Goodbye, Seattle P-I

My original hometown of Seattle,Washington, is experiencing a profound loss, a loss that has been or will soon be experienced by other cities throughout the country. Seattle is losing their morning newspaper, the Seattle P-I. Today, the last print version of "the P-I" will be published, although the paper will maintain a presence on the internet as an electronic-only newspaper -- the largest newspaper to do so -- so far.

Certainly, as a regular reader of five electronic newspapers who doesn't subscribe to any print newspapers, I am part of the problem. However, I do eagerly read the NYTimes or any other newspaper when I find an abandoned clean copy on the subway. But despite the fact that I cannot afford a subscription to any print newspaper, the fact is that I still read them whenever the opportunity arises.

The owner, the Hearst Corporation, hopes to capitalize on the healthy Web traffic The P-I already has, about 1.8 million unique visitors a month, according to Nielsen Online. Currently, the P-I's online readership surpasses that of its primary competitor, The Seattle Times, despite its smaller print circulation, 118,000 on weekdays in 2008, compared with 199,000 for The Times.

According to Hearst, new columnists for the online version will include former Seattle mayor, Norm Rice; Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, who heads the city's public schools; former United States Attorney, John McKay; and two former governors.

But is an electronic-only newspaper a real newspaper whose reporters live in the community that they write about? Or will an e-paper instead be transformed into an online collection of subscription AP articles, gossip columns and blogs? And if this is the future of journalism, is this something we should celebrate or dread?

"The thing that's always been closest to my heart is The P-I's coverage of the underdog, people who are invisible," said Ruth Teichroeb, an investigative reporter who was among those who lost their jobs. "Those people who have the least voice in society are losing access to another part of the mainstream media."

No one will argue that the current economic disaster hastened the death of the Seattle P-I -- and the drastic reduction in their journalists from 156 to a mere 20 -- but it's no secret that this newspaper has been in trouble for a long time. The PI's troubles did not stem from a lack of quality: their lists of awards for editorial and creative nonfiction writing, investigative journalism, print formatting and web design is inspiring -- until you remind yourself that a quality product was not good enough to keep this paper alive. In fact, a quick look at the demographics of newspaper readers reveals that newspaper readership, especially for morning newspapers, has been falling dramatically across all age, educational and socioeconomic classes in America for decades. These data suggest that this trend will not only continue, but will accelerate into the foreseeable future, with no relief in sight.

What will happen to our country when there are only a few, very large, print newspapers remaining? Will Americans bother to read e-papers, even when they are freely accessible online? Or will Americans stop reading newspapers altogether and instead rely on television as their only credible news source, as predicted by the experts? And where do radio news programs fall into that spectrum of available news sources -- will Americans increasingly turn there? How will this dearth of traditional news sources affect society? Will Americans' knowledge of both their own communities and of the world become so superficial as to be rendered completely meaningless? And how will the lack of daily exposure to intelligently written investigative pieces affect Americans' ability to both read and write as well as to think critically and clearly? In my own experience, I have witnessed the disintegration of American English from readable and occasionally thoughtful prose into a series of electronic grunts and farts -- are other countries experiencing this same decline, or is America somehow "special" in this regard?

But not all is lost -- yet. By keeping an active online presence, the Seattle P-I is providing us with an important social experiment in the evolution of news reporting. It will certainly be interesting to follow this paper as it struggles to carve out a niche for itself online. So, farewell to the Seattle P-I; long live the Seattle P-I!