The SLOG has a post today about worries that the Seattle Times could soon file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Apparently, an administrator for the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild mentioned the possibility in an e-mail message to members of the union, saying: "Within the Guild we have been preparing for a number of worst-case scenarios, including the possibility that the Times might enter the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process." SLOG writer Eli Sanders say: "Among Times reporters, according to one newsroom source, it's 'commonly understood, or presumed' that a bankruptcy filing by the Times is 'a very likely next step within the year.' However, at a staff meeting on Wednesday, David Boardman, executive editor for the Times, presented bankruptcy as a last-ditch option ..." Click here to read more of Sanders' report.
Funny stuff. Seattle newspapers are going bankrupt because they can't sell enough papers to stay in business. Could it be that even liberal Seattle is getting tired of the wacked-out, left-wing biased reporting?
Local daily News isn't going away. I still read it every day, but I have never had a paper subscription (I'm 38 years old). I read it on my iPhone on the bus and my PC first thing at work, via the internet. That's the future people. The information is still valuable...regardless whether I read it on printed paper or a screen.
Yep. Ditch the paper. Quit killing trees and give us our news on-line. Its called progress... evolution.
The answer is no. Seattle will not become a no-newspaper town. I've launched Seattle's newest online daily newspaper just in the last week. It's called The Seattle Courant. While it's still very new, there's been a lot of interest in this business model and I have more reporters than I know what to do with.
Give me a couple of months to get the sales side of things going and watch what we can with technology and lots of hard work.
I think that within 5 years Seattle will have four or five online dailies, the same number of bigger blogs and a smattering of serious citizen journalists. That's not even mentioning TV which covers all the car crashes and traffic slowdowns.
But newspapering is not dead, if anything, it's going to grow, while at the same time fragmenting into smaller news organizations.
The marketplace of ideas in Seattle is expanding rather than contracting.
Keith
Keith - I just checked out the Courant. Looks like an exciting project. I'm curious to see how things go!
So you've got some unpaid, unprofessional reporters and a poorly designed website. Plus a whole bunch of links to everyone else's content.
Oh, and a trickle of low-cost ads.
If you're around in six months I'll be shocked.