From an email from Seattle arts writer Tim Appelo, lamenting the fact that the new, online-only Seattle Post-Intelligencer has virtually no arts coverage:
Culture doesn’t seem on these people’s radar. They never seemed to
notice that in the coffee shop, nobody steals the sports section or
the editorial page or the business section — it’s always the arts
section that’s missing.
True, but let’s give the PI a couple of weeks to shake out and dig in. The final day for the print version (and the vast majority of the staff, including the entire arts staff), was Tuesday.
My newspaper carrier has automatically switched my subscription from the now defunct PI to the still surviving Seattle Times. It’s a bit of audacity for them to do that without my say-so but I’m not complaining because I do want at least one daily local paper.
The Seattle Times though, has been bragging how they’ve managed to retain many of the PI’s important features but the main focus of their advertised accomplishment has been their aquisition of the PI’s comic strip.
This is all so disgustingly sad.
I’m no intellectual and yet I find the Seattle Time’s priorities degrading to their once proud profession and condescending to their remaining readership.
If I were a Seattle Times executive I would pay attention to and tap into the youthful throngs who show up for the First Thursday Artwalk and I wouldn’t limit my efforts to Pioneer Square. There are well attended artwalks all over town and elsewhere. The first thing I’d do is hire a quality critic and then expand visual arts coverage. once that were done I’d hand out copies to all those strollers and attempt to sign up subscribers.
You can’t simply dumb down your product and then sit on your ass waiting for people to get excited about the funny-papers. A subscription drive that will rely on a comic strip is a very stupid (and short term) marketing ploy. It is a strategy that is doomed to failure.