What Happens When a Town Loses Its Newspaper?

Disused newspaper racks clutter a storage yard. [Noah Berger / AP]

What effect do newspaper closings really have on a town? Or a nation? Depending on a person's reading habits, the answers to these questions range from "It's the death of democracy!" to "Newspapers? What newspapers?" But with the demise of two major metropolitan dailies, the 149-year old Rocky Mountain News and the almost equally venerable 145-year old Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the last month alone, the issue is becoming a matter of practical rather than just theoretical concern. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

New SeattlePI.com Strategy: 'Experiment a Lot, Fail Fast'

Today the Seattle Post-Intelligencer delivers its final print edition, tomorrow it debuts as an online-only publication. The new SeattlePI.com will try to answer the question raised by its executive producer Michelle Nicolosi: "Is it possible to run an online-only local news site that serves a city's readers well while turning a profit?"Nicolosi says, "Our strategy moving forward is to experiment a lot and fail fast" [Click for MORE]

Seattle Paper Shifts Entirely to the Web

The Post-Intelligencer is the largest American paper to drop its print edition and become an Internet-only entity.

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer to become Web-only newspaper
• Photo gallery: Last publication day at the P-I
• Video: The P-I staff: What we'll remember about the paper
• seattlepi.com to continue
• Video: Publisher's announcement
• Special section: P-I memories
• Letter to readers
• More about the new seattlepi.com
• Connelly: Online-only P-I will be a journalism adventure
• PDF of commemorative P-I page
• Questions and answers for Seattle P-I subscribers
• The PI's globe will keep on spinning
• Hearst Ends 'Post-Intelligencer's 146-Year Run
• Will 'Seattle Times' Follow 'PI' Into the Sunset?
• Hearst Closing Seattle P-I Print Edition, Going Online Only
• P-I's closure offers "cautious relief" for Seattle Times, but no solution
• The last deadline: Seattle's oldest newspaper goes to press for the final time
• P-I reporter: "It hasn't really sunk in yet"
• Political leaders react to P-I closure
• The P-I's globe will keep on spinning
• Pioneers, statehood, fires, wars: It was all in the Seattle P-I
• Voices added character to P-I
• Read historic front pages from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• Gallery | The Seattle P-I through the years
• Statement from Frank Blethen (PDF)
• Ryan Blethen | Preserve local newsgathering
• Archive | Hearst says it's no longer interested in buying Seattle Times

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Post-Intelligencer to Publish Its Last Issue Tuesday

From Romensko:

Post-Intelligencer to publish its last issue on Tuesday

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Hearst said it will maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation's largest daily paper to shift to an entirely digital news product. "Tonight we'll be putting the paper to bed for the last time," editor and publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroom Monday morning. "But the bloodline will live on." || Related Seattle Times story and SND Update slide show.
> Seattle Times publisher: "Closing the Seattle P-I is unfortunate, but understandable, given the significant losses that both newspapers have experienced as a result of the Joint Operating Agreement," says Frank Blethen.
> "One of Seattle's brightest lights is about to go out"
> "P-I staff relished its uphill fight," says ex-AME Pattison
> Newspaper world will watch to see if readers follow P-I writers online
> P-I writers on what Seattle will have lost when the paper closes

Posted at 3:00 PM on Mar. 16, 2009 Sphere: Related Content

Seattle Paper Takes First Step to Turn Into Online-Only Publication

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper is advancing plans to turn into an online-only publication, an untested experiment for a big city daily.

Hearst, which owns the P-I, said on Jan. 9 that the company would take 60 days to decide whether to sell the 118,000-circulation paper, convert it into a Web site, or shut it down entirely. People at the P-I say some journalists have been approached in recent days about working for an online-only publication. [Click for MORE]

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"Please join me in the newsroom for a few minutes for an announcement."

That was the subject line of the e-mail that Seattle Post-Intelligencer staffers received Friday, at 12:01 p.m., from the paper's publisher, Roger Oglesby. Everyone at the P-I already knew something was up. King 5 television had reported on Thursday evening that the newspaper, which has published in Seattle since 1863, would be put up for sale by its owner, the Hearst Corporation. Afterward, there had been hopeful speculation inside the P-I newsroom that this might be a step toward purchasing the Seattle Times, the paper's longtime cross-town rival. But that was just the hopeful speculation of a group of people who still believed what they had been telling themselves for years: that Hearst Corp., with its deeper pockets, would prevail over the Blethen family, the majority owners of the Seattle Times, in this city's seemingly endless newspaper war. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Hearst's Seattle Paper: Sell, Shutter or Digitize

John Dickson / P-I

P-I business editor Margaret Santjer, left, works with senior online producer Sarah Rupp as they post a story about the P-I's being put up for sale. In the background, Steven Swartz, president of The Hearst Corp.'s newspaper division, addresses the staff. At right is managing editor David McCumber.

From Associated Press:

Hearst Corp. put Seattle's oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, up for sale Friday, saying that if it can't find a buyer in the next 60 days, the paper will close or continue to exist only on the Internet.

"These options include a move to a digital-only operation with a greatly reduced staff or a complete shutdown of all operations," Hearst, the Post-Intelligencer's parent company, said in a statement. "In no case will Hearst continue to publish the P-I in printed form following the conclusion of this process."

Hearst Newspaper Division President Steve Swartz broke the news in a meeting with newspaper employees.

The statement said Hearst is not considering buying the Seattle Times, the city's other daily paper. Hearst has owned the P-I since 1921, and the paper has had operating losses since 2000, including $14 million last year.

The mood in the newsroom was grim. Some staff members cried, others were angry.

"People are kind of depressed. There's some crying," said Candace Heckman, P-I breaking news editor who has worked at the paper since 2000. She said Mr. Swartz was peppered with many questions by staffers but declined to say more.

"Our journalists continue to do a spectacular job of serving the people of Seattle, which has been our great privilege for the past 88 years," Mr. Swartz said in a written statement. "But our losses have reached an unacceptable level, so with great regret we are seeking a new owner for the P-I.

Chris Grygiel, an assistant city editor, said neither Mr. Swartz nor P-I executives took questions at the meeting. "People are just pretty shocked and amazed."

> After 146 years, the newspaper's days are numbered: 60

> Seattle P-I up for sale; could go online-only

Elsewhere:

> Monitor to trim its staff by 7 percent

> Buffalo News offers new round of employee buyouts

> Dow Jones Freezes Salaries

> Boston Globe will sell space for ads on front page

> Star Tribune heading for bankruptcy after Guild bolts?

> St. Louis Post-Dispatch laying off 39, with 14 in newsroom

> Body Count at Singleton's Los Angeles Newspaper Group

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