It is the end of an era. The better of Seattle’s two daily newspapers publishes its last print edition as of today, March 17, 2009. Hearst put the P-I up for sale back in January and said they’d go web-only if they didn’t find a buyer within sixty days. Somehow that didn’t quite seem real. Newspapers, especially my hometown newspaper, don’t go under just like that. Do they?
Thanks to shrinking ad revenue from advertising (hello Craigslist) and drops in print circulation largely due to free content on the Internet, print journalism finds itself in dire straits these days. And while part of me knows that these trends have been building for years, I feel as if it is only in the past few years that the demise of the American newspaper has accelerated. The Christian Science Monitor going web-only in 2008. The financial future of the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune in jeopardy thanks to Sam Zell. The sale of the Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch. The Rocky Mountain News closed in February this year, leaving Denver another one-newspaper town. The venerable New York Times having to mortgage their building to stay afloat. What kind of world is this? And how did it all happen so quickly?
I admit that I love being able to access news online from anywhere in the world. So, I’ve contributed to the demise of the print newspaper as well. There’s also the issue of blogs. Yes, the “blogosphere” has changed the way we read news, but very rarely do bloggers actually go out and do the legwork required to break a story. Blogs generally process (or regurgitate, depending on your point of view) news that comes from media outlets that pay trained journalists to find the breaking stories. I realize this is somewhat laughable for me to write on my blog, but then again, I’m not in the news reporting business.
What about investigative reporting? Who is going to break news headlines around the world when papers can no longer afford bureaus in the Middle East or Latin America or Southeast Asia? On the local level, who is going to do the kind of in-depth local reporting on, say, the Hanford Cleanup or elder abuse in WA state nursing homes? Who is going to hold local politicians accountable when there are no local editorial boards or political cartoonists left? The wire services serve an important function, but who better to write about the important issues affecting your town than people who actually live there?
I remember touring the facility where they printed the P-I when I was in elementary school. I thought it was so cool. The end of the P-I really bums me out, and not just because I’ll miss seeing that awesome P-I globe when I’m heading down Western Avenue. I think American cities need good local newspapers. If not in print form, they need to figure out how to better monetize their online content or move to the non-profit model. If the former, I know I’d pay for it.
Best wishes to all of the hardworking reporters, editors, camera people, printers, and staffers at the Seattle P-I, especially to my friend and reporter Tom Paulson. Cheers to 146 years of a job well done!
The new era begins here.
