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The Seattle Times
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The Seattle Times, one of two daily newspapers serving Seattle, Washington, USA, is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. Since 1983, the Times and Seattle's other major paper, the Hearst-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer, have been run under a "Joint Operating Agreement" (JOA) whereby advertising, production, marketing, and circulation are run by the Times for both papers. They maintain separate news and editorial departments. The papers put out a combined Sunday edition, to which the P-I contributes only a few pages of editorial content.
Seattle Times originated as the Seattle Press-Times, a four-page newspaper founded in 1891 with a daily circulation of 3,500, which Maine teacher and attorney Alden J.
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Encyclopedia
The Seattle Times, one of two daily newspapers serving Seattle, Washington, USA, is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. Since 1983, the Times and Seattle's other major paper, the Hearst-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer, have been run under a "Joint Operating Agreement" (JOA) whereby advertising, production, marketing, and circulation are run by the Times for both papers. They maintain separate news and editorial departments. The papers put out a combined Sunday edition, to which the P-I contributes only a few pages of editorial content.
History
The Seattle Times originated as the Seattle Press-Times, a four-page newspaper founded in 1891 with a daily circulation of 3,500, which Maine teacher and attorney Alden J. Blethen bought in 1896. Renamed the Seattle Daily Times, it doubled its circulation within half a year. By 1915, circulation stood at 70,000. As of September 2007, weekday circulation stood at 215,311.
The Times is one of the few remaining major city dailies in the United States independently operated and owned by a local family (the Blethens). The Seattle Times Company, while owning and operating the Times, also owns three other papers in Washington, as well as Blethen Maine Newspapers, which operate five newspapers based in Maine. The McClatchy Company owns 49.5 percent of voting common stock in the Seattle Times Company, formerly held by Knight Ridder.
The Times reporting has received seven Pulitzer Prizes. It has an international reputation for its investigative journalism, in particular.
Editorially, the Times is slightly more moderate than its sister paper, the P-I. It endorsed George W. Bush for president in 2000 (while the P-I endorsed Al Gore), but endorsed John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008. It also endorsed Republican Dino Rossi for governor in 2004 and 2008, while the P-I endorsed Democrat Christine Gregoire both times.
On December 15, 2006 only 13,000 copies of the Seattle Times were printed as a result of a power outage caused by the December 2006 Pacific Northwest storms.
JOA dispute
The Times announced its intention to cancel the JOA in 2003, citing a clause in the JOA contract that three consecutive years of profit losses allowed it to pull out of the agreement. Hearst sued, arguing that a force majeure clause prevented the Times from claiming losses as reason to end the JOA when they result from extraordinary events (in this case, a seven week newspaper strike). While a district judge ruled in Hearst's favor, the Times won on appeal, including a unanimous decision from the Washington State Supreme Court on June 30, 2005. Hearst continued to argue that the Times fabricated its loss in 2002. The two papers announced an end to their dispute on April 16 2007.
Delivery and page width
The Seattle Times was an afternoon paper until 2000, when it switched to morning delivery to avoid the fate of other afternoon newspapers that had shut down. This placed the Times in direct competition with its JOA partner, the morning P-I.
For decades, the broadsheet page width of The Times was 13½ inches (34.3 cm), printed from a 54-inch web, the four-page width of a roll of newsprint. Following changing industry standards, the width of the page was reduced in 2005 by 1 inch (2.54 cm), to 12½ inches (31.8 cm), now a 50-inch web standard. In February 2009, the web size was further reduced to 46 inches, which narrowed the page by another inch to 11½ inches (29.2 cm) in width.
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