Seattle Post-Intelligencer is Latest Newspaper Casualty

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 07:24:00 AM EST
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The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the latest casualty in what seems like a never-ending stream of newspaper failures. Today is its final issue.Unlike the Rocky Mountain News, it will continue as an online publication.

What's next -- the San Francisco Chronicle or the Miami Herald? Both have been struggling and it seems like newspaper closings are but a sign of the times. [More...]

I wonder if 20 years from now, trying to describe a printed newspaper to our grandchildren will be met with a blank and quizzical look --- like trying to explain to someone under 40 today how we typed with colored carbon paper before the invention of the xerox machine. How we couldn't make mistakes or else had to start all over, how there was no cut and paste (it was pre-word processor or computer.) Can anyone who wasn't there can even imagine such dinosaur days?

Maybe the end of newspapers will be met with the same reaction. Those born after the end of the daily paper may scratch their heads in bemusement and bewilderment when told the daily paper used to be delivered to every home before sunrise and people got the news twice a day: from the morning paper and TV's nightly news -- with no updates in between.

Yet, how strange it will seem to the rest of us to walk into an airport, a doctor's waiting room, a bank, a subway station or a breakfast diner and not see the newspaper either for sale or lying around discarded on a chair. Surely, not everyone who reads the paper in these places will have a Kindle on them. Not to mention that reading a paper on a cell phone can be slow and frustrating.

I imagine all these establishments will soon have monitors like the one in the elevator at my office building that flashes the headlines with a two sentence lead and photo caption throughout the day. In other words, once leaving home in the morning, without the benefit of the morning paper, millions of Americans will be stuck only with the equivalent of CNN Headline News.

The times, they are a changing. But maybe not for the better.

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer is Latest Newspaper Casualty | 28 comments (28 topical)

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Life without print newspapers (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Inspector Gadget on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 12:36:41 AM EST

will leave me with streaked windows. Newsprint is the very best paper to use for cleaning windows.

It'll take many generations to eliminate the visual of the print newspaper. They are props in movies, and most of us have at least one print paper from a day of significance. But, it will be a rough transition. I know I'll miss them and all the newspaper boxes around town.

Tucson Citizen final print on Saturday (none / 0) (#1)
by Inspector Gadget on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 12:30:23 AM EST

San Francisco Chronicle seems to have a couple more weeks.

I'm bemused already (none / 0) (#3)
by Cream City on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:01:27 AM EST

by this:

the daily paper used to be delivered to every home before sunrise and people got the news twice a day: from the morning paper and TV's nightly news -- with no updates in between.

Already, I'm so old that only I remember the daily afternoon paper? Uh, that was only a dozen years ago in my city. . . .

Also a little thing we used to call (none / 0) (#4)
by ruffian on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:17:16 AM EST

AM radio. All day long. I wasn't really starved for news in the dark ages of my youth.


the only thing I listened to on my AM radio (none / 0) (#7)
by Jeralyn on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:31:34 AM EST

which was glued to my ear 24/7 was the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Guess Who, the Shirelles and rest of Motown and the like. News??? Never.


I know - I didn't listen to it (none / 0) (#9)
by ruffian on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:41:11 AM EST

but my parents did!


: Well, they listened to news until (none / 0) (#10)
by ruffian on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:44:21 AM EST

the Cubs came on at 1:05!!

Did you have a transistor radio? (none / 0) (#11)
by ruffian on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:46:53 AM EST

Later I yearned for one of those round plastic radios - oh, they were soooo cool.


Before my time in my home city (none / 0) (#5)
by andgarden on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:21:36 AM EST

I delivered the San Francisco Examiner in the (none / 0) (#13)
by samtaylor2 on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 07:36:17 AM EST

Evening (and Sunday mornings). I don't think they have kids delivering papers any more didn't have the weather issues that you midwesterns had, but delivering papers up (and down hills) could be painful.


Yeh, all of my brothers (none / 0) (#16)
by Cream City on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 09:58:47 AM EST

had routes -- papers wouldn't hire girls then, but I used to help them "sub" in the sections stacked in our front hall -- in both the morning and the evening, six days a week.

And then, oh, those Sunday papers . . . remember when they used to be enormous, before this devastating decline in classified ads?

I still miss the afternoon paper. And the way it's going for the merged morning paper in my city, with its stock dropping to less than 10% of what it was not long ago, I may soon be missing it, too. . . .


I don't think they hire kids anymore (none / 0) (#18)
by samtaylor2 on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 10:28:12 AM EST

It is a shame (boys or girls). In this country's race to the bottom we have gotten rid of these jobs, and given them out to adults that delivery hundreds of papers, after all who needs to build responsible individuals when efficiency is on the line?


: The kids got the paper to the porch (none / 0) (#19)
by Inspector Gadget on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 10:59:04 AM EST

These adults drive by throwing them out the window of their car. It was a huge part of the reason why I stopped home delivery. Paying for a wad of wet newsprint was not in my budget.

I hated when the Milwaukee Journal became the Jour (none / 0) (#27)
by jawbone on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 05:06:42 PM EST

nal-Sentinel. I always felt having two papers, with differing editorial policies (well, slightly differing), made for a more vibrant news scene and better reporting.

