma. Christianity is different from Islam, but not much more than the way that different sects of Christianity (Catholics, Mormons, Baptists, Protestants, and so on) are different from one another.

I find that many Christians, despite claiming to love their neighbors and claiming to be tolerant toward others, will badmouth the Muslims as bad people.  On the other hand, I have found that a great many Christians will go out of their way to badmouth the practices of their fellow Christians who happen to practice in a different way in a different church.

Yes, this does oversimplify things somewhat. But in the end, in the things that matter, most of the world’s religions are truly not that different from one another. So, why are we demonizing the other religious people so much?  Aren’t we really only arguing over the method of religious practice and some minor doctrinal details, rather than in some really evil difference in what we believe?

Unless we really believe that anyone who doesn’t sit next to us on Sunday morning is the bad guy.

Anyone want to help me out on this?

Share via email

We thank those people for their service, for doing the right thing to protect us, no matter what the circumstances.  The reasons for their sacrifice have been clear in some cases.  In other cases, the political expediency of the campaigns that they were involved in were not quite as clear.  The political story that surrounds their sacrifice does not diminish the thanks and the honor that these souls deserve.  For whatever reason they were sent to serve us, their service is worthy of our honor.

On this day when we celebrate and thank those who have put themselves in harm’s way, I would like to make a request of our governments.  I would like to request that our governments think very carefully about the safety of our troops when they make their decisions to continue to send them into the path of harm.  Canada has already made some good choices in removing their troops from the current skirmishes where it is not clear that the needs there are worth the sacrifice.  The United States still needs to look harder at what we are using our military for.

We have historically stepped in when other people have been harmed.  We can argue that we need to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect those who live there from harm.  We can also argue that we need to continue to fight in those places to keep harm from reaching our shores.    I’m pretty certain that the average citizen here doesn’t get enough information in their news to make an educated decision on these matters.  I would insist, however, that our leaders who are privy to this information look at all of their options before continuing to place out troops in harm’s way.

We certainly have many options for dealing with these areas.  Are we really unable to deal with these enemies in a timely manner?  Do we really know who the enemy is?  Is there a way to work smarter and not harder to get things to a conclusion?  Have we really used enough diplomacy as an alternative to military might to solve that region’s problems?  Should we be asking other countries for diplomatic assistance rather than military assistance to get the job done?  Have we really looked hard at what solutions exist that do not invilve putting more of our sons and daughters into harm’s way?

I have a clear separation in my mind of the politics of war and the sacrifice of the troops who have kept us safe over the years.  I feel I can criticize our leaders for their role, while thanking our service members for theirs.  On this Veterans Day, we should honor the troops, present and past, as much as we can.  If we are leaders who have the power to do so, we should honor them by getting them out of harm’s way as soon as is practical.  Do not increase the numbers we have in the Middle East, Mr Obama.  Bring as many of them home as soon as possible.  Make that decision today.  Do it today.

Share via email

Really, I think I have the common cold.  In my 47 years of experience as a human, the symptoms I have seem to match up with that scenario.  But I have one other concern.  What if it is the H1N1 Flu?  The dreaded Swine Flu.  The disease that, since I am an avid consumer of the newspaper and broadcast media, I have learned could not only kill me but also infect and kill all of the people I care about around me!  How could I take a chance like that?

Well, the answer to the immediate problem is that I’m likely going to miss a day of work today, or at least the interacting-with-the-public part of it.  But this gets me thinking about a couple of other issues here.

The first issue is one of the current state of the news media.  Some stories are widely covered, others are hidden.  The current trend in broadcast news reporting is to report things in the most sensational terms possible.  Every weather event is potentially the most dangerous weather ever.  Every political event will change the way we live as a society, either for the good or the bad, depending upon one’s thoughts on the particular issue.  The media regularly uses terms like “war” and “earthquake” and “disaster” and “terrorism” to describe events that don’t even remotely resemble the true meanings of those words.  So, if there is even the remote possibility that my cold is actually an epidemic strain of the flu, shouldn’t I treat it as if I had the plague?  But who do I ask?

That brings me to my second point.  It would be nice to be able to ask a medical professional what I have, just to be sure.  Easier said than done, of course, since I don’t have a regular relationship with a doctor.  That is just because I don’t need one that often right now.  We can also blame it on being self-employed, COBRA running out from the last employer, pre-existing conditions, and so on.  But most of that can wait for another day.

