Yesterday, in a sidebar, I mentioned an advertisement for the P-I on the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog. I thought it was an ad because it used the P-I logo and typeface along with the headline, "Support a two newspaper town" and linked to the P-I circulation page.

But Andrew Villeneuve posted yesterday to correct me:

Postman is actually mistaken. That's not an advertisement from the Post-Intelligencer, it's a badge we created ourselves — and without a "please" or "thank you" from the P-I. We don't accept or allow advertising and have no plans to change our policy.

Villeneuve says NPI won't take advertising. I'm not sure if that makes his promotion of the P-I charity or a political campaign. Whatever the case, Villeneuve repeats an old canard that has been discredited by an anti-trust investigation.

Because the Seattle Times Company manages the P-I's business operations — advertising, classifieds, marketing, circulation, delivery, etc. — its owners are and have been in an excellent position to sabotage the P-I's circulation and position the Seattle Times as Washington State's newspaper of record.

After two years of investigating, the feds "did not find sufficient basis to conclude that the Seattle Times Company engaged in improper conduct that is likely to lead to monopolization of the Seattle newspaper market." It's not clear if Villeneuve has done subsequent work to back up his claim of sabotage.

He continues:

With respect to Times journalists, including David Postman, and columnists like Danny Westneat, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is simply a better newspaper at present. That is in part because management at the P-I cares greatly about what is best for the community and not just what's best for its ownership.

Andrew, by perpetuating a fiction that somehow journalism at The Times is compromised by our local owner while the P-I's New York owners allow them do what what's best for Seattle, you insult all Times writers, this one included. And I'm sure your dismissive comments about journalism at The Times comes as a surprise to Pulitzer Prize judges who have given the paper numerous reporting awards in recent years, as well as other groups that have awarded the paper a long string of the most prestigious journalism prizes in America. Is Frank Blethen sabotaging the P-I in those instances, too?

UPDATE: Villeneuve says he didn't mean any offense, but ...