Meta-news brief #1: poor Seattle P-I
The home page of the Seattle P-I today is a sad reminder of the decline of a once great newspaper.
The main headline today has a photo of a baby tiger, Cute alert! New baby at the zoo (photos). The headlines immediately to the right are:
LATEST NEWS
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11:18Â p.m. Report: Teens’ sex act filmed at party (KOMO)
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10:21Â p.m.City: Want to stop yellow pages? Hurry up!
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05:14 p.m.Man uses inflatable doll – for carpool lane
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10:57Â p.m.Texas beats Pineda, M’s
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09:32Â p.m.Prison sought for man who faked murder try
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11:12Â p.m. Can you be ticketed for driving too slowly?
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03:44 p.m. Tyson pens his love for … pigeons (NYT)
Few of these rise above the level of yellow or pink journalism.
A few months ago I phoned the editor of the Seattle P-I asking why they don’t give more prominence to editorials and citizen content. Their editorial page used to be a valuable counterweight to the Seattle Times’ fiscal conservatism.  The editor said that they wanted to rely on columnist Jim Connelly and cartoonist/writer David Horsey for opinion.
The decline of the P-I leaves a gap which websites such as this need to fill.