The question at hand goes like this:  Sometimes, you want to sit down for dinner at a nice restaurant and take the time to eat it there and talk about it afterward.  Sometimes you just need to get a burger at the drive-thru because you didn’t bring lunch and you expect that this will be your only opportunity to grab a bite all afternoon.  In other words, sometimes less service for a lesser fee is what is required to get the job done.

In the same way, sometimes I need to see the doctor, go over what is wrong with me, endure some tests to determine the extent of the problem, compare this to past medical records, and so on.  For this service, I expect to make an appointment well ahead of time and pay the going rate for half an hour or an hour  of the doctor’s office time.  Sometimes, though, what I really need is five minutes or less with the nurse or the physicians assistant to see whether I have a common cold, or the swine flu, or something that really requires the previously mentioned full-service visit.

It’s not really the huge monetary discount I’m looking for here, either.  Sometimes I need full service.  But sometimes I really wish that there were a place I could go and get a just a dollop of health care that I need, for a question that can likely be answered relatively quickly by a trained professional in a few minutes.  Yes, some things require the full visit, but somethings could be treated much more efficiently.  For lack of a better term, and with apologies to the burger chain, it could be the “McDonalds” of health care.  Quality product, to be sure.  But also fast and with a limited menu and efficiency of scale.

I have visited such a place a few times.  For a while there were places set up in drugstores around the area.  They could fix easy problems there, or refer you to another nearby facility for deeper issues.  I’ve lost track of where any of them are or even if they exist anymore.  But I really wonder why such choices are not more widespread.

This is the kind of thing I would like to see for reducing the costs of health care.  Having portable or electronic health care records would facilitate this.  Getting people just enough of the care they need, without providing too much, would go a long way toward cutting costs, and avoiding the high-cost emergency room.  When we talk about health care reform, this is the kind of thing we need to be discussing.

Share via email

In my opinion, this is one of the most important issues that face our country today.  That we do not already provide health care coverage for all us citizens is somewhere between irresponsible and criminal.

I plan to post here in the near future (when I finally get some time) about the importance of providing this benefit to all Americans.  In the meantime, if we take all events at face-value, it would be amazing just how many people are so violently opposed to reforming a health-care system that is so obviously broken.  The answer is, of course, that there is nothing spontaneous about these Republican-Party-organized events throughout the nation.

Fortunately, many people see this organized protest for what it is.  in one of the most brilliant blog postings I have seen recently, Tom Harper at Port Angeles Online offers this blog entry response to a comment in the Peninsula Daily News.  The original comment by the Clallam County Republican Party Chairman is as follows:

Fifty people expected to protest outside forum on Friday
Peninsula Daily News

PORT ANGELES — About 50 people are expected to line the Waterfront Trail outside the Red Lion Hotel on Friday to protest health care reform proposed by President Barack Obama, says Clallam County Republican Party Chairman Dick Pilling.

Pilling said party members will be involved in the protest — but that the local GOP is not sponsoring it.  “It is in fact a broad number of constituents that are coming together,” he said.  “They are unhappy with the fact that Congress doesn’t seem to be listening.”  Pilling said he has been involved in organizing the protest by suggesting the location and by providing information about it to potential demonstrators who contacted him.  He referred to himself as the “lightening rod” for people who want to protest.  No signs will be distributed by the party, he said.

The response to this article is, in my opinion, a must-read story on how the demonstrators at these town hall meetings are organized.  Or not, if you believe the organizers.  I’ll let you decide.

Share via email

The television was not a central focus at our house growing up, but I do remember Mr. Cronkite being a regular visitor to our TV set. He WAS the news when I was growing up — all other news presenters were compared (favorably or unfavorably) to him.

Cronkite was first noted in recent reporting for his coverage of John F Kennedy’s death in 1963.  Certainly Kennedy’s death happened when I was a very small child, but other events like the moon landing and the Vietnam war stand out more in my mind and will forever be associated with his reporting. When we opened up the window to the world in the evening, it was Cronkite that was describing what we saw.  We saw the world through his eyes.

