Moron the Seattle Newspaper Front
I commented a while ago about the possibility that one of Seattle’s two daily newspapers would close as a result of The Times’ attempt to end their Joint Operating Agreement. In the meantime, the Times’ owner, Frank Blethen, testified before a Senate committee in opposition to the FCC’s probable loosening of media ownership rules. While I dislike the idea of becoming a one-newspaper town, I applauded Blethen’s testimony. He is a bit of a loose cannon, however (literally - he once shot a neighbor’s dog), and seems to have been baited into making some inflammatory comments about a fellow newspaper owner. I had to snicker at the fellow’s response:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/122519_insider19.html
DEMOCRACY AT STAKE? IDIOTIC, SAYS EXEC: Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen last week told a Senate hearing that letting companies own newspapers and TV stations in the same city — a proposal being considered by the Federal Communications Committee — is a really bad idea.
But he put it a little more personally than that and got a stinging response.
Blethen was asked whether William Dean Singleton, president of the newspaper industry’s lobbying group and chief executive of the MediaNews Group, is a “threat to democracy” because he owns 50 newspapers and supports cross-ownership.
Blethen, who owns three papers in Washington state and three more in Maine, responded, “Yes.” But he himself isn’t such a threat, he told Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H.
The next day, Singleton responded by calling Blethen “the village idiot of the newspaper industry,” according to The Washington Post.
Blethen was “commenting on Singleton’s business model, not Singleton personally,” Times spokeswoman Kerry Coughlin said Friday. Singleton’s comment, on the other hand …
