Printless in Seattle?

Can you imagine the shock that Frank Blethen, owner of the chronically beleaguered Seattle Times, is feeling upon learning that his newspaper now appears to be the survivor of the long war with the Hearst-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer? Similarly, those of us who thought Hearst's first big money-saving cutback would be the San Francisco Chronicle are just about as surprised as Blethen.

Hearst's announcement that it was looking for a buyer for the P-I–or else–is another indication that we're in the midst of a major shakeout in two-newspaper towns, as the newspaper business contracts in general. Denver's Rocky Mountain News is on its deathbed, also in search of a buyer that's unlikely to materialize, and some smart people believe the distribution cutbacks in Detroit are part of a larger game of chicken in which Gannett is trying to force MediaNews to shut the Detroit News and leave the Free Press as the last paper standing in the Motor City. 

We'll probably see more of this in two-paper markets like Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Honolulu over the next few months. While those of us who have worked in two-newspaper cities know that the competition makes everybody better (and is great fun), today's newspaper economy just doesn't support that model anymore. Of course, newspaper consolidation has been going on, city by city, for decades. We're just getting down to the point where there aren't that many multi-paper cities left to consolidate. The next step down is from one to zero newspapers. And we'll probably see that later this year.

But Hearst left open an interesting door in its announcement about the Post-Intelligencer. If it can't find a buyer within 60 days–not likely, unless some foolish Microsoft millionaire has been hankering to own a paper–Hearst says it will either close the P-I...or move to a Web-only format. "One thing is clear: at the end of the sale process, we do not see ourselves publishing in print," said Hearst newspaper chief Steven Swartz.

That would be an interesting strategy, providing a big-city laboratory for something that many of us think is worth trying. I'm not optimistic it's going to happen in this case. But Seattle's a great town that's always deserved better journalism than its papers have given it. Maybe a Web-only model, in such a tech-savvy region, would allow for a rebirth that would create a fresh kind of next-generation news product.

Comments

[tgdavidson]

As usual, you teased out the nub of the issue here, Mark: Sentimentalists view this as the death of two-newspaper towns. Realists understand there is more competition out there than we possibly can fathom - it's just not distributed as oil-based pigments on cellulose.

I won't argue equivalence across the media - a great hyperlocal blog, or a terrific fansite about a sports team (even the late, lamented Bat-Girl.com!) is not yet as important a voice as a second newspaper. And I still have emotion wrapped up in two-newspapers towns - fond memories of kicking the Miami Herald's ass (and suppressed memories of the Herald - including my wife, dammit! - kicking mine in turn).

Yes, we should fondly remember the past and mourn the coming passing of the Rocky, the P-I and The Next in Turn. But we need to quickly and dispassionately focus on what's next.

-tgd

[Mark Potts]

tgd: This is the same point I made in a post a while back (also linked above): http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2008/08/what-will-happen-when-the-presses-go-silent.html

The local media ecosystem is far more robust than most newspaper people realize or want to admit. While it's brutal and sad to lose a newspaper, there are multiple alternatives that will take its place, and fairly quickly at that.

[ea]

Unfortunately, the departure of both the Rocky and the PI does not ensure the future of the Denver Post and the Seattle Times. Both the suviving newspapers are choking on debt they cannot pay in this ad environment and have cutback staffs so much they are not keeping current readers. Debt loads are so toxic now that even historically strong companies like Gannett are troubled. I would not be surprised to see your predition of metro areas with no traditional daily come true within six months.