Cronkite would have never fit in with the entertainment/news programs today that pass for news. He did not try to awe us with news of the unusual. He merely pointed out to us what was going on out there in the world. He did that with excellence.

In 1983, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Cronkite briefly when he made a presentation at our university to the students in our department before appearing at a larger university function that evening. (Another CBS News pioneer, Edward R Murrow, had been a student at our school in the distant past, and a number of events were “Murrow-themed.”) I count that moment as one of the most memorable events in my life. There was that sort of “meeting a rock star” feeling where I not only got to meet someone who I had respected throughout my childhood, I could also look at him as an example. As a student of Communications & Broadcasting at Washington State University, I could never attain his notoriety, but it sure gave a person a goal to aim for.

Walter Cronkite was not only the top of his trade at a national level, and not only inspiration to a group of communications majors on a wintry day in 1983, but represented a figure that we will likely not see again on television. You might say that no one else will reach his level of skill or notoriety, or that no network producer will ever allow anyone else to reach those heights. In the end, it is unlikely that any one person will ever be widely trusted by so many Americans.

I mourn his passing.

Share via email

I have found most of the newspaper websites, both within Cascadia and around the country, to be sorely lacking.  Somewhere along the line, the publishers on the newspapers seem to be treating the website as a poor second cousin to the print version of the newspaper.  Yes, under the current system, the newspaper company is deriving much less revenue from the website than they do from the printed edition of the paper.  However, this is going to prove to be a temporary situation.  For a number of reasons, the days of the printed newspaper are numbered, for the same reasons that we read  other articles online, or the reasons that we pay our bills online now.

I have given a lot of thought to the online newspaper of the future.  We are purchasing a product.  That product is journalism. I expect that journalism to be of a certain quality, no matter on which medium that journalism is presented to me.  I am looking for information.  That information is important to me.  It matters not whether the journalism and information are presented on paper or online.  It is the content that I want to pay for.

If the newspaper of the future wants me to take them seriously, there are a number of things they must do for me.  Among them:

• They must present me a large amount of local content.  I can get national content from the wire services from almost everywhere.  There are two things, though, that I cannot effective get from there.  One is news of how the national news will affect me locally.  (“How will Obama’s decision affect the residents of Cascadia?  Or the residents of Southwest Portland?)  The other is actual local news.  I will pay to receive my local news online the day that the local paper commits to providing me consistent, quality local coverage.  They are not now doing that.
• To reinforce what I want for local news, let me explain.  I want news of my city and county governments.  I want the news of my state and region.  I want to know about the people running for my local School Board.  (Last week, you had to look hard and deep into The Oregonian’s website to even discover that a School Board election was coming up.)  If someone can provide me all of that local information, it is worth the price of a newspaper subscription to me every month.
• I want news of local events.  If my local newspaper can’t be bothered to tell me when the Rose Festival or Seafair events are coming up, then who will?  To a certain extent, I want my newspapers to serve as a cheerleader for their communities.  We all stand to gain from this.
• It is nice that online newspapers allow reader comments on their news stories.  What is not good is that every single one is published, whether they are “on topic” or not.  It is good to encourage a wide discussion on the issues.  It is not good when every news discussion somehow degenerates into potshots on immigration or the lifestyle of Portland’s mayor.  One function of a newspaper used to be to edit copy.  The newspaper never tried to print every single letter to the editor.  Nor should they try to publish every comment made online.  If the editors wold actually “edit” then the online publication would be much better for it.

Our local news is moving from a paper presentation to an online one whether we like it or not.  If the newspaper companies can step up the quality of the information and journalism that they offer, then they will have a saleable product.  If not, they will go the way of the dinosaurs.  I hope that they survive, only as a means to provide our region with the quality journalism and information that it deserves.

Share via email

We have now had the opportunity to see the Post-Intelligencer’s insight into the paperless newspaper of the future.  I can say that, so far, I am much less than impressed by the results.  It is obvious that the amount of original content emanating from the P-I Newsroom is a shadow of its former self.  That is obvious and just as we expected.  Sadly, the website has become not much more than a fancy news aggregator site.  That doesn’t sound like much of a vision to me.  Of course, I will continue to hold my breath waiting for the great new medium to appear.

