The End of a Reporting Era

Today marks the end of the print version of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Post-Intelligencer, or "the P-I" in Seattle, was one of two major newspapers printed and distributed in the Seattle area, the other being the Seattle Times.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer had been around since the late 1800's and there seemed to be people who followed one or the other (the P-I or the Seattle Times) for their news pretty regularly. Some people really preferred one over the other and I definitely preferred the P-I over the Times, though I would tend more to just read whatever was available. Due to financial losses (the Hearst Corporation, which owns the P-I, claimed the paper had taken losses every year since 2000, including $14 million in 2008), the Hearst Corporation announced in January of 2009 that the P-I was being put up for sale and would no longer be able to operate its print paper if not purchased. With the nation's economy still heading down in what feels like the worst economic crisis many have ever seen, buyers were not to be found. The March 16th issue of the P-I announced that today's paper would be the last printed edition of the paper before it moved to a web-only version.

The Post-Intelligencer is the largest US paper to switch from a print to web-only newspaper. This move is unfortunately also bringing more layoffs to Seattle, as the staff is being reduced from 165 down to 20 people. Surely many other papers will be watching the results of this change as the printed newspaper industry has been in decline for years with the availability of news access readily available from internet/TV/radio/cell phones/etc. As many others are watching the results of the P-I's switch, hopefully this is not bringing Seattle closer to having no local newspaper.

The P-I's famous rotating globe that sits atop their building will continue to sit (and continue to rotate) for the time being, which is a relief to many in Seattle as this has become a well-known icon, much like the Space Needle, to Seattleites.

While the P-I and Hearst Corporation had to worry about publishing costs and the $14 million loss from 2008, American International Group (AIG) was able to give $165 million in bonuses, mostly to its executives, despite having received over $170 BILLION in federal aid last year. AIG claimed that they were contractually obliged to pay out these bonuses and that their hands were tied, which seems so incredulous, considering they only had the money for these bonuses via the federal aid. Perhaps the P-I should have pushed the government for a financial bailout of its own...