For Sale Sign on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

I will preface these remarks by saying that I am completely and unabashedly biased. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an excellent newspaper. Online and in print form, it presents as one of the very best sources of local, national and world news. Now, its very existence is threatened:

“…The Seattle P-I’s parent company, The Hearst Corp., said Friday that it has put the paper up for sale and will stop publishing unless someone buys it in 60 days. If no buyer emerges, the paper would either become a Web-only publication or cease all operations.

“We’ve been on the knife edge all this time,” P-I managing editor David McCumber said Friday. “We finally slipped.”"

link: For sale: The P-I

Newspapers have been buckling under the competition with the internet for advertising dollars. The poor economy has added to the problem of remaining financially viable. Some say that the demise of newspapers is the price of progress. Nevertheless, it is sad. No newspaper is immune; and even quality is not enough.

The clock is ticking for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Sixty days.

Catherine Forsythe