A few critical points I would like to make:

• If the P-I example is the future of newspaper reporting, then the system will come crashing down upon itself in due time.  The paper has a fraction of it’s previous original content, reflecting the professional staffing levels that are a fraction of their former selves.  The remainder of the publication’s news content is an aggregation of stories from other news sources.  Certainly we expect to see national stories from the wire services.  That has become business as usual.  The P-I also regularly includes stories taken from the online sites of many of the area’s newspapers, from the Seattle Times to the Kitsap Sun and the Everett Herald.  There is also representation from the Seattle television stations.  My main concern here is that every newspaper went this route, there would soon be no other news sources to quote from.  Frankly, since I follow the news of Snohomish County, the Herald is on my reading list anyway.
• The P-I has increased the number of personal blogs that they host on their site ,and they call that news reporting.  Even though I have a blog, I still somehow equate the stories written by professional journalists to be somehow a step above the writings of most bloggers. I am of the opinion that some blogs do a fine job, in some cases better than newspapers themselves, at breaking investigative stories.  The consistency of some of these blogs is still being developed.  However, I expect the P-I to be producing at a level higher than some of my blog news sources.
• The opinion pages are also lacking in the new P-I.  While Joel Connelly and David Horsey are fine writers, we seem to be limited to these two opinions for now.  Yes, there are quite a number of celebrity guest columnists, but that was a feature of the old paper P-I also.
• On the subject of opinion, we need to look at letters to the editor.  The Letters section was always useful as a way to expose amny different opinions to the reader.  They are an important read, in that we can see what the feelings of others are.  It helps us to understand what “the other side” is thinking, and helps us to develop our own opinions.  In the current medium online, there is the opportunity to publish all of the letters.  In doing this, it forces us to wade through all of the pablum to get to the best comments and the most representative comments.  The letters section is the voice of the readers.  The act of editing this section helps the readers as much as editing the news sections.  (I am not suggesting that we keep people from voicing their opinions.  But back in the printed paper, it was not uncommon to print a few letters stating both sides of a story, then mentioning that they had received some number of similar letters for or against an issue.)

My pet peeve in the new format, however, is the lack of control in the “Comments” section that appears after most articles.  While often there are some fine opinions stated in these comments, and sometimes some clarifications or isdeas that I had not considered, these discussions quickly go off topic.  These comments might be a valuable resource — opinion right there after the article discussing the issue.  But all too often they go off in directions that have nothing to do with the article.

Does it really do any good to suggest that we throw any politician out of office because they made a decision we didn’t agree with today?  Does it really make sense to argue that we need more roads and transit should be cut every time we discuss any issue related to transit?  Is it really necessary to discuss the race of a participant in a story and question the immigration status of anyone with a Hispanic surname?  We all see that these are the common themes in the comments sections of our online newspapers, but we are not demanding that our editors actually do their job and edit them.

Would it have really been appropriate to print the comments “Just throw them out of office then” and “Just send them back to where they belong” after every story in the printed paper.  Would it have been appropriate to discuss the types of cruel and unusual punishment that criminals or the merely accused “deserve” after every crime report in the printed paper?  No.  And this nonsense has no place in the online publication, either.

The online format offers a unique and wonderful opportunity to explore and discuss the issues of the day among the citizens of the city, region, state, and nation.  If a news outlet can present this information in an informative and appropriate manner, this would be a valued (and valuable) asset to the community.  But the free-for-alls that most papers publish now on their websites do not represent the quality that we need from the city’s premier publication.  that is the case whether that publication is printed on paper or presented in electronic form.

Share via email

Just what is a newspaper?  Traditionally, we have defined it as that two pounds of newsprint with ink on it that is delivered to your door every morning.  But in this age of electronic media and the Internet, many of the documents of our everyday life have turned into electronic files.  We read e-books.  We receive letters and pay our bills online.  Most people file their tax returns electronically rather than on paper.  As an accountant, the updates for my tax law books now come online and on CD disks instead of in bound books that look impressive on the shelf.  Besides, the e-version of my research materials are much easier to search through and use.  As a book reader, Amazon and others will sell you a book by download as well as in a bound book.  So is it really a surprise that we might one day read out newspapers online?

