The “Cancel your subscription to the Seattle Times” parent campaign is on

Seattle parents are encouraging others to cancel their subscription to the Seattle Times, which is anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-public school, and pro-charter.

Dora Taylor writes on the parent activist blog:

The majority of people I speak to are thoroughly disgusted with the Times and its biased editorials and selection  of topics headlined that seem to reflect the views and opinions of the moneyed few rather than providing real information.

Bill Gates bought a section of the Seattle Times and titled it the Education Lab. Yes, “Lab” as in a laboratory where he can do his experiments on our students.  It seemed it wasn’t enough that the Seattle Times was already a shill for charter schools and merit pay for teachers based on test scores, Gates now had his own pull-out section of the newspaper.

Now parents of students in Seattle Public Schools are fighting mad about the one-sided reporting and editorializing of the teachers’ strike and they are taking action.

Several parents I have come across in the first week of the Seattle teachers’ strike on various Facebook pages have stated they have cancelled their subscriptions to the Seattle Times and are urging others to do so as well.

There is a Facebook page “Cancel your Seattle Times subscription” that popped up over the weekend asking subscribers to cancel their subscriptions on Monday, September 14th.

The sticky post states:

Money talks. If you’re fed up with pathetic coverage of the Seattle teachers strike in The Seattle Times, join parents & supporters as we cancel our subscriptions on the same day.

Seattle Times customer service numbers:

206-464-2121 or 1-800-542-0820

And here is one comment:

Seattle teachers have voted to strike. Seattle Times will tell you that the strike hurts students. You know what hurts students? Racist, classist, standardized tests. 15 minutes to eat lunch. No recess. Under-resourced schools. Overworked teachers. Crumbling infrastructure. Growing class size. Reduced art, music, and foreign language instruction. Selling out kids and their curricula to the highest corporate bidder. That’s what hurts students. So I fly a big middle finger to the Seattle Times and a big thumbs up to the Seattle teachers. Go, go, go!

It’s because of a lack of real reporting anymore from mainstream media and corporate owned newspapers that blogs such as Seattle Education and Save Seattle Schools have flourished along with other websites and blogs around the country.

Dora Taylor

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