Put longtime local journalist Mark Matassa on the list of people who won't be subscribing to the Seattle Times in the wake of the paper's decision to give $75,000 in ads to Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna. (The paper also gave free ad space to the campaign for R-74, the marriage-equality proposal, but the fact that McKenna is a partisan candidate makes the ad donation particularly galling to advocates for a fair and unbiased press). 

Matassa, who worked for the Times and PI as well as at the mayor's office, explained his decision to cancel his subscription to the paper on Facebook this past Sunday. We're reprinting his post with his permission.

I just canceled my Seattle Times subscription in protest of the political-endorsement house ads. This came after a failed attempt yesterday: five minutes of voice jail, followed by a recording telling me the customer service desk closed at noon. It was 12:01.

Today, the customer service lady tried to talk me out of canceling, reading from a script about how the business decision does not reflect on the newsroom or its coverage, that I could still count on fair and unbiased reporting, blah blah blah. I understand all that, I said, adding that I worked at the paper for 12 years and have been a loyal subscriber for 25 years and a journalist for more than 30. And that I was certain I wanted to vote with my feet and my wallet and cancel the paper.

You know, she said, a great way to register your complaint -- and a lot of subscribers are doing this -- is to suspend your subscription during the campaign season and then restart it after the election. No, I said, I want to cancel.

OK, then, when would you like to stop delivery? ASAP. OK, that will be tomorrow, the 22nd. Fine, I said. And what date would you like to resume delivery?

Unbelievable. 

Once I finally convinced her I was done with the Seattle Times, for good, she asked if I'd like my $12 account credit to go to Newspapers in Education campaign, to help fight childhood illiteracy. Nope. I want my 12 bucks back. Those little kids can die never having read a word if their only hope is learning by reading the Seattle Times.

Well, thank you Mr. Matassa, she said. I hope you'll continue reading the Seattle Times online ...

When your customer service people are encouraging readers to cancel their subscriptions (but "only" temporarily) that is no mere gaffe; it's a PR disaster.

The irony here is that the Times' decision to run the ads was ostensibly a business move, to demonstrate that political ads are still "effective." So far, they've only proved they're effective at alienating loyal readers.

We have several calls out to Times spokeswoman Jill Mackie and executive editor David Boardman to ask whether they've seen an uptick in cancellations and to confirm the existence of a script for dealing with angry callers.