The privately owned, for-profit Seattle Times has turned to donations and grants to support news coverage in areas that don’t yield commercial business revenue, such as homelessness, mental health, education, the arts and in-depth and investigative reporting. At the same time, the Times has become a national leader in building digital circulation, including high-market penetration with young adults.
Yet the shift of advertising dollars to a few digital companies has upended the news business model so completely that CEO/Publisher Frank Blethen argues that public policy support is necessary to sustain a free press, to fill news deserts and to inform citizens in a way that sustains democracy. He explains why in an exchange with Medill’s Penelope Abernathy that has been edited for length and clarity.
