Seattle area daily folds

Damn. My biggest fear is that the small papers - daily and semi-weekly, in particular - geared toward community journalism are going to be the ones to survive the identity crisis that the industry is going through.

Oh, and nice shoes, sportschick. Except those strappy things might hurt someone. Or is that the point?

 

That's exactly the point.

 

This closing had been expected. The previous owner, Peter Horvitz, put the paper up for sale in June and told employees then that he intended to sell it to a company that would keep all of the properties intact. It appears he could not find a buyer interested in keeping the daily going.

The biggest mistake Horvitz made -- among many -- was to merge two distinct dailies into one paper. Though they are right next to each other, there is no natural connection between the east side and the south part of King County. When I worked there in sports, it was nightmare trying to keep both sides of our coverage area happy.

I feel really bad for folks I used to work with. Some have been offered jobs with the expanded weeklies, but others will be looking for work. It is no fun to be looking for a job in this business when you don't have one.

 

Uh, no. You can't be the cool, new DyePack and then get all defensive when somebody gives you shit.

Nope. Checked the rule book, and it's right there. You can't do it.

 

Posting a Kool-Aid graphic is defensive?

 

In a former life and a galaxy far, far away, I worked for a division of Black Press. Bumble-fuck management is an understatement. They sent their own team down from B.C. to handle the Honolulu affairs and, from what I understand, they almost ran the damn thing into the ground.

 

Former colleague of mine covered the Mariners at the Eastside Journal several years ago, and it was considered a decent daily. The merging was disastrous. I love the area, but even though it has a high college-graduate population it has not been kind to newspapers.

 

After making a few phone calls, the suspicion is that Black has his eye on or already owns the community newspapers in the area and wanted the press centre at the KC Journal. This is not anything he hasn't done before so it isn't a great surprise.

I believe in all of Black's holdings he only maintains one daily anyhow and that's the Red Deer Advocate. I could be wrong on that count, though.

 

No, he owns the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Akron Beacon-Journal.

My theory is that if the JOA dies, he'll buy the Seattle P-I and print it on the Kent press. Sort of like he did in Honolulu.