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Seattle: Now a One Newspaper Town (But not really)
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Photo from the Seattle Times.
Today is a historical event in Seattle history, though not the fun kind. The Seattle P-I will run their final print issue today before shifting entirely online. As a person who got their start in print journalism, this is a pretty tragic event. Despite the P-I’s attempt to put on their best public face and promote the fact that they’re the largest circulated paper to fully go online, one can’t help but wonder what will happen to all the people who worked at the plants, the delivery people or the people who stand outside of grocery stores soliciting subscriptions. Then there’s the news.
Though it seems a little vast at times (thanks, traffic), Seattle is a small place with small pockets of communities and the Seattle P-I did a fairly good job covering the bits of news that mattered to the city’s inhabitants. Now with the demise of the print version of the P-I, people are wondering if this is the end of the paper as we know it, particularly since the Seattle Times seems to be the last one standing. And The Stranger. And Seattle Weekly. And Northwest Asian Weekly. And Seattle Gay News. And the Herald. And the Enterprise.
The fact is that the larger papers in this town didn’t assimilate to the online culture that well, whereas the free community papers have made their entire issues available online and, more times than not, keep a really good archive of back issues. The other thing is that specialized and focused publications, such as the Asian Weekly or Seattle Gay News cover the kind of tidbits that their respective communities find important, but the larger papers will brush off or dismiss.
So while the little journalism undergrad in me is sad to see one giant newspaper fall, I think that this will be a great time to work for a smaller circulation.
