Frank Blethen, publisher of The Seattle Times, spoke to our Rotary Club of Mercer Island (mirotary.org) last week. I got to introduce him, since I spent many years on The Times’ editorial board, where he was my boss.

In a column last May 13, I broke the news that Frank would step down as publisher at the end of 2025, but remain as chairman of the board. His son, Ryan Blethen, will become publisher.

A larger-than-usual crowd filled the room at the MI Community and Events Center. I asked for a show of hands of who subscribed to The Times, either in the print or digital edition. Almost everyone in the room raised a hand.

“This is a good audience for you, Frank,” I said. “Rotarians care about newspapers.”

In my introduction I recalled the old saying: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. Well, our speaker today owns one.”

Blethen’s ancestors started The Times in 1896, and the family has kept control ever since, making it one of the oldest family-owned newspapers in the country. But “freedom of the press” now belongs to anyone with a cellphone, laptop, email address or social media account. In a way, we’re all journalists now.

As a result, I said: “Newspapers in America are struggling to survive. Their business model is broken. Most advertising has gone online. Many papers have stopped publishing in the last 20 years. The traditional or legacy or mainstream media used to be the gatekeepers — but now there’s no fence. The media ecosystem is totally fragmented, with thousands of sites and sources, and new ones springing up every day.”

“Is that good or bad? We all have to decide for ourselves. Who can we trust? Who is accurate, fair, truthful and ethical? Who is transparent and accountable? Which ones are fake news? Who checks the facts and corrects misinformation? What do we do about hate speech?”

I asked Frank: “What does this mean for traditional sources of news like The Seattle Times? What’s the future of The Times as you turn control over to the next generation of Blethens?”

Frank began by recalling his long history on Mercer Island. As a young boy, living with a single mother in Arizona, he spent summers here with relatives on the south end. “I got a real affinity for Mercer Island because of those summer trips,” he said. When he graduated from college at Arizona State University, he entered the family business.

“They were trying to figure out where to put me. I had never done anything on the journalism side. I don’t claim to be a journalist.” His predecessor as publisher, Jerry Pennington (who died in a boating accident on Whidbey Island), “was the closest thing I ever had to a father,” Frank told me. “He taught me a lot. I learned that publishers should support good journalism.”

One thing he is proud of is bringing more women into positions of management. “When I became publisher, there were very few women on the news side, and hardly any on the business side. We started a program to aggressively recruit women. I haven’t seen a senior editor in 10 years who wasn’t a woman.”

Frank said The Times, “like most newspapers, is in a digital transformation. We have 100,000 print subscribers, and 100,000 digital subscribers. There’s a real age gap. The younger you are, the more likely you’ll be digital.”

After his brief remarks, Frank invited questions. Here are a few, edited for clarity and space:

The Times is supporting a bill in Olympia to have government help subsidize journalism. SB 5400 would create a $20 million annual grant program, funded by a business-tax surcharge on technology companies, to pay journalists at news organizations each $15,000 a year. Wouldn’t their coverage be influenced by that?

“We are very involved right now in trying to get it passed, not just for us but for others in the state. It’s a surcharge on big tech. Google is all over it, trying to stop it. No surprise. There are several small papers around the state that would probably go out of business if it doesn’t pass. But they would still control their news coverage.”

What other strategies are you working on to help keep The Times alive and solvent?

“About 15 years ago, when we began having financial problems, we created a couple of outside donation programs. Can we get individual citizens to not just pay for a subscription, but to help fund specific areas of journalism, such as education, homelessness and transportation? We approached people who had money, like Kemper Freeman, who was very generous. I had to become a fundraiser, and I don’t like fundraising.

“I was really kind of shocked at the response. Today we have five major funded programs. We’d probably only have two if we hadn’t gotten $3.2 million in outside funding. We are to my knowledge the only paper in the country that has done this. A few papers have tried to copy us and have had some success, but their hearts aren’t really in it. I have run into a few donors who think it’s wrong for them to fund journalism. But many have stepped up — foundations, corporations and individuals.”

Are you concerned that you can remain objective with such outside funding?

No. We’ll maintain total control over the content.

Do you have any suggestions for how smaller local papers can provide better coverage of city councils, school boards and other community issues, plus more investigative journalism?

“You’ve got to have the resources to pay staff to cover things. It all comes back to funding. It’s a real issue. I really worry about how few newspapers we’re going end up with in 10 or 20 years.”

The Seattle Times used to be the more conservative paper and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was the more liberal paper. Have you become more liberal since the P-I stopped publishing?

“I don’t think of us as being liberal, I think of us as being progressive, and very progressive on some issues, such as gender identity. … Before, you didn’t talk about transgenderism or gay marriage. I think we have helped the community deal with these issues.”

Is our education system teaching students enough about the media? What is journalism? The role of AI? Need for fact checking? Credible sources?

“We’ve had a ‘Newspapers in Classrooms’ program since before I became publisher. It’s still needed. But we’re trying to get the state to really embrace improving education overall. It’s a statewide issue. The biggest problem is Seattle schools, but rural schools need help too.”

What are your criteria for investigative reporting? What issues rise to the top?

“It starts with the reporter and executive editor. We put a great deal of time and effort making sure we’re doing something of value and we’re doing it right. We haven’t stood down or been intimated.”

Frank stayed around after the lunch and answered lots more questions. As we left, he told me: “I could not have had a more fulfilling career.” But after he steps down, “I’ll be looking for things to do.”

Here’s my suggestion, boss: Join Rotary! I’ll be your sponsor.

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John Hamer (jhamer46@gmail.com) is a former Seattle Times editorial writer/columnist and co-founder of the Washington News Council, a nonprofit media oversight organization that he ran for 15 years. He still gets a pension from The Seattle Times.