Rantz: Seattle’s ‘The Stranger’ asks for donations during coronavirus crisis

Seattle’s vulgar, sometimes mean-spirited alt-weekly newspaper The Stranger posted a plea for donations to help it survive the coronavirus crisis. We should step up and help them because diversity of opinion in the media is important.

The plea is posted on their website, asking readers for donations. They say they’ve weathered financial crises before, but this time it’s different.

We've taken a major financial hit as events have been canceled (and are now officially banned) in Seattle due to coronavirus. If you want to help the paper that keeps me employed despite many calls for my firing, we need it. https://t.co/RXkba7BduH

— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) March 11, 2020

The plea

Citing the economic impacts the coronavirus is having on their advertisers, The Stranger posts:

90% of our revenue — advertising, ticketing fees, and our own events — is directly tied to people getting together in groups. The coronavirus situation has virtually eliminated this income all at once. At a time when the city needs local coverage more than ever, we’re asking for your help to support continued coverage of everything happening in Seattle. You can make one-time or recurring donations. We can’t say enough how much we appreciate your support. Thank you.

The Stranger is not the only local company struggling. Tom Douglas closed all but one of his restaurants for at least eight weeks citing a lack of customers. Other area-businesses have seen a dramatic drop in customers.

Why help?

I almost didn’t write this because, frankly, I don’t think they’d do the same for KTTH or MyNorthwest.com. Some writers at The Stranger target me with silly commentary (that is either factually inaccurate or fueled purely by their distaste for my conservative viewpoint).

And I sometimes find it nauseating when media figures talk about supporting one another because it can come off as self-righteous preening; that somehow, we’re the only ones capable of spreading truth! How would society go on without us? And, again, I suspect many of those media figures wouldn’t shed a tear if KTTH took a hit.

But The Stranger should be saved — and we should all help — because media diversity is important.

Diversity is important

Who cares whether or not I like them? They don’t care. They shouldn’t. I’m not their target audience. They’re looking to engage with progressive millennials. While I don’t like their political messages, I’d rather err on the side of more civic engagement than less. The more people involved politically, even against my causes, the better. It’ll just force me to up my game in getting my political side more passionate and engaged.

The Stranger isn’t adding much to the ideological diversity in the local media scene. But they do add a different style to progressive political coverage we see from Crosscut and The Seattle Times. They certainly have a personality that others lack and it’s a different perspective that I can appreciate, even if I don’t agree with it.

I like Katie Herzog’s pieces. I like that me liking it angers some progressives.

I enjoy trying to decipher what Charles Mudede means in any one of his unreasonably long (or inexplicably short) essays. I honestly don’t understand half the stuff he writes, but I find it fun (he’ll call this criticism racist in an essay and I’ll have fun reading it).

I find it instructive to get a progressive perspective on current events from many of their other writers and editors — even Lester Black! (I’m just giving you a hard time, Lester.)

Bonus benefit: It appears their writers find a local, obsessive blogger as insufferable as I do. That’s worth a $10 donation alone.

Chip in what you can

Donate a few bucks to The Stranger because it supports media diversity and it’s the right thing to do. Give what you can because it’s important to hear different points of view. Conservatives want more people to hear our perspective, so, let’s do the same and help them out. On-air, I’ve asked you to visit local coffee shops and restaurants as they struggle. This is no different.

And to make yourself feel better for giving to a progressive outlet, keep this in mind: They’ll know you donated because I asked you to. And that could drive them nuts.

The Update.

Herzog announced on Twitter that she’s been furloughed for eight weeks.

Bad news. Not enough of you donated to The Stranger yesterday and now I’m being furloughed.

— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) March 12, 2020

Another update.

In a post to their blog, the Stranger announced 18 temporary layoffs and a suspension of their print edition.

The Stranger has never had to do mass layoffs before, nor have we ever not put out our print edition, with the exception of the one week we skipped in 2017 when we reconceptualized the print edition as a biweekly.

The newsroom layoffs include managing editor Leilani Polk, music critic Dave Segal, art critic Jasmyne Keimig, reporter Lester Black, writer Katie Herzog, and copyeditor Gillian Anderson. Some of these staffers volunteered to be part of these layoffs. It is impossible to imagine The Stranger without any of these people, much less all of them leaving at the same time. Remaining managers at the company are taking a significant pay cut.

“This is an unbelievably sad day,” said Laurie Saito, The Stranger‘s publisher. “But during these exceedingly difficult and unprecedented times, we have gotten donations from almost 3,000 donors. They are one of the big reasons we can continue producing journalism about the city.”

They are continuing to offer some content, though paired down considerably.

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow @JasonRantz on Twitter.

Follow @https://twitter.com/jasonrantz