Dead in the Pacific Northwest

After suffering for quite some time in a moribund coma state, the Hearst Corporation has decided to pull the plug on the Seattle Post - Intelligencer, with the time of death to be this coming Thursday.

The P-I will continue with a version of its current online newspaper. There are a lot of newspapers in trouble across America. The P-I is likely the first of the majors to go down in this current newspaper crisis.

I've been addicted to reading a morning newspaper for as long as I can remember. When I lived in Washington it was the P-I. When I return for a visit, I read the P-I. Though this past summer that option was not available. I was stuck with the Tacoma Tribune and the Sunday New York Times. It takes about a week to read the Sunday New York Times.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram continues to decline and cut back. How much longer can it last?

I think I've mentioned before that I think newspaper reading should be part of the school curriculum. An hour a day in a class devoted to reading and discussing that day's paper. Kids growing up in a house that does not get a daily newspaper, do not develop the habit of reading one and keeping up on what's going on in their world.

I've met way too many people who are way too ignorant due to the lack of a habit of keeping informed. People like this are then easy prey to very stupid stuff.

Like I know this person who got all upset over the Israelis finally having enough of incoming rockets from Gaza. This person thought this was terrible what Israel was doing to protect itself. I looked at her with wonderment, then mentioned The Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.

Huh? Totally perplexed was she. So, I brought up the Yom Kippur War article in Wikipedia. This person was alive during the time of the Yom Kippur War. But had no memory of it, due to not reading about. And now she gets her news off TV and the Internet. With no background understanding of any of the things she reads about or the history that preceded it.

She glanced at a bit of the article about the Yom Kippur War, then she got mad. She thought I was trying to make her feel stupid. Due to pointing her towards information that might lighten her of some of her ignorance. But, it's been my experience, sadly, that way too many people would rather wallow in their ignorance and get mad, than try and learn something.

And now Seattle and the Pacific Northwest is slightly less blessed, due to the loss of the P-I. I won't be going to the funeral. I'll grieve in private.

Shocking Seattle (P-I) News

Even though I know it's been financially struggling for a long long time, even way back before I moved to Texas, it still surprised me today to read that the Hearst Corporation is giving the Seattle Post-Intelligencer 60 days to find a buyer.

Or else.

The hard copy version of Seattle's oldest paper will be no more. The online version will continue.

A few days ago I read, somewhere, that back in the early 1950s nearly every household in America subscribed to a daily newspaper. And, now, in 2009, only 20% of American households get a daily paper.

At my house, when growing up, we got the daily Skagit Valley Herald and the daily Bellingham Herald. And on Sunday's we got the Sunday Seattle P-I, which is where I learned to like the P-I, with the P-I eventually becoming my daily and the newspaper to which I compare others. Which explains why I was so constantly appalled by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which always seemed, to me, like a real small town paper, prone to mistakes and Chamber of Commerce type hyperbole that rubbed me the wrong way.

I know the drop in newspaper readership is being blamed on the new media, like cable news and the Internet. But neither is a substitute for a good locally produced newspaper.

Way back when I was in school, and already an avid newspaper reader, it seemed to me that one class a day should consist of reading a newspaper. And then discussing it. I can't think of anything a school could do that would have more meaningful educational value.

Instead, we are slowly becoming an ever larger population of people woefully ignorant about way too much. When the majority of Americans can't tell you when the American Civil War took place, that is scary. We are sliding down a slippery slope where soon the majority of Americans won't be able to tell you who is buried in Grant's Tomb. I fear we may already be at that point.

In Texas.

Newspaper Content, Bias and Credibility

No. Even though 65% of my thousands of readers are currently wanting me to keep bashing the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, this isn't totally about that. Sadly, I saw nothing in this week's Sunday Star-Telegram that annoyed me, other than it being the smallest Sunday paper I've ever seen. But that's the case every week.

So, yesterday I came upon a website called Mondo Newspapers that covers the top 100 American newspapers in depth, based on readership data from the Newspaper Association of America. The order on the list is determined by circulation. This, unfortunately, made USA Today the #1 paper in America.

#2 is the Wall Street Journal with a circulation of 5,147,565 with its content rated very good, its political bias leaning right and its credibility high.

The Dallas Morning News is #12 with a circulation of 1,086,383 with its content rated very good, it's political bias leaning left and its credibility rated high.

Meanwhile on the west side of the D/FW Metroplex the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is #45 with a circulation of 532,774 with its content rated average, its political bias liberal and its credibility moderate. I would have rated its credibility low, but what do I know?

Seattle has 2 major papers, the Seattle Times is #39 with a circulation of 564,028, with its content rated average, its political bias leaning left and its credibility moderate. Just like the Star-Telegram. However, the Seattle P-I, #41 with a circulation of 428,245 is also rated average for content, with a left leaning political bias, with the P-I's credibility rated high. Unlike the Star-Telegram.

Seattle's population is a bit over 500,000 in a metro area of about 2.5 million. Seattle's 2 papers have a combined circulation of 992,273. Fort Worth has a population of about 670,000 in a metro area of about 6 million. Yet the Star-Telegram only circulates 532,774 papers daily. I don't know what to conclude from this, but I do remember Seattle being named as having America's highest number of book buyers and library users. So, maybe more people know how to read up there and so the town is able to support 2 major newspapers.

I won't bore you any more than I already have by listing the stats for more newspapers. Suffice to say there are other newspapers besides the Seattle P-I, Dallas Morning News and WS Journal who rank high for credibility. That quality is also shared by the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and others I'm sure. I'm too lazy to look at each of the 100 on the list.