Seattle Post-Intelligencer Will Stop Publishing Newspaper, Become Web Only

By Alex in Money & Finance on Mar 16, 2009 at 2:07 pm

Ever since the advents of the Internet, online publishing, and now blogs, people have tooted (is that the right verb? anyhoo … ) the clarion calls of the immiment demise of print media.

And now, the economic crisis have finally pushed one large newspaper to go 100% "web only":

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday, ending a 146-year run.

The Hearst Corp. announced Monday that it would stop publishing the newspaper, Seattle’s oldest business, and cease delivery to more than 117,600 weekday readers.

The company, however, said it will maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation’s largest daily newspaper 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."

In a news release, Hearst CEO Frank Bennack Jr. said, "Our goal now is to turn seattlepi.com into the leading news and information portal in the region."

Link (Photo: Joshua Trujillo/P-I)

Tags: economic crisis, newspaper, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, SeattlePI, web only

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Johnny Cat
Mar 16th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
*Touted

And the rest will follow in 3…2…1…
Dave
Mar 16th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Johnny Cat; quicker than me!

Save the trees; kill a newspaper.

Interesting that the demise of this newspaper is blamed on the economy and not the management. I’d hazard a guess that the paper was in serious trouble before the economy headed south.
TRO
Mar 16th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
When most newspapers virtually ignore half their readership (conservatives), you can hardly expect them to be very profitable. Add in the Internet and other sources of information and it is just a matter of time until most of them fold. Sad, in a way, but like Hollywood, they chose their own agenda over profit.
DOJ
Mar 17th, 2009 at 12:28 am
@Dave – the PI was in trouble well before everything else went south
Geekazoid
Mar 17th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Well I think the business model itself was prone to eventually fail. From what I understand newspapers get a lot of their profits from advertisements. With the economy the way it’s been going, and the way anyone can read print newspaper for free online, something was going to give.

I mean, it’s great that we can read all the newspapers online for free, but how is that going to pay salaries? The only solution I can think of is offering content for subscriptions.
SenorMysterioso
Mar 17th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Just happened to The Rocky Mountain News after 150 years

I think its sad.

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