My hopes were raised slightly by a speculative blog entry at Crosscut.com that suggests that perhaps Hearst might be not closing the Seattle P-I, but simply changing it’s form.  Most every newspaper has a website now.  The usefulness of these websites varies widely among newspapers.  Certainly, the future of the newspaper is in some electronic form.  The only problems are to find a way to make the online versions profitable, and to make them as useful as the current print version.  Perhaps Hearst and the P-I can pull this off.

I believe that someday, all newspapers will be online.  However, it will be a long time before newspaper websites, including the P-I’s relatively excellent example will ever be profitable.  There is still work that needs to be done in making the form of these websites just right.  I would really like to be pleasantly surprised and find that Hearst has the right formula ready to go to turn the Seattle P-I into the newspaper of the future.  From the standpoint of quality journalism, the P-I is the finest of the Seattle newspapers.  It deserves to live on.

I hope that this speculation of the P-I going on in electronic form is more than just a dream.  And if it is true, I wish them all the luck they will need to make the brave new venture a success.  I just hope they can make this work.  If anyone can do it, the crew at the Seattle P-I would make a fine choice.

Share via email

Since I am in Portland, I can accurately report on the experience here.  If you turned to any of the four oldest TV stations in town, you were treated to hours upon hours of “storm coverage” that was titled in the most profound words they could think up at the moment.  They provided wall-to-wall coverage, preempted by only a few programs that they believe to be important particularly profitable, like football games and such.  If you looked long enough, eventually you would figure out there was snow and ice present, and occasionally they would report some useful information. It is news and entertainment all rolled into one, but for the occasional event like this, that is probably an appropriate function for television.

On the other hand, let’s say the power went out, and you really did need as much information as possible about the conditions around you or over the next hill.  Well, that’s all right, most of us have a battery powered radio somewhere, and virtually every car is equipped with this useful device.  No problems!  we just turn on the radio and we will have several choices of where we get our information from!

Well, not so fast.  It seems that none of our local stations are equipped with a news department anymore.  Sure, there are the usual few “news” stations that give us people talking around the clock.  But outside of the morning drive-time, and maybe in the late afternoon, there are no longer any actual local reporters at most radio stations.  Certainly, there are not enough of them to provide a credible, timely newscast of a live event such as a major snowstorm.

The medium that we used to always depend upon for local emergencies is something very different now.   Most have, at the most, a single local reporter who is prepackaging stories to be repeated for the next 24 hours.  Many have no local news presence, and in fact, little local presence at all.  News-talk radio now means that a voice from somewhere far away is chattering about some national event.  They will keep chattering about random national events, even if we are suffering through blizzards of floods or even earthquakes.  In fact, at many stations, even if something major does happen, there is no one present who would be qualified to even open the microphone switch and tell us that something bad has happened.  Let alone research and report on the information we truly need immediately.  This is almost a crime.

To be fair, one Portland talk station did actually offer some coverage while the city was initially paralyzed by snow.  Talk station KPAM 860 switched to rebroadcasting the audio feed from ABC TV affiliate KATU Channel 2 for a couple of days.  At least there was some information out there for those without power.  Although it wasn’t very helpful for the inevitable times when you would hear that you could “call the number on your screen for assistance.”  Still, better than nothing.

My thoughts also turned to my television.  I will often simply turn on my portable TV in the kitchen to see and hear what is going on outside during these snow events.  This is handy, especially since my current business depends upon my knowing what road conditions are like all over town.  For now, this worked out fine, since I could still get a slightly fuzzy picture out of my old TV.  It also occurred to me that, even with an antenna larger than the portable TV set itself, I have still not been very successful getting a consistent picture from the TV when hooked up to the new Digital TV Converter.  So, unless I can get that issue solved, and it’s a real issue in the hills of Southwest Portland, then after February that might not be an option, either.

I understand that radio has evolved in the last decade from a business where no owner could own more than two stations in town to where one of six large corporations own most of the stations in town.  And I do understand why they are moving away from local radio service and going with syndicated programs for both talk and music services.  But if that is happening, we will need to revisit how we will communicate necessary information to the masses in a local area during a real disaster.

Yes, we do have an Emergency Alert System in place.   That will do the trick to warn us that a severe storm is on the way.  Beyond that, radio is an important medium to tell us which way we can go to get to safety after the disaster occurs.  Currently, I believe we would be hard pressed to disseminate that vital information in a timely manner.

For those who tell me they got their information from the Internet, yes, there are a lot of good and frequently updated emergency resources there.  And I have zero faith that my Internet connection, even the one on my cell phone, will be working after a disaster.

Yes, the snowstorm was not really an emergency.  Consider this, though.  If we do have that earthquake with an intensity only felt every 400 years like they say we might, who will be manning the radio station to get us vital information on what options we have.  From what I saw of our recent storm coverage, I am not comforted.

Share via email

The Distinctive Seattle P-I Globe. (Bryan Kellar photo)

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I contemplate the rumored sale of one of Seattle’s two daily newspapers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  While the newspaper’s owners claim that the paper has not made a profit in decades, it is truly important for a city or a region to have as many reliable news sources as possible.   At a lot of different levels, today’s news is particularly sad.

News is an important part of my life.  For as long as I have been able to read, I have been a “news junkie” getting my fix through as many sources as possible.  In the pre-Internet days, it was not unusual for as many as three newspapers to land on my porch each day.  I would devour them.

As time has gone on, we now get our news from different sources.  Today, I faithfully read daily the websites of six of the newspapers listed on the right-hand column of this blog, and I consult all of the others relatively frequently.  However, while this may be the trend of the future, reading a paper’s website is not the same as actually reading the paper.  A website has a selection of the articles in the paper, and actually holds an advantage in that it can be updated quickly.  But you don’t get everything.

I personally find that reading the daily newspapers kept me connected with the goings-on of our city and state.  The news is not just that a new mayor was elected.  Sometimes the things that keep you connected are the daily happenings in our neighborhoods  and announcements of store openings.  The detail in the written paper is invaluable.  The online version, in its present form, just doesn’t do the same thing.

If the daily newspaper disappears, we will certainly in this age find other sources for national and international news.  That is everywhere.  What we lose is the great level of daily news that we are used to.  Before you tell me that you can get that anywhere, remember that the Seattle news you read in a far-off publication was retrieved from the Associated Press.  This means that the source was a reporter in Seattle, working for a Seattle media source that contributes to the AP.  The end-sum will be less Seattle-area news anyway you look at it.

At another level, fewer working journalists means that fewer stories are covered, and fewer points of view are presented.  The presence of the press tends to keep our leaders “honest” and discourages wrongdoing.  While this newspaper is one of several outlets for news and employers of journalists in Seattle, it is certainly one of the most respected and one of the most capable.  The crew working down at the P-I are among the best in the business.  This is a loss for the people who lose their jobs. It is a greater loss for we consumers of their prose.

The P-I has been a part of Seattle for just about forever.  It has reported the good news and the bad.  It has survived cultural change and great depressions.  Silencing this collective voice is truly a catastrophe.

It is said that someday, all newspapers will be online.  For that to happen though, they will need to be in a different format than the online websites that newspapers now make available.  Improvements and changes will need to be made for that to work.  Changes will need to be made to make such a venture profitable for owners of newspapers.  And changes will be necessary to allow the new medium to be as useful as the printed paper.  That will eventually happen.  But the best situation would be for that to happen when the time is right.

Oh, there is one other level of reminiscence here.  If you subscribed to the P-I in the mid-1970′s and lived north of the University Village, or perhaps as far over as Ravenna Park, then I may have delivered the P-I to your doorstep when I was a kid.  There’s something just satisfying about hearing the newspaper clunk on the front porch in the morning in time for the morning cup of tea.  Sure, looking it up on the Internet might keep you from having to open up the door to the cold.  But having that paper in your hand, where you can browse and find not only the information you are interested in, but also the information you didn’t know you were interested in yet, has no comparison online.  Yet.

I would like to think that perhaps the blogosphere will someday provide a lot of the news you need, and provide some competition for the paper.  But the paper provides one place to get all the news, mostly unadulterated by opinion (except in the proper section).  Most of the blogs I read clearly have a leaning one way or the other.

I grieve for the P-I employees who may be losing their jobs.  Perhaps a solution will be found soon that will not eliminate one of Seattle’s two major newspapers.  One way or the other, if the Seattle P-I disappears, we will all have lost a little bit of our souls.

Share via email