The News Tribune

[whimsical music] All right, so this is a tricky one because I'm very disappointed.

I understand that sometimes businesses when they feel like they're under threat and their livelihood is under threat, they might do really stupid things in a response, right? So you'll recall the story we talked about last week on the show of E9 Brewing in Tacoma, where the News Tribune did a hit piece on them saying that- Basically, people on the internet are mad at them because they donated $1,250 to repeal the income tax, which is, like, a business decision, right? But Let's Go Washington is running the income tax initiative and the initiative to protect girls' sports and parental rights.

So basically, some loony lefties on the internet put out videos saying, "Boycott E9, don't buy their beer," all this stuff, 'cause they're transphobic.

Uh, and so the owners of the brewery, like, came out and said, "Hey, this has been really stressful.

This is from Poynter, "McClatchy cuts more than 90 staff in its most severe layoffs in years." As a little bit of background, McClatchy owns 30 newspapers across the country.

That would include The News Tribune, The Bellingham Herald, The Olympian, The Idaho Statesman, The Tri-City Herald.

So the question is, why? Um, I could tell you why.

So I wanna give the rationale that McClatchy gives And then the rationale that the journalism industry is giving, okay? So here's what McClatchy Media said in an internal email to its employees.

I'm not gonna dance on their grave.

But one, if the business model isn't working, it's not working, and two, they are refusing to acknowledge the reason why, and it's a reason we talk about all the time on this show.

Again, just as an example, so revisit the local newspapers that had people, reporters laid off as part of this, The News Tribune, The Bellingham Herald, The Olympian, The Idaho Statesman, The Tri-City Herald.

How often, es- even lately, have we talked about the horrible, quote-unquote, journalism of those newspapers, how horribly biased it is? Examples, just last week we talked about this article in The Tacoma News Tribune, "Tacoma Brewery Caught in Controversy as Owners' Political Donations Surface", where they assigned two reporters, not one but two, to basically take a manufactured controversy on the internet and turn it into a full-blown emergency for a local brewery whose owners made a small political contribution to the initiative to repeal the unconstitutional income tax.

Four Washington state newspapers will soon have fewer journalists.

McClatchy is cutting jobs at the Tacoma News Tribune, Olympian, Bellingham Herald and Tri-City Herald.

It's part of the company's plan to cut 90 newsroom jobs nationwide.

McClatchy, which is owned by a hedge fund, says the cuts will prioritize, quote, journalism that subscribers value and that can have the highest impact.

And so that whole, like, week was just, you know, basically getting pulled from accounts.

And on last Thursday, we finally—this is a week and a half in at this point— Tacoma News Tribune posted an article, which point we finally posted a response.

I mean, and that's when things got real, real fucking fast.

Like they were already like we were already fucked on outside sales.

The throwbacks, yeah, that's when I can, we will bring those back for 2027, the white throwbacks.

Greg Bell, the News Tribune.

Could all of you address how you'd like to incorporate artificial intelligence in the football operations of the Seahawks? Well, I

don't know if there's a specific plan.

Very early, uh, start to the year, on a Wednesday no less.

Joining us to discuss, Captain Greg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune and KJR, who has been kind enough to serve as our Seahawks insider over the years.

How are you, my friend? Happy football season.

I'm happy football season.

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McDonald's father.

You can read him, uh, with the Tacoma News Tribune.

You can listen to him weekdays from 10:00 to noon on 93.9 KJR, The Greg Bell Show.