Another devaluation of the Seattle Times Co.

Last week was tough for the folks at the Seattle Times Co. The flagship Seattle Times carried through on a plan to cut the paper's staff of 1,845 by about 7 percent, or 125 employees. Meanwhile, in a federal securities filing last Friday, May 9, Sacramento-based McClatchy Co., which owns 49.5 percent of the Times Co. voting stock, disclosed it is continuing to devalue its stake in the company.

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The Seattle Times Co. will cut about 200 jobs

Washington's biggest newspaper will reduce payroll through severance and attrition and cut $15 million from the operating budget this year. About two-thirds of the job cuts would come through actual layoffs.

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After sell-off of the Times Co.'s Maine papers, a look at McClatchy

McClatchy Co. has an ownership interest in almost half of newspapers published daily in Washington, including the Seattle Times. Here's a look at how they may be faring and feeling in the wake of the Times' Maine newspaper sale.

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Times Co. memo reveals dip in online ad revenue

Seattle Times Publisher Frank Blethen's new mantra for his paper's employees goes like this, according to an in-house memo circulated around the Seattle paper on Monday: "Survive…transform…transition…thrive." Sounds kind of catchy, but so far the Times seems to be hung up on the "survive" part.

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A sentimental journey ends

In Maine, where the majority-owning Blethen family rediscovered its roots a decade ago, the Seattle Times Co. is selling three prominent dailies — at a nadir for the newspaper business. It's a bad sign.

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A pause in the Times-Teamsters tussle

The end-of-the-month showdown between the Seattle Times Co. and Teamsters Local 174 truckers appears to be off, for now anyway. Times Co. senior vice president for human resources Alayne Fardella, in an update sent to the paper's employees today, Feb. 25, said the company has not sent the required 30-day notification of termination of its contract with 74 union truckers and mechanics, leaving the old contract in place. The company still plans to outsource bulk trucking of newspapers to private contractor Penske Logistics, Fardella says, but it isn't clear when.

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There are WARNing signs at The Seattle Times

The newspaper and the Teamsters trade complaints alleging unfair labor practices surrounding the company's move to outsource trucking. The union says a strike is possible.

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A pivotal year for the Times and its unions

Having never fully recovered from a strike seven years ago, the state's biggest newspaper is entering a period of critical labor negotiations. The company plans to outsource Teamsters jobs, and the Newspaper Guild contract is up for renewal.

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The Seattle Times nut graph is bad financial news

Every year, Seattle Times Publisher Frank Blethen ends the year with a holiday message to the Times staff that usually includes a roundup of the year’s notable achievements, plus a dollop of holiday cheer. But this year’s message, while not inscribed on a lump of coal, won’t go down easily for Times staffers. The message: Brace yourself for some serious cutbacks in ’08.

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The state defends a decision not to investigate the Times

Newly public e-mails show that the attorney general's office chose not to investigate the paper's management of a joint operating agreement with the Seattle P-I, despite knowing about a sworn allegation that the Times had secretly tried to shortchange the P-I. Former state Supreme Court Justice Phil Talmadge thinks that decision casts doubt on the integrity of AG Rob McKenna.

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The Seattle Times minority owner cites an 81 percent 'loss in value'

McClatchy, which owns 49.5 percent but has no say in operations, says its share of the locally owned, private company dropped in value in less than a year from $102 million to $19 million.

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McClatchy's stake in Seattle Times has been losing value dramatically

The latest McClatchy Co. filings give us a window into the Times' tightly held finances, and the picture isn't pretty: a decline of 12 percent in value for its stock in the past six months. Some of that is the new Joint Operating Agreement kicking in, but the problems run deeper than that.

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Litigation over joint operation of Seattle's newspapers is over — until further notice

The Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town withdraws a motion seeking details about a settlement between The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

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Delivered on electronic paper, the Seattle P-I won't be your father's Web site

The flat, flexible display screen you can roll up and put in your pocket or purse might finally be here. Hearst Corp., owner of the Post-Intelligencer and an investor in the technology, said it plans to test it, possibly in Seattle.

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Newspaper watchdog is examining newly released Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer documents

Redactions are a potential issue for the Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town.

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Details regarding The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer settlement are to be released

The Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town has persuaded the two companies to release key documents.

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Seattle will remain a two-newspaper town for at least 10 more years

The day of arbitration, Hearst and the Seattle Times Co. announce a deal to keep the printed Seattle Post-Intelligencer alive.

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Hearst argues it two ways

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer owner is floating seemingly contradictory arguments about newspaper business decisions in a lawsuit here against the Seattle Times Co. and in another, unrelated action in San Francisco.

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Seattle newspapers arbitration proceeding postponed

A closed-door hearing that was to settle a lawsuit beween The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer has been delayed a week.

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An ex-exec claims the Seattle Times secretly undermined the now-fading Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Copyright © 2007 by Crosscut

A potential bombshell is buried in 3.5 million pages of documents and testimony collected for a winner-take-all arbitration between Seattle's two daily newspapers. In a deposition, a former Seattle Times Co. executive claims that Times officials in the mid-1990s secretly violated their joint operating agreement (JOA) with Hearst Corp., owner of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, using unfairly lopsided circulation spending to keep the Seattle Times' circulation lead over the P-I. Times executives then tricked Hearst into giving up their paper's exclusivity in the morning, the former executive claims. Since the joint operation began 1983, the P-I had been the morning paper and the bigger Times had the less-desirable afternoon publishing cycle. Today, of course, both are morning papers and the P-I is in a circulation death spiral. The 122-page deposition by former Seattle Times Co. Vice President Stephen Sparks was given under oath to federal and state antitrust investigators in 2004. Sparks headed circulation for both the Times and the P-I under the JOA from 1993 to 1997. Speaking with Hearst attorneys under oath last November, he repeated the allegations. A copy of Sparks's earlier federal deposition was obtained by Crosscut. Sparks' depositions are likely to be among the key documents under consideration when arbitrator Larry Jordan begins hearing the case behind closed doors on April 9. (Update 4/6/2007: The proceeding has been postponed until April 16.)

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