We haven’t discussed this topic since before the Xmas advertising season, during which the SeaTimes looked almost like a profitable venture again.

Then came the post-holiday letdown. SeaTimes ad volume dropped back toward their mid-’09 nadir. Skimpy 26-page Mon.-Wed. papers were the norm again.

The local news content of these editions also steadily shrank, particularly once the mayoral election was done. A typical day’s story lineup would consist of little more than a couple of politician press conferences, some new rant against the Seattle School District by an irate parent, a few crimes and fires, a couple of human-interest photos, and at least one long obituary.

Which brings us to this Sunday’s paper.

We get a reprise of the paper’s big shocking story from last December, that most Olympics tickets went to the rich and the well-connected (gasp!).

We get the 100th anniversary of the 1910 Stevens Pass avalanche, which killed more people than any other natural disaster of its specific type.

And, in the editorializing-disguised-as-coverage department, we get an upbeat, spin-ful ode to  a far-right political rally outside Northgate Mall. The story gleefully depicted the anti-choice, anti-health-reform gang as daring rebels against the “liberal establishment.”

A couple weeks ago, the SeaTimes only gave a couple paragraphs to a much larger anti-budget-cut rally in Olympia, and only referred to it in passing as a counter-demonstration to an anti-tax-cut rally held the same day.

At least today we get columnist Danny Westneat, respectfully calling his paper’s editorial page to task for deliberately misinterpreting opinion polls about health reform. Citizens in the poll said they thought the current national health reform scheme doesn’t go far enough; the SeaTimes editorialized that that meant “the people” don’t want any reform at all.

That’s nice on Westneat’s part, but it isn’t enough.

And neither is this.

We need more than some online media sites that take the conservative paper to task for its failings.

We need a real “mainstream” news source that depicts our city and region as they really are.