I didn't realize the Journal was having serious problems. Wow.

We never, ever did not have a newspaper delivered--in fact, living out in the country, we got the Journal and the Waukesha Freeman for local news.

For a short time during graduate school, I cut out the paper to save money. I would go out into the hall late at night looking for people who had put their papers out at the garbage shute area so I could read the paper. Realized I couldn't do without it.

But now? After moving to the NYC area and able to get home delivery of the NYTimes, I became so disgusted with their biased and sloppy coverage I finally cancelled my subscription (2002?) bcz I felt I could do better with broadband and reading more and different papers. I'd been upset by the NYTimes coverage of Whitewater, then Wen Ho Lee. The coverage of Gore was almost the final straw, but it took the apology about Lee an absolute silence about the Clintons that caused me to write my Goodbe Cruel Times letter.

No reponse, ever, to my letter of why I was cancelling.

One things about not subscribing to the Times -- no more stacks of articles I "must get around" to reading....


We used to have both (none / 0) (#14)
by Steve M on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 08:13:12 AM EST

when I was in school, the Free Press was delivered in the morning and the News was delivered in the afternoon. Back in those days, print media was the main source for sports scores, so naturally I took the afternoon paper...


: And, in addition to twice-daily papers (none / 0) (#17)
by Cream City on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 10:00:59 AM EST

our afternoon paper had special early sections on the street downtown, such as the four-page "peach sheet" that came out mid-afternoon with early sports scores and early stock reports.
And, yes, we could get the Chicago and Detroit papers and more from around the Midwest at the street stands in record time, too, in the days when we all depended upon daily newspapers.

I get that blank stare (none / 0) (#6)
by ruffian on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:23:12 AM EST

when I tell my young software colleagues about punching my programs on cards, submitting them to an operator, and waiting all day to get the compile results. Then doing the same thing again if I spelled something wrong - which was not very often because you really triple checked your work when it took that long to get feedback.

Computer operator used to be a big section in the want-ads of those papers that are dying. I know because I looked for those jobs right out of college. Now I doubt there is even such a job description.

: two other obsolete jobs (none / 0) (#8)
by Jeralyn on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:32:46 AM EST

elevator operator and switchboard operator.

I'm fairly near Seattle on business this week (none / 0) (#12)
by ruffian on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:53:05 AM EST

I'll have to see if i can find a PI tomorrow.

I've been stuck in a computer lab secure facility 14 hours a day, with no internet and no iPhone! Did not even here about the PI until reading TL.

: I hope they printed a huge excess (none / 0) (#15)
by Inspector Gadget on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 08:14:46 AM EST

This will be a record-setting day for sales of the paper, for sure.
So, ruffian, if you're near Seattle, are you enjoying the snow?!

I think not all newspapers are in trouble, (none / 0) (#20)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 12:00:07 PM EST

USA Today, the Inquirer, etc, will probably continue.

And my local paper seems to be doing just fine, of course it's mainly community news and advertising, not investigative reporting about political corruption and stuff.

Craigslist was apparently a pretty big nail in the big newspaper's coffin. For good reason.

craigslist (none / 0) (#21)
by Inspector Gadget on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 12:51:05 PM EST

took some, but the classified ads in Seattle that cost the most (job openings) are have been handled by CareerBuilder.com for years and not the paper, anyway. Most of the merchandise on craigslist wouldn't have made it to the big newspaper classified and probably had a greater impact on the small classified papers (Little Nickel).

Subscriptions are down because delivery deteriorated more and more through the years, IMO, and the papers didn't look for a reasonable solution to that problem. The internet and TV provided enough information for most people to feel they were well informed on local, national and global news.


Yep, help wanted went online as well. (none / 0) (#22)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 01:55:30 PM EST

Who does/did delivery up there? Around here it's contracted out to paper delivery businesses who hire adults in autos and delivery is very reliable.


Adults in autos (none / 0) (#23)
by Inspector Gadget on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 02:49:07 PM EST

but, I think they were hired direct by the newspaper. They drive down the center of the street tossing the papers out the windows of the cars and not giving a hoot where the paper lands.

In Seattle, that's a problem since puddles of water are everywhere.

The foot of the driveway is too far early in the morning to go out in pj's to grab the paper.


No plastic bags for the papers? (none / 0) (#24)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 02:52:04 PM EST

Sure, very thin plastic and (none / 0) (#25)
by Inspector Gadget on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 03:55:16 PM EST

open at one end. The ground doesn't just get wet, the puddles are a problem for newspapers. They deliver around 4:00-4:30 am, so these things are sitting in water for several hours.


: Makes sense. (none / 0) (#26)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 04:21:47 PM EST

Ironically, the new seattlepi.com ... (none / 0) (#28)
by RonK Seattle on Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 08:37:08 PM EST

... has Rep. Jim McDermott as one of their citizen bloggers, and his inaugural post is titled The Times They Are A-changin.

Myself, I'd have kept that in reserve for later this year, when the Seattle Times goes under.