Let’s remember when Hearst put the Seattle PI up for sale, on this day in 2009 (January 9)
It had been a newspaper for 146 years before the Hearst Corporation had enough of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and put the newspaper up for sale, giving it two months to find a buyer before switching to an online-only publication.
In 2003, Hearst also put the PI up for sale, while also defending itself from a challenge by the Seattle Times to exit their Joint Operating Agreement. Since 1983 until the PI’s closure in 2009, the two papers had an agreement where the Times would handle all the advertising for both papers (while they each maintained separate editorial staffs) and the Times would get to keep the majority of the revenue. The Times tried to get out of the contract by citing three consecutive years of losses in 2003, and it was challenged in court because Hearst claimed a newspaper strike was an extenuating circumstance that shouldn’t nullify the contract. That ended up buying the PI a few more years and they eventually settled in 2007.
Still, Hearst said in early 2009 they were losing money on the PI every year since 2000 and if they couldn’t find a buyer within the 60 day window, it would stop being a newspaper and instead be an online publication, with a much smaller staff.
It’s unfortunate for several reasons, not the least of which is the loss of jobs, but fewer news sources (and I’ve seen very little actual reporting in the PI over the past decade) hurts the community. The Times becoming the last paper standing has had its problems, like an editorial board whose swings right often align with Frank Blethen’s personal interests.
The PI’s contraction was early in a list of media failures that hasn’t abated. It’s been a rough ten years, even if the PI continues to exist, online, just as a shell of itself.
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