The Seattle Times understands how counterproductive deep budget cuts would be right now…. but only when it comes to their own newspaper.
As tax revenues crash due to the coronavirus crisis, the Seattle Times Editorial Board was extraordinarily quick to renew its call for “deep cuts” to the state budget, editorializing on April 1st that the coronavirus crisis “requires” such cuts. This is a remarkably wrongheaded approach which would make the crisis even worse by further reducing overall economic demand and eliminating supports from people at a time when they need it most.
This is basic stuff we all learned from the Great Recession. But nonetheless, the Times lectured that state spending is “unsustainable” and requires not only “dramatic cuts” but also a “massive reset of government spending.” The Governor, they urged, must “not hold back” from making such cuts because “there is no choice”… even though the state budget they want to slash pays for things like public health, infrastructure spending, affordable housing, social services, and other critical needs.
It’s curious then to discover that the Editorial Board is actually not quite so dense as all that. Because it turns out they do understand how counterproductive such a slash-and-burn approach would be.
In fact the very next day, on April 2nd, publisher & editorial board member Frank Blethen wrote to call for support to help a different institution make it through a coronavirus-provoked revenue crisis without severe cuts: his own newspaper.
“Just when America’s struggling local newspaper system is most needed, the double whammy of the pandemic and conglomerate disinvestors is bringing the system to the edge of the abyss,” he points out…in an analysis that somehow doesn’t apply to the needs served by the state budget. Blethen celebrates major new investments the company has made in recent years to expand coverage in key areas including homelessness and investigative reporting… but doesn’t call that growth “unsustainable”. In fact, he pledges to stay the course… the inverse of a “massive reset” of Seattle Times spending. And he even calls for new sources of taxpayer support for newspaper revenues to help get through the crisis... because apparently it turns out there is a choice! (If you’re wealthy, at least!)
There’s no doubt that journalism has a critical role to play during and after this crisis. So do state-funded services. Neither should be cut.
All of this kind of makes you wonder if this hot take is really about the crisis at all. And makes you wonder about what The Seattle Times Editorial Board might call for if they had a similar level of concern for all the struggling families in our state fearing the impacts of this crisis and in need of public support right now.... who aren’t named Blethen.