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‘Seattle Post-Intelligencer’ Folds, Becomes Web-Only Proposition

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced this week the news that most were expecting: Hearst, unable to find a buyer for the paper, has ceased publishing a print edition.

The Hearst Corporation is making the Post-Intelligencer an online-only news source. It is by far the largest U.S. paper to make that transition, writes the Associated Press. The site will feature mostly commentary, advice and links to other news sites, though it will maintain some original reporting. Some current and former government officials, including a former mayor, a former police chief and the current head of Seattle schools, will write columns for the new P-I site. A number of the paper’s popular columnists and bloggers will continue to write for the site, which will also offer repackaged material from Hearst’s stable of magazines.

Steven Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers, says (via the Post-Intelligencer) that the new site will be more than a newspaper online, but will be more of a “community platform” that will include community databases, photo galleries, and 150 citizen bloggers.

Employees will be cut from the current 165 to about 20. But the P-I will also hire more than 20 people for operational roles like ad sales. The P-I website currently draws about 1.8 million unique visitors a month. The paper lost $14 million in 2008.

Though the shuttering of the print edition removes direct competition for the city’s remaining paper, the Seattle Times, it also increases pressure on the Times because it means the end of a decades-old operating agreement that had the two rivals sharing expenses. The Denver Post recently found itself in the same position when the Rocky Mountain News ceased publication.24/7 Wall Street recently predicted the 10 newspapers that would fold next, following the Rocky Mountain News’ demise in February. Those included the Philadelphia Daily News, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Detroit News and the Boston Globe, among others.

A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press indicated that 42% of Americans wouldn’t miss reading their local newspaper if it were to shut down.