Newspaper to go online-only
After a lengthy competition with the Seattle Times and an extended period of looking for a buyer, the print version of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is calling it quits.
The newspaper will print its final edition on Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day, and from then on it will publish online. The shift makes the P.I. the largest U.S. newspaper to convert to an entirely digital format.
How it came to this
A similar pattern is emerging as cities that have two major newspapers become one-paper towns. The Hearst Corp., which owns the Seattle P.I., put the newspaper up for sale in December. The paper ran into the same budget woes that are plaguing newspapers across the country. As it lost advertising revenue and printing costs continued to go up, Hearst could no longer afford to keep it going. It didn’t make sense to take out short-term loans to support the paper, because it didn’t appear that the newspaper would return to profitability, even if the recession eased up.
A good, long run
The Seattle P.I. has been around for 146 years. It currently has a circulation of 117,600 on weekdays. The P.I. has been around even longer than Seattle’s surviving newspaper, The Seattle Times. The Times and the P.I. had an interesting relationship. Though owned by different companies, they entered into a “Joint Operating Agreement” in 1983. The papers competed for sales and subscriptions. But they also collaborated. They put out joint Sunday editions.
Papers could go down together
Because of their joint operating agreement, the fall of the P.I. could potentially hurt the Times rather than helping it, as you would expect. It’s looking more and more like some large cities might end up with no major local newspapers. The Rocky Mountain News shut down after a lengthy battle with the Denver Post. The San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s only newspaper, is saying it faces the threat of shutting down.
Online presence
The P.I. has issued a letter to its readers, specifying that Seattlepi.com will continue to post news and sports. It will also post some stories from Hearst-owned magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Country Living, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful, Marie Claire, Popular Mechanics and Redbook.
Will there be layoffs?
The New York Times says the P.I. staff will be cut down to only about 20 people. The newsroom currently employs about 165. Customers who hold subscriptions to the P.I. will now receive the Seattle Times on their doorstep instead. Some of the syndicated columns, crosswords and comics that ran in the P.I. will now run in the Times.
More bad news in Washington
Also on Monday, Tacoma and Olympia papers announced they’d be laying off employees. Some remaining employees at both papers will get pay cuts.
The News Tribune of Tacoma says it will cut 30 employees. The ones who still have jobs will take pay cuts between 5 and 10 percent, depending on their salaries.
The Olympian says it will reduce its staff by 15. Anyone still on staff who makes more than $25,000 will take a 5 percent pay cut. The Olympian and the News Tribune of Tacoma are both owned by McClatchy.
And another one bites the dust. That’s a shame. It seems the print media is heading down the tubes, as are so many other traditions. Cinemas, for instance are going all digital. The morning newspaper has been around for centuries, and I don’t think it’s going to completely die for a few more decades, but it seems to be on the way out. Ten years from now all books and print media will be on the Kindle.