Times' 110th anniversary: stewardship, service

Marking its 110th anniversary of Seattle Times ownership this week, the Blethen family is looking forward, cautiously hopeful about the future.

"We're celebrating our 110-year legacy by making it very clear that we are moving into a generational transition," said Frank Blethen, who leads the fourth generation of owners. Readers and the community have a big stake in that transition, which is why I seized the moment to interview The Times' publisher. Blethen was reluctant to revisit past struggles, but a quick review is necessary to appreciate his family's resolve.

"What makes it remarkable is the series of unimaginable and relentless financial blows in recent years," Blethen said.

Because of economic pressures, he said, "we've never been able to rebuild The Times to where it should be." Those pressures "led the family to do some things we never thought we would have to do," including looking hard at whether their ownership could survive financially.

The low point came after the family had to sell much of its real estate in Seattle to pay down debt and subsidize newspaper operations. The possibility of a forced sale seemed imminent, but several factors aligned to give the family renewed commitment.

Among those, Blethen said, were:

• Some developments in the legal battle over the future of the joint operating agreement (JOA) with The Hearst Corp.'s Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Those include a unanimous state Supreme Court decision in The Times' favor, and the closing of a Department of Justice antitrust investigation.

• Some signs of stability in the structural changes that have been undermining the business model of the newspaper industry, although huge challenges remain.

• Very difficult budget cuts, especially last year, and continuing relentless financial discipline.

• The remarkable loyalty and sacrifice of people in the company.

All of those were necessary to moving forward, but they wouldn't have been sufficient without the commitment of the next generation of Blethen family members. In the end, the family concluded that the "risks are huge, but the commitment is worth it."

Blethen said there is a silver lining to the examination the family undertook. It is a renewal of the family's passionate commitment to community service through independent, high-quality journalism, "which is what keeps us here."

That commitment is reinforced by the emergence of a "core group of young family professionals who clearly are going to be very, very good at what they do. That piece makes me very optimistic," Blethen said.

The family's notion of stewardship involves a dedication to passing the company along to the next generation in better condition than when you started. And it is more than that.

"In our case, being a journalistic enterprise is part of our stewardship. In a democracy and a society with self-government, we have a special obligation to the public," Blethen said.

The two central tenets of that obligation are to truly act as a watchdog over power and to help connect people in the community.

Blethen is hopeful the next generation of family and professional leaders will explore traditional and new ways to sustain those.

His advice to future family and professional leaders of The Times is to "nurture innovation. Test and try, always keeping in mind our stewardship and the standards and values that people respect."

That is advice he believes most other companies in the newspaper industry can't heed. Media consolidation and the financial expectations imposed on publicly traded companies won't allow it.

Fewer than 15 percent of daily newspapers are locally owned, and the percentage is even lower in metropolitan areas. The issues of media consolidation and the loss of local ownership are at a critical point.

"What we're seeing now is the failure of the model of publicly traded media companies. Maximizing financial return and maintaining community values are mutually exclusive," Blethen said.

The inspiration for his family is to sustain its journalistic and community-service mission, and to achieve the financial stability to make that possible. That will be challenging, as the company contends with difficult economic conditions.

But Blethen and his family are determined: "That is very much how we look at our stewardship."

It doesn't seem like too much to wish for as they blow out 110 candles.

Inside The Times appears in the Sunday Seattle Times. If you have a comment on news coverage, write to Michael R. Fancher, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111, call 206-464-3310 or send e-mail to mfancher@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists