What's next for the Seattle P-I?
Mar 18, 2009 in Media
The Shoes of the Fisherman hd Lolita movie download Ah, the great newspaper die-off continues. The Rocky Mountain News, a paper that’s been operating for more than a century folded. Yesterday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, one of two papers in Seattle, published its last print edition and went online only. So what’s next?
The media industry will be looking closely to see if the P-I can actually stay afloat with this new model. Scott Karp asks one of the big questions, “Just what’s going to happen to all those ad dollars?”
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Karp proposes five possible options. Number 2 on that list is that those ad dollars simply disappears, and business hit by the recession will ditch advertising. That’s probably the worst outcome for everyone involved. Even if the money migrated to Google and Craigslist there might be a way that the P-I ad sales team could enter into a side-agreement with either service. If the money goes to the Seattle Times or other papes in the city, it’ll at least keep someone in business just a bit longer.
What’s got me a bit confused is the low headcount at the P-I. The online editorial operation at the P-I will be running with 20 people (the original newsroom was staffed by 165). Seattle isn’t a small town. Three major, industry-shaking businesses (Starbucks, Microsoft, Amazon) call it home. It has a major university, a great music scene and a professional baseball team. Can 20 people cover all of this? I don’t think so. Even if those 20-people have been asked to take photos, edit, report, blog and god knows what else.
If the quality of the P-I’s online edition drops dramatically in the crucial first months, then readers (and eventually advertisers) just won’t come back. This post disagrees with my reading of this and says that the P-I is on the right track by running its operation with as few staff as possible and thinking more like